The New Road

Superweapons

Lori was putting Megan down to bed last night and that left me with a moment to get some boob tube viewing in. So I sat back with a glass of wine, flicked it on and surfed around. I found a show called "Superweapons", which normally would have piqued my interest, so I watched that for a bit. And I found myself being put off by the whole thing. The segment I saw was on the M.O.A.B., known to it's enthusiasts as the 'mother of all bombs'. It can level nine city blocks. The host, and the entire production, were in love with this thing. At one point the host even wraps his arms around of the tip of it and moans 'Mother...' It was sickening.

A couple of observations about this bomb. First, it has to be dropped low and slow by cargo planes. So that means the target has to be lightly defended with no air cover.

Second, think about nine city blocks where you live. Just visualize that. Gone. That's bigger than what was destroyed during 9/11. And that, by the way, is not enough. We are testing something far more powerful than this in Nevada later this year.

I guess I'm changing when it comes to the military buff stuff. I used to like reading books about wars, and going to military museums to check out the hardware. But now it just sickens me. There is nothing glorious about a gun or a bomb. It kills people, horribly, and that's all. What is the correct response to a white sulfur bomb. Shall we look at the sleek case, the fins, the detonation mechanism, the chemical compound. Or shall we look at the result, mummified bodies. Burned in their own clothes. Women and children. Burned beyond recognition. Twisted, wrenching and writhing in pain until their spines snap.

Isn't that what we are talking about? It's killing. It's not something we should glorify. It's something to be detested. What does it say about us as a culture where you have to pay money for restricted channels to watch people having sex, but you can get ten channels or military weapons porn for free? And this was weapons porn for sure. They played the explosions over and over, and the compared blast radii with different weapons, as well as getting interviews with pilots; "It's impressive!" they said. They even had an interview with the bomb maker who was actually seemed put off by the whole idea of glorifying his bomb.

And please, don't try to give me the deterrence bullshit line. They aren't testing the biggest conventional bomb ever made in the Nevada desert because it's an instrument of peace. It's because there is a certain set of people who really get off on big bombs making big explosions and causing copious death and destruction. And it's those type of people who are in control of our military right now, and believe me, they want to use this stuff on Iran big time. Olmert of Israel was literally pleading on the floor of the Congress to use these weapons on Iran; "Our time is now!" He implored.

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be watching the Military channel again, and I'm going to be very selective with the History Channel.