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US drops 'largest non-nuclear bomb' in Afghanistan
- snowpanda 10y agoOP why did you leave out the rest of the title? > US drops 'largest non-nuclear bomb' in Afghanistan in area populated by Isis members Kind of leaving a very important detail out here.
- bitJericho 10y agoBecause for the US, all areas of Afghanistan bombed are populated by ISIS.
- vs4vijay 10y agobecause of 80 char. limit in title field
- sharun 10y agoWhat goes through the minds of the people at the Pentagon who release such info? Do they see this as some achievement?
- snowpanda 10y agoWhat makes you think taking out ISIS is not an achievement?
- canadian_voter 10y agoThey got all of ISIS with one bomb? Good job, promotions all around.
- snowpanda 10y agoSemantics...
- mankash666 10y agoI'm ALL for taking out ISIS. But, with carpet bombing huge areas, the likelihood of unintended collateral damage is very high. Which brings us to the general attitude of the U.S. in war - "When it comes to innocent lives, only U.S. lives matter!!" There's ZERO chance that the U.S. would tolerate collateral damage on it's own citizens in the name of getting ISIS, so why accept the possibility of non-American causalities?
- MK999 10y agoisis is run by western intelligence
- forgotpwtomain 10y agoBecause the USA government funded ISIS to begin with? There is no advantage to removing ISIS they aren't a threat to the US but are anti-Assad so they support our interests in the region indirectly. Furthermore they are great scapegoat for an executive government power grab and building a surveillance state. It doesn't hurt that prolonged military engagements do wonders for the profits of the military-industrial complex either.
- joverholt 10y agoThey may see it as a warning to North Korea
- yodsanklai 10y ago> Do they see this as some achievement? I assume it serves a propaganda purpose.
- aphextron 10y ago>What goes through the minds of the people at the Pentagon who release such info? Do they see this as some achievement? Would you rather it was done in complete secrecy? The openness of our military is one of the great strengths of American democracy.
- wamsachel 10y ago>The openness of our military is one of the great strengths of American democracy. lmao if you believe that's true.
- wamsachel 10y agoWar is a great way for the corporate media and the government to work together to manufacture public opinion. The Syrian airstrikes earlier in the month was a moment of circling the wagons for the movers and shakers, as the media was able to demonstrate their abilities to Trump and co. that if they work together then poll ratings and viewership numbers go up. It's win-win for the establishment.
- DanBC 10y agoThis is fulfilling an election promise to "bomb the shit out of them". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWejiXvd-P8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWejiXvd-P8 Bright lights, big noises, it plays well to some of his electorate.
- metaphorm 10y agospeculating because I have not spoken to a publicity offer at the Pentagon. They view popular suppport of military actions as an important strategic objective because they require congressional support for their procurement budgets, and executive support (capitulation to?) for their planned operations. War is political and they do this kind of thing to manage the politics of war. The immediate followup question then becomes: why does the Pentagon view bragging about weapons as effective for gathering political support for their wars? I can't say that I have a clear notion of why they believe this. Perhaps because it plays to the pornographic nature of the mainstream media in the U.S., which enthusiastically embraces spectacles of violence. Perhaps because they are correct to believe that a majority of Americans are stimulated by war porn. The media certainly believes that. They get the ratings. Or perhaps you're right and its less sophisticated than I am imagining. Maybe the Pentagon really does think it's a kind of accomplishment worth bragging about.
- vgprice 10y agoSeems it was an isolated mountain tunnel system only inhabited by ISIS. No real objections to me from that.
- zdean 10y ago1. "Only inhabited by ISIS" - Really? Says who? There were no villages or civilians within the kill perimeter? 2. What's the aftermath of a 21,000 pound munition on the environment and resources of the region. Do a google search for the impact of bombing in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc on local cancer rates. Maybe you still don't object...but at least we can be clearer on the true impact of the bombing.
- westbywest 10y agoBesides its concussive pulse, the weapon is designed to draw in air from underground/fortified structures in the blast radius. E.g. asphyxiate people hiding in tunnels. It no doubt will leave a crater, but my understanding is that the crater would be less than that left by a similar quantity of TNT.
- gozur88 10y agoI would think it would be pretty easy to verify the absence of villages within a mile. And this isn't the type of weapon that causes cancer.
- boomboomsubban 10y agoHow would you verify it then? Do you have the coordinates for where the bomb dropped and recent maps of the area? A year ago we said that all ISIL soldiers had been removed from the area, verification seems tricky. You don't think blowing bits of a building in a twenty mile radius would cause cancer?
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago> You don't think blowing bits of a building in a twenty mile radius would cause cancer? No; why would it? You cause cancer by damaging the DNA of cells. A mere explosion isn't going to do that.
- provost 10y agoThe title is inaccurate. This is known as the Mother-of-all-bombs (MOAB unofficially, or GBU 43/B officially). For people who like comparisons, Russia tested the Father-of-all-Bombs in 2007, which is believed to be 4x more powerful. The FOAB is a thermobaric explosive that offers certain advantages over common explosives. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_All_Bombs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_All_Bombs
- mod 10y agoPerhaps should include "in the US' arsenal", or "ever dropped"
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- yodsanklai 10y agoI wonder what is the environmental impact of such a bomb.
- binarray2000 10y agoThe US oligarchy doesn't care about lead levels in tap water in cities across the US, so they care even less for citizens of Afghanistan (or Iraq, or Syria, or Bosnia, or Serbia) exposed to chemicals. Not to mention, to depleated uranium.
- zdean 10y agoThe cancer rates in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc have skyrocketed in the past decades. Some believe it's tied to the relentless bombings: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/14/iraq.military https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/14/iraq.military
- MacsHeadroom 10y agoCancer screening has also skyrocketed and cancer is up in lots of places without active conflict. I don't mean to minimize the actual destructive effects of war. But the evidence for cancer as being among them is far from conclusive.
- zdean 10y agoCancer screening skyrocketing doesn't account for a skyrocketing rate of cancer...it would simply capture more of the absolute number.
- matthewmcg 10y agoVarious sources are reporting a $16M unit cost for this bomb (excluding R&D costs). That's more than half the unit cost of the C-130 aircraft that delivers it.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pacificmint 10y agoIt's also about 600 times as much as the cost for a Daisy Cutter, which it sorta replaces. (According to [1] those cost $27,000) [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/07/afghanistan.terrorism6 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/07/afghanistan.te...
- mankash666 10y agoBecause, when it comes to civilian lives or collateral damage, only U.S. lives matter!!!
- dmingoddd 10y agoYou know they're not going to say, oh there was also a village there with about only 250 mountain people living in it. Hey sorry buddy, you, your children, your goats all die today cause the man in the suit said so. Because they want to push this narrative of ISIS being the really bad guys that need to be killed so you guys be scared of them, we'll take them out for you. These politicians are incapable and uninterested in solving real problems so you take the easy way make deamons and keep fighting them -- war is good money, the politicians can look good fighting the bad guys while not doing anything really and the peoples minds are occupied by this conflict so they don't question you too much. I hate ISIS as much as the next guy, but that doesn't mean these guys are the good guys. Just replace the name of Afghanistan with with Australia, America or any other country you can think of. Better yet, Saudi Arabia cause that will easily fit with some peoples world view. The first question that I get in my head is. How is this even legal? other than the fact that.. Yea We've got the money and the resources and you poor fella wont be able to hit us back in your dreams, ever. So take that! I just get a feeling that somehow, non-english speaking, non-white people are not as equal as others and for some people the're doing a favor to them treating them as humans. This is not in the philosophical debaty sense, but in the real tactical sense. You want to throw a bomb at Hiroshima, yea kill a million people and end the war. Today lets drop bombs on some third world country. The great leader is always doing something worthy of praise. How is this different from some crazy north Korean dictator other than more savvy and politically correct propoganda on one side and not on the other. Just cause the US is a democracy this is valid? Cause they are so powerful they can do this and no one will question them... What if some other "Bad" guy did it. What if Putin is doing this kind of stuff. Killing of people is killing of people. This is like taking a shotgun to kill a rat. Sure you'll kill it but you're probably insane. Just imagine the US as one person and Afghanistan as another person. The first guy goes like here dude, take a punch on the face, there was a fly sitting there I was just trying to kill it. Also, I'll keep punching you to kill flies whether you're sleeping or awake, whether you like it or not.
- mannykannot 10y agoTowards the end of WW2, Britain's 617 Squadron ("Dambusters") used 10-ton Grand Slam bombs against massive concrete fortifications, such as U-boat pens, and structures, such as bridges, that could be destabilized by underground explosions. Because they were designed to penetrate concrete, they probably had more steel and less explosive than this bomb.