Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor

Chapter 7 examines the slow violence of “depleted uranium conflict” (201), which first began during the 1991 Gulf War. Depleted uranium (DU) can be highly toxic to both the human body and the environment. Nixon begins by underscoring that military terms like “‘precision’ warfare, ‘surgical’ strikes, ‘depleted’ uranium, and ‘miracle’ drones” (200) lull the public into assuming that modern warfare will be shorter and result in less casualties. Because powerful entities, like the Pentagon, are behind these claims, the public often assumes that they are telling the truth. As Nixon illustrates throughout this chapter, this is far from true.

Nixon contrasts the experiences of two individuals, both of whom traveled the Highway of Death. The highway was given its name after the US bombed retreating Iraqi tanks and trucks during the Gulf War, destroying nearly 3,000 vehicles. Writer Michael Kelly traveled the Highway of Death simply to record “the physical realities of war, glutted with the evidence of slaughter and victory” (203).

First Sergeant Carol Picou traveled down the highway the same week as Kelly. The difference between Picou and Kelly is that Picou was a nurse working with a mobile hospital unit. For 15 days, she helped retrieve the Iraqi and Bedouins who had died in the US bombing from the destroyed vehicles, as well as treat the survivors.