Step off, old man!

Monday, 15 November 2004

Innocent civilians
When the U.S. was revving up to attack Iraq, I happened to be at the home of a conservative friend of mine. He was reading something on the Drudge Report about the "MOAB"s (Mother of All Bombs) that the US was going to use. To be honest, he was pretty gleeful about them. I think the bombs were 500 lbs.

I was taken aback by his attitude, knowing that thousands of innocent civilians were going to be killed or maimed by such a weapon. Did he think the bad guys were all going to stand in a central square together awaiting the MOAB?

Cut and paste this link to see some of the damage from Iraq. Warning: it's sickening. I have a son who's a year and half years old. If someone attacked the US under the guise of liberation and he was maimed like some of these poor kids, I'd be the first one to strap on a bomb. Don't those who thought attacking Iraq was a great idea realize this? Iraqis love their families too. Kill their innocent loved ones and they'll want revenge. If the numbers are correct and 100,000 innocent civilians have been killed, think how many terrorists we've created.

Here's the link. Again, it is very graphic: http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/

Posted by brettdavey at 11:40 AM EST

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Wednesday, 17 November 2004 - 3:32 PM EST

Name: Fats

Stats on the MOAB - Launch Weight: 21,500 pounds, incl. 18,000 pounds of high explosives. Source: http://www.globemaster.de/html/moab.html

I have to admit, I was pretty enthused about the MOAB. The engineer in me just loves things like this. Fuel air bombs are even cooler. check out this site for info on them. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/fae.htm.

While you raise a point about the problems with getting excited about the new things that kill people better than the old things. I don't think the MOAB is a big deal. War is about killing and destroying as much as possible as quickly as possible.

The thing that should have everyone concerned is the administrations wanting to develop Nuclear "Bunker-Busters." My single biggest problem with the administration is that they have no sense that the rules of the game apply to the US. Thus, the philosophy of pre-emption is not seen as something that can be used by any country at any time to justify its actions. Just ask the Chechens for their thoughts. In the eyes of the White House, the Geneva convention not applying to our enemies does not mean it does not apply to our soldiers. The quibble is that we only throw it (the GC) out for 'enemy combatants." However, we then define enemy combatants as anyone we round up who is not in a uniform. I believe it has been verified that well over 75% of the folks at Abu Ghraib were not there for any specific charge but were part of round-ups.

Back to my Nuclear thought; we are on the verge of giving everyone the justification to use first-strike nukes. The quibble here, I believe, is that they will only be used tactically on military targets. Well, 'military' is defined by the aggressor.