Print
E-mail
Comment
Rate
Sound decision
NEWS-TIMES
Even if the plaintiffs have shown irreparable injury from the navy’s training exercises, any such injury is outweighed by the public interest and the Navy’s interest in effective, realistic training of its sailors.
— Chief Justice John Roberts
Dismissing arguments that long-range sonar is harmful to whales, or other wildlife, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision Wednesday that the U.S. Navy can use the sonar to hone national defense capabilities.
This is as it should be.
The case, Winter vs. Natural Resources Defense Council No. 07-1239, regards a case environmental groups have been waging for about a decade in California over whether marine mammals are endangered because of the Navy’s use of long-range sonar to detect submarines.
In January, U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper banned sonar tests within 12 miles of the California coast, saying they could harm marine life.
Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, disagreed, saying the southern California “operating area provides unique training opportunities vital to preparing our forces, and the planned exercises cannot be postponed without impacting national security.”
To allow the Navy’s tests to proceed, President Bush granted an exemption, saying the judge’s orders would “undermine the Navy’s ability to conduct realistic training exercises that are necessary to ensure the combat effectiveness of carrier and expeditionary strike groups.”
Overruling the administration, Judge Cooper reinstated the ban. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the nation’s most liberal court, predictably upheld her. So the Navy appealed.
In October, said Agence France-Press, government lawyer Gregory Carre acknowledged that a preliminary Navy study found that sonar could disorient 170,000 marine mammals and leave 8,000 whales temporarily deaf, but he defended the sonar level as being well below the danger level for marine life.
“The most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of marine mammals that they study and observe,” said Judge Roberts, and “… forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately training anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet.”
In the past six years, wrote Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation in February, China has launched submarines at “breakneck pace … acquiring 37 modern diesel-electric subs and two nuclear-attack subs quiet enough to elude our countermeasures. Last year alone, U.S. satellites spotted two new nuclear ballistic missile subs with 12 launch tubes each — representing at least 72 new nuclear warheads atop 24 state-of-the art ICBMs.”
Without the new active sonar, all of the Chinese submarines would be impossible to locate.
Consider, as Mr. Feulner notes, that while NORAD was conducting military training exercises on Sept. 11, 2001, aimed at protecting America’s skies from Russian bombers, 19 terrorists were opening a new page in America’s War on Terror by turning four American commercial airliners into lethal bombs in New York, Washington, D.C. and one that brave passengers brought down by themselves, dying in the process.
“Attack where he [your enemy] is unprepared,” said Sun Tzu in The Art of War. They did. Today, the byword is eternal vigilance.
— Chief Justice John Roberts
Dismissing arguments that long-range sonar is harmful to whales, or other wildlife, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision Wednesday that the U.S. Navy can use the sonar to hone national defense capabilities.
This is as it should be.
The case, Winter vs. Natural Resources Defense Council No. 07-1239, regards a case environmental groups have been waging for about a decade in California over whether marine mammals are endangered because of the Navy’s use of long-range sonar to detect submarines.
In January, U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper banned sonar tests within 12 miles of the California coast, saying they could harm marine life.
Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, disagreed, saying the southern California “operating area provides unique training opportunities vital to preparing our forces, and the planned exercises cannot be postponed without impacting national security.”
To allow the Navy’s tests to proceed, President Bush granted an exemption, saying the judge’s orders would “undermine the Navy’s ability to conduct realistic training exercises that are necessary to ensure the combat effectiveness of carrier and expeditionary strike groups.”
Overruling the administration, Judge Cooper reinstated the ban. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the nation’s most liberal court, predictably upheld her. So the Navy appealed.
In October, said Agence France-Press, government lawyer Gregory Carre acknowledged that a preliminary Navy study found that sonar could disorient 170,000 marine mammals and leave 8,000 whales temporarily deaf, but he defended the sonar level as being well below the danger level for marine life.
“The most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of marine mammals that they study and observe,” said Judge Roberts, and “… forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately training anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet.”
In the past six years, wrote Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation in February, China has launched submarines at “breakneck pace … acquiring 37 modern diesel-electric subs and two nuclear-attack subs quiet enough to elude our countermeasures. Last year alone, U.S. satellites spotted two new nuclear ballistic missile subs with 12 launch tubes each — representing at least 72 new nuclear warheads atop 24 state-of-the art ICBMs.”
Without the new active sonar, all of the Chinese submarines would be impossible to locate.
Consider, as Mr. Feulner notes, that while NORAD was conducting military training exercises on Sept. 11, 2001, aimed at protecting America’s skies from Russian bombers, 19 terrorists were opening a new page in America’s War on Terror by turning four American commercial airliners into lethal bombs in New York, Washington, D.C. and one that brave passengers brought down by themselves, dying in the process.
“Attack where he [your enemy] is unprepared,” said Sun Tzu in The Art of War. They did. Today, the byword is eternal vigilance.
Article Rating
Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of carolinacoastonline.com.
RSS