US Air Force’s Mega-Bunker-Buster Bomb Is Finally Ready
MILITARISM, 30 Jul 2012
Just as the U.S. returns its attention to concealed weapons of mass destruction programs in Syria and (possibly) Iran, the Air Force is saying its mega-weapon for blowing up hidden factories of death is finally ready.
That would be the Massive Ordnance Penetrator — all 30,000 destructive pounds of it. It’s an absolutely ginormous bomb designed to convince rogue regimes that there is no redoubt for the manufacture of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons buried deep enough to escape the U.S. Air Force.
The military has been at work super-sizing its bunker-busters for years, and the Massive Ordnance Penetrator is the premier upgraded weapon. Supposedly, it can penetrate 60 feet of reinforced concrete, although it depends just how hard that concrete is. Although the Pentagon has spent over $200 million developing 30 of the bombs, there are doubts over how well equipped it is to destroy the hardened facilities believed to house Iran’s nuclear program.
The secretary of the Air Force does not share those doubts. “If it needed to go today, we would be ready to do that,” Secretary Michael Donley told Danger Room pal Jeff Schogol of Air Force Times. “We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is ongoing. We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.”
Donley may not have had Iran in mind. The beleaguered Syrian regime of Bashar Assad is threatening to use chemical weapons against a foreign attack. His chemical arsenal is spread out amongst several concealed sites and stands a giant proliferation risk. Not the greatest opportunity for a mega-bomb — intelligence about the sites is dubious — but the U.S. would rather have the option than not.
Then there’s Iran. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta may have been hinting about the new bomb’s capabilities when he remarked that the U.S. would do a better job of attacking Iran than Israel could. Not that that’s what the Obama administration wants to do.
The Massive Ordnance Penetrator may even have a political component to it. During a debate on foreign policy between surrogates for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday [25 Jul 2012], former Amb. Rich Williamson accused the Obama administration of ruling out the use of military force for Iran. The long-awaited arrival of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator would suggest otherwise. (Plus, its acronym has special resonance to fans of a certain era of East Coast hip hop.)
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Regarding the above mentioned article, let me comment on the following three points:
First: It is highly possible that any mega-banker can be used for a shelter for civilians during the war. It is highly possible that the US Army is unable to know which mega bankers, among many other mega-bankers, are used for the shelter for civilians. Then, the US Army will attack all the mega-bankers in the war-zone? The United States may argue that the development of weapons will bring about peace. But, it could be highly likely doing so by killing innocent civilians? Recall the fact how many times the US-led NATO killed innocent civilians in Afghanistan, for instance? By developing the weapon like the mega-bunker-buster bomb as mentioned in the above article, the US military is creating more opportunities for killing not only their enemy military personnel but also a potentially/possibly huge number of innocent civilians. The mega-bunker-buster bomb can be considered as a weapon of mass destruction. Iraq was not allowed to have WMDs but the US is allowed?
Second: Remember the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you would like them to do to you.” See the Golden Rule in various religions in the world: http://www.teachingvalues.com/goldenrule.html So, the US military is doing what the US military wants their enemy to do to the US military?
Third: One of the main reasons why the United States continues developing cutting-edge technology weapons one after another is “fear”; fear of non-Western people (and their cultures/religions). It is based on the thought of separation: “’we’ and ‘they’ are separated”; “’we’ and ‘they’ are different”; “’we’ are friends and ‘they’ are enemies”. Regarding the “separation,” let me quote Debbie Ford’s words as follows:
“Most of us were raised to believe that we are separated and different from one another, and that there were good people and bad people. We were told that the bad people have qualities, traits, and behaviors that the good people don’t have. Many of us have dedicated a large portion of our lives to getting rid of the bad qualities we’ve discovered in ourselves. But what if this way of perceiving the Universe and ourselves is no longer true? What if there aren’t really any ‘bad people’ qualities?
“If we continue to believe that we are separate and that the good people are different from the bad, we will be doomed to a life of victimization, separation, and isolation. In the world of separatism, our egos must work to construct a persona that is better than or different from everyone around us. This persona is our social mask, the face we show the world. Most of us forget that it’s just a persona and come to believe that our mask is who we really are. In the separatist worldview, the last thing you want to discover is that you have imperfections as bad as everyone else’s…. It is the nightmare of the ego to discover that at our core every of us is created equal.
…..
“To be whole we need access to all of ourselves. If we are brave and step into the reality that the world is within us, we can embrace the totality of what it means to be a human being. Expanding our consciousness to hold the economy of the world within allow us to feel the strength, power, and balance of our humanity. It supports us in stepping out of judgment and separateness and into a knowing compassion…”
Is Debbie Ford referring to international/world politics in the above cited argument? No. Not at all. She is referring to “divorce.” The quotation above was from her book, “Spiritual Divorce,” HarperCollins, New York, (2001), pp.95-97. Are you surprised? How principles of the personal level conflicts resemble to those of world politics! Although I do not say that principles of the personal level can always and necessarily be applied to those of international/world politics, we can clearly recognize the similarities or the common ground between those two levels of conflicts. It might be able to say that the thought of separation creates “fear” that can cause divorce on the personal level, and the development of more effectively-killing-weapons on the international/world level. What do you think?
Correction: In the above comment, the spelling “banker” should be corrected as “bunker.”