Greenland Is Very Mad About the Toxic Waste the US Left Buried Under Its Ice (vice.com)

Kate Lunau, reporting Motherboard:Greenland isn't happy about being treated as a dumping ground for abandoned US military bases established at the height of the Cold War -- and in a newspaper editorial, it's calling on Denmark to deal with the mess left behind by the Americans, since the Danish long ago took responsibility for them. This editorial notes that, after decades, Greenland is "losing its patience." One of the abandoned bases, called Camp Century, is full of nasty chemicals and some radioactive material, as Motherboard previously reported. At Camp Century, which was built in 1959, soldiers called "Iceworms" practiced deployment of missiles against Russia and literally lived inside the ice. When the US decommissioned the base in the 1960s, the military left basically everything behind, thinking that its waste would stay locked up in the Greenland ice sheet forever. Well, climate change has made that unlikely. Melting ice threatens to expose all kinds of toxic debris in decades to come, and Greenland wants it cleaned up, now.

Comments

Re:Nothing there

[Anonymous Coward]

So's Death Valley. Keep your shit in your own bowl.

clarification

[nimbius]

Americans can be forgiven for being remiss about this, as this was nuclear and defense research in arctic climates related to the US ability to ward off an impending attack over alaska. We learned we could indeed install nuclear reactors and war bases in the tundra, however we unfortunately learned that cooling these reactors and ensuring they stayed in one place was a completely untenable matter.

the most damning part of this research was that it took place without Greenlands consent. these were secret bases established on remote areas of Greenland that existed for only three to six months before disappearing entirely. The cleanup is nontrivial amounts of chemical and nuclear material. As an american i feel we have a duty to clean this up, but as an american I also understand there isnt much impetus to get us to do anything responsible after the fact.

Re:clarification

[Shane_Optima]

Before I get worked up about this, I'd like to know what the damage is. Plants affected, wildlife in danger, people who want to settle there? Greenland is the least densely populated country on earth. Not having dug into the details yet, I immediately suspect there's a reasonable chance that this will affect very little if we just left it there.

I'm also inclined to say that if they want our military to clean up after themselves, they first owe us some back payment for the decades of protection after they voluntarily signed up for protection under NATO (and then, along with the rest of Western Europe, they left the USA to shoulder 95%+ of the costs.)

since the Danish long ago took responsibility for them.

That is a suspiciously polite way of saying that Greenland had long been a Danish territory/colony, and the mess was left there whilst Greenland was almost entirely under Danish sovereignty.

Re:clarification

[Shane_Optima]

The USA has done a lot of dumb and evil shit, particularly in the context of the cold war. That doesn't mean that the NATO powers in western Europe aren't generally a bunch of whining moochers who were, truth be told, utterly terrified of the Russians and have used the budget savings they reaped from having very small militaries (in addition to Marshall Plan assistance, if we go back far enough) to build themselves lovely little civilizations.

It's a bit rich for them to bitch at us, and insist on being given more money in the context of something they already abused to their advantage, whilst I'm sitting here unable to go to a specialist because I'm poor and my country (unlike Denmark) spent all of its billions on military bases instead of medical subsidy.

Pull your head out of your echo chamber and take a good look at the world around you. There are no good guys, just better or marginally-better guys disagreeing amongst themselves.

Re:clarification

[khallow]

I think there's a few observations to make here. First, it is ultimately the US who caused the problem, though with the permission of Denmark. Second, it is not much of a problem at present nor would be much of a problem at any point in the future. Third, it would be particularly expensive to clean up at present. I think even Greenland could think of better things to do than clean up this particular mess.

I would take environmentalism more seriously, if its adherents knew how to prioritize.

Re:clarification

[peppepz]

In summary, world domination. The protection that the USA gave Denmark against the dreaded communists from the East had the same intent as the protection that Russia gave Czechoslovakia against the dreaded fascists from the West.

Re:clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing wrong with my reading comprehension, the problem is your massive ignorance and lack of understanding of history and strategy.

Here. Let me spell it out for you:

What the US gained:
Airbases on Iceland, perfect for bombers with targets on the Kola peninsula (Murmansk, Archangelsk). Covered behind a screen of fighters, based on Iceland. Bases for maritime patrol aircraft like the Orion, which were a lethal threat to soviet subs. Home for the SOSUS, another lethal threat for soviet submarines. Bases where you could repair, restock and refuel ships on patrol in the north Atlantic.

Here I have to point to another thing you apparently do not understand. It was always the understanding that what NATO had stationed in the way of military forces in Europe would not be enough to stop the soviet tide, should it ever come. The thinking was that what was in Europe should act as a "speed bump", until reinforcements (soldiers, ammunition, matériel) could arrive from the US. This makes the fighters on Iceland and SOSUS imperative for the whole organisation. Without them, Soviet bombers such as the Bear, Backfire and Blackjack, combined with basically their entire submarine fleet (which was considerable in numbers if not quality) would be practically unimpeded to wreck these convoys at will. Forget about your carriers, they could never deal with a saturation attack with missiles.

The entire point is that Greenland, Iceland and the UK is the centre piece of NATO as it was conceived. If this tripod fell, NATO could basically just as well give up since it would no longer be the master of the Atlantic. And since the policy of the day was to "stop the communism" with just about any means indeed was the US policy back in those days, the US as the primary backer of NATO gained from these countries being members, as well from gaining a valuable buffer zone as well as gaining valuable forward bases for operations against the threat from the Kola peninsula.

Thus even questioning whether the US actually gained something is flat out idiotic and ignorant. But that's what you'd expect from a Trumpeteer, isn't it? Ignorance used to invoke outrage and fear, and nobody sees the bigger picture.

Re:clarification

[HiThere]

When you say:
I would take environmentalism more seriously, if its adherents knew how to prioritize.
you actually mean if their priorities agreed with yours.