MOAB hits home — mine and yours

Just to make the power of the GBU-43, aka “Mother of All Bombs,” up close and personal…

Dropped on our Portland neighborhood of HIllsdale, with 8,000 residents, the bomb obliterates every man, woman and child and all structures.

It would leave behind a wasteland.

If this is “conventional,” as in “conventional weapon,” we better rethink our conventions…fast.

A few other results from a search of the web. Two miles from where the bomb hits here in Southwest Portland, victims could be rendered deaf.

That takes us from Hillsdale to the Willamette River to the east, and to the Portland-Beaverton border to the west.

For several miles beyond that victims may suffer bleeding ears, to say nothing of trauma and the loss of family and friends.

Five miles away from the blast, the ground would shake and windows be broken. Question: Could this bomb trigger a massive earthquake?

Then there is the fiscal damage already being inflicted by the development and construction of this bomb. Each MOAB costs $16 million. That doesn’t include the cost of the planes needed to drop it.

To put that number in perspective, Portland Public Schools estimates its budget shortfall for next year to be $18 million, resulting in a projected loss of 70 teachers.

And what are the consequences of accepting the use of this weapon as “acceptable." The military-industrial complex, and our power-mad president, have at the ready so-call “tactical nuclear weapons.”


Russian, by the way, has a similar "conventional" bomb, and we know about the nuclear weaponry of North Korea, whose leader is as unpredictable and crazed as Donald Trump.

Photographing Truth

“Afghan photos worry military” reads the front page headline in today’s Oregonian.

The headline reflects the story that follows — up to a point.

The story says that the “revelations...caught on camera” have “intensified questions within the military community about where fundamental discipline is breaking down given the nature and length of the war.”

Questions: Are the photos intensifying the questioning? Does the military require photographs before it knows what is happening within its units? Before it gets serious? Do those photographs have to be made public in order for action to be taken? What if they had never been published?

As is all too common with stories that put the heat on government institutions, the very publication of the news (in this case photographs) becomes the story. Should the Los Angeles Times have printed them? What will the publication do to the morale of our troops? Will their lives be in danger?

(THIS STORY in today's New York Times reveals that the Pentagon made an issue of the publication and tried to stop it.)

In short, the publication itself, not what it reveals, becomes the headline grabber.

Lest we forget, the outrages depicted, like those of Abu Ghraib and others (the list long), are bought and paid for by us, the taxpayer. To extend the consumer analogy, we need to know what we are buying. If it isn’t what we had in mind, we need to stop buying it.

The problem is that we are forced to buy it. We have no options. The two major political parties are identical with regard to the brazen barbarity they have allowed in the military, the intelligence agencies and contract mercenaries.

As we get farther and farther into the 2012 campaign, the candidates will lay out sharp, allegedly “defining” differences between their parties. But who will point to their troubling similarities: reliance on massive contributions from the super-rich, the need to pander to and serve the military-industrial-media complex, the defense of “justice” that is anything but, the support of covert operations at home and abroad that shred human rights and human dignity, the denial of the need for immediate, urgent action to stop global warming, the acceptance of grotesque inequality?

“Afghan photos worry military.”

What kind of photos will it take to “worry” us, the People, into changing our current unresponsive political/governmental/military/industrial system?

HERE is an example of what's possible. The short clip is called "Things Happen."

Memo to 'Planet Panetta' from Planet Earth

While Defense Secretary Leon Panetta moans about possible cuts in defense spending, I find myself cheering.

Are we living in the same country? On the same planet?

Here is Panetta as reported in today’s Oregonian (which didn’t report the view from my “planet”)

Panetta “warned” the deeper defense cuts being considered by the Congressional "Super Committee" would:

• Leave the military with the smallest ground force since 1940. (Last time I checked, World War II was over. Likewise the Cold War.)

• Force the military to rethink its strategy. (How are you liking the current one?)

• "Affect" the military’s ability to “support” the war in Afghanistan. (Exactly!)

• Lead to a fleet of fewer than 230 ships. (Who’s complaining except the Navy and the defense contractors?)

• Cut back, delay or end weapons programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter, the "next-generation" Ballistic missile submarine, new Army helicopters and missile defense. (The military-industrial complex at the trough. Orwellian alert: Note the inevitability inherent in the term "next-generation.").

Panetta’s comments in a letter to two senior Republican senators (John McCain and Lindsey Graham) were larded with references to the cuts’ resulting in “substantial risks.” (Ask wounded veterans and the families of the dead — civilian and military alike — about the risks of our present “strategy.”)

Unfortunately, the story didn’t list some other facts which can be found HERE on the Friends Committee for National Legislation web site. They describe a world far different from Panetta’s.

Here are just four (FCNL's annotated and sourced site cites ten).

• The U.S. military budget accounts for 46.5 percent of global military spending.

• U.S. presence in the world includes hundreds of military bases in Europe – particularly in Germany. (See reference to the end of World War II and the Cold War above)

• Military contracts are not job-creation engines. Military dollars spent in a state yield the least number of jobs, compared to investments in health, education, transportation, and even tax cuts.

• The unaudited Pentagon budget has a history of cost overruns -- $300 billion above what Congress authorized for various weapons systems in the last five years.

Which world do YOU live in?

P.S. To put this in a political context, the last time I checked, Leon Panetta took his orders from one Barack Obama. And which planet does HE live on?

"Take nothing for granted"

I saw the headline at the top of the April 20 issue of The New York Times but couldn’t bring myself to read the story until a week later. I was steeling myself.

The story headlined “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand” is proof that in Eisenhower's farewell address, the president and former military commander got it only partly right when he warned of the military-industrial complex.

As several letter writers have noted, what we have is a military-industrial-media complex.

The story by David Barstow lays bare an entire cadre of retired military brass serving as media shills for the administration and the Iraq War. Since 2002, most of the "analysts" have mouthed the Bush administration's flawed and deceitful positions. It turns out they were in the employ of military contractors who reap billions from the war. In short, many of the allegedly objective analysts were trapped and compromised: speak out against the administration and the war (as in, tell the truth) and you and your clients or employer will suffer the consequences.

Eisenhower's warning and then some is all in the story:

Military — check.

Industrial — check.

Media — check.

The one thing it isn’t, is complex.

The other truism illustrated by the story is from the late, great Neil Postman: “The more you watch (TV); the less you know.” Actually, it’s worst than that. The more you watch, the more deceived you become.

I do not believe for a minute that the Bush Administration is the first to use PR smoke-and-mirrors techniques to deceive the public, to pay off military contractors and to send American soldiers to their deaths for unworthy causes.

But this story by David Barstow catalogs deceit heaped on deceit — in detail, thanks to the Times obtaining original documents through he Freedom of Information Act. Barstow reports that the ethically challenged TV networks allowed it all to happen, duping the public repeatedly. (Surprise, “fair and balanced” FOX was the worst of the lot.}

If there’s good news here it’s this: something must have gone wrong along the way, because the public, despite the lies and distortions, has seen through the scam. Seven in 10 want to get out of Iraq.

So much for bought-and-paid-for military authority figures.

The other thing that is happening is that TV network news operations are losing their viewers. Thanks to the lies and distortions of the “key influentials” and “message multipliers,” as the military analysts were called by their Bush administration handlers, the networks can expect to lose a whole lot more.

Three post-scripts.

• As the story appeared in the Times, much of the story was obliterated by some ham-handed page layout person and asleep-at-the-switch proofreaders. Someone forgot to use “text runaround” so that a graphic obscured blocks of text. Read this story on line.

• We’ve seen numerous military analysts on the PBS’s Lehrer NewsHour, but for some reason, the story fails to mention them and whether they too are tainted by ties to the arms industry and the administration. In a NewsHour broadcast segment about the Times story, correspondent Judy Woodruff said, “For the record, the NewsHour briefly put five military analysts on a retainer in 2003, but none of them attended Pentagon briefings while on retainer to the NewsHour.”

Significantly, what she did NOT say is whether the NewsHour analysts work for or consult the arms industry — a clear conflict of interest.

• Here are Eisenhower’s words as he left office:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Question: How can the public be “alert and knowledgeable” when the news media are duped by and compliant to the Military-Industrial Complex? Some networks, such as NBC, are even owned by huge defense contractors.

Pledge drive for Nukes

The recently concluded Oregon Public Broadcasting pledge drive reminded me of the bumper sticker:

“Why not adequately fund our schools and have the Air Force hold bake sales to buy bombers?”

I’m thinking we ought to make our nuclear arsenal dependent on radio pledge drives like OPB’s.

It might go something like this.

“Well, April, how are we doing?”

“Not so good, Colin. We have only one wing nut paid for, thanks to a generous $5,000 contribution from retired Air Force colonel in Redmond.”

“Wow. Well thanks, Colonel, but we need a whole lot more patriotic Americans like you to step up to defend freedom. You all need to go to your phones if we are going to build up our current arsenal of a paltry 5,736 nuclear warheads.”

“That’s right, April. Why destroy the planet once when you can do it 10 times over? I mean let’s show the Russians, the Chinese and the Pakistanis what REAL power is.”

“To say nothing of Israel, India, Britain and France.”

“So here’s that number again, 876-853-7669 or ‘US nukes now.’”

“By the way, if you contribute to our nuclear weapons program, it will mean we can spend your tax dollars on boring stuff like universal health care, first-rate schools and alternative energy.”

“Boy, it sure is quiet around here, April. Let’s make those phones start ringing. Do it now! Just remember, your pledges help our military-industrial complex.”

“Speaking of which, Colin, how about that Boeing offer for the first pledge of $50,000?”

“That’s right, April. For your pledge of $50,000, you get a free round-the-world junket, just like the ones Boeing takes our members of Congress on. They’ve even set up pseudo-defense conferences in places like the Cayman Islands, Fiji and Bali.”

“How can you pass that one up? That number again is ….”