[Beren]

U.S. Drops the Military's Largest Non-Nuclear Bomb in Afghanistan

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (ROBERT BURNS)

13/04/2017 18:57 CEST

This photo provided by Eglin Air Force Base shows the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb. The Pentagon says U.S. forces in Afghanistan dropped the military's largest non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State target in Afghanistan. Source: Eglin Air Force Base via AP Photo

Washington (AP) -- The Pentagon says U.S. forces in Afghanistan dropped the military's largest non-nuclear bomb on an Islamic State target in Afghanistan.

Adam Stump is a Pentagon spokesman. Stump says it was the first-ever combat use of the bomb, known as the GBU-43, which he said contains 11 tons of explosives. The Air Force calls it the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb. Based on the acronym, it has been nicknamed the "Mother Of All Bombs."

Stump says the bomb was dropped on a cave complex believed to be used by IS fighters in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, very close to the border with Pakistan.

Now they're Trumped!

[Zagadka]

Interesting that ISIS is in Afghanistan. Student exchange program?

I'm all for blowing up ISIS, but is that really going to make any impact whatsoever on the state of Afghanistan?

[Beren]

Interesting that ISIS is in Afghanistan. Student exchange program?

They have a department there actually.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province (Arabic: الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام – ولاية خراسان‎‎, ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī 'l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām – Wilayah Khorasan), or ISIL-KP, is a branch of the militant Islamist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Khorasan group's area of operations also includes other parts of South Asia, such as India where individuals have pledged allegiance to it.

I'm all for blowing up ISIS, but is that really going to make any impact whatsoever on the state of Afghanistan?

Do you mean to ask if Afghanistan still remains a shit-hole nest of terrorists? Yes, definitely.

[The Immortal Goon]

I wonder if, knowing what we do now, people would still think it was good policy to oppose the Soviets secularizing and modernizing the region. Oh well, I'm sure the use of a MOAB will fix everything.

[Beren]

The military-industrial complex must love Trump. Although his military strikes are completely useless or even counterproductive, they are really spectacular and demonstrative, as well as their media coverage is very good.

[Ter]

That is one big motherfucker and I would not like to be anywhere near it when it goes off.
It probably wiped out the fragile ecosystem in those caves.

[Diligent]

There's no better bunch of people to test such a bomb on. I do question the efficacy of this particular strike though.

[Suntzu]

That is one big motherfucker and I would not like to be anywhere near it when it goes off.
It probably wiped out the fragile ecosystem in those caves.

Probably created enough carrion to support the cave crickets for 20 years.

[Suntzu]

There's no better bunch of people to test such a bomb on. I do question the efficacy of this particular strike though.

Somalia is better.

[noir]

There is no much the infidels can do to contain Islam.

[Drlee]

There is no much the infidels can do to contain Islam.

This bomb has little to do with "containment".

[Suntzu]

It has more to do with dismemberment.

[noir]

I wonder if, knowing what we do now, people would still think it was good policy to oppose the Soviets secularizing and modernizing the region. Oh well, I'm sure the use of a MOAB will fix everything.

Carter was shit. Probably his Polish American National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, incited him. The Poles at that time hated the Russians.

Tariq Ali, the Pakistani-born writer wrote:

Contrary to common belief, the concept of jihad as 'holy war' has a limited pedigree. After the early victories of Islam it had been quietly dropped as a mobilising slogan until revived by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security advisorin the early 1980s. Brzezinski stood on the Pakistan-Afghan border wearing a Pashtun turban and shouted for the benefit of the TV cameras: 'Go and wage the jihad. Allah is on your side.'.The only way they could mobilise for that war was by raising the banner of jihad, or holy war so the religious schools,madrasas, was created in Pakistan .


How the CIA, Zbigniew Brzezinski and President Carter created Osama bin Laden.

Washington's policy in Afghanistan was shaped by US President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and was continued by his successors. His plan went far beyond simply forcing Soviet troops to withdraw; rather it aimed to foster an international movement to spread Islamic fanaticism into the Muslim Central Asian Soviet republics to destabilise the Soviet Union.

The entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan transformed an unpleasant civil war funded by Washington into a jihad enabling the mujaheddin ("holy warriors") to appear as the only defenders of Afghan sovereignty against the foreign army of occupation. Brzezinski was soon posing for photographs in a Pathan turban on the Khyber Pass and shouting ˜Allah is on your side", (while paradoxically denouncing the Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-US Shah of Iran in 1979).

In an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, then national security adviser to American President Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski confessed that the American government, by covertly supplying and training opposition forces in Afghanistan, knowingly increased the probability that they [the Soviet Union] would [intervene]. The invasion had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap. He continued, The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, in substance: We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam war¦[It became the] conflict that brought about the demoralization¦of the Soviet empire.

The last word goes to Zbigniew Brzezinski: What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?



Zbigniew Brzezinski helped to start America's problems with Holy Warriors in Afghanistan:

Brzezinski: 'Go and wage the jihad. Allah is on your side.'

[Beren]

I wonder whether they warned ISIS before the bombing.

[MistyTiger]

The name might be biblical. I think there was a people in the old book called Moabites.

I think dropping bombs on countries is so wrong. I am just glad I am not over there or I would be so sick to my stomach.

[Ter]

This is hopefully an adequate weapon to atomise terrorists hiding in caves and tunnels.
The IDF should get a few of those to try them out on Hezbollah. Those cockroaches also hide below ground.

[Zagadka]

Literally vaporizing a bunch of terrorists assholes with a bomb that costs more than they do is unlikely to actually further any conditions in the country. This is like kicking and splashing a lot when drowning. It gives the illusion of doing something when it is really just making a lot of noise. It may even give them more propaganda. They can go to the people of Afghanistan and talk about how the US uses the most cruel weapons on poor Afghanistan. It would probably be more effective to spend that money on restructuring. I mean, it is already a lost cause because W fought the war exactly in that "bomb them from afar" way. They can wait us out because they live there and we're dropping our most expensive weapons onto caves. No matter how many MOABs we drop, nothing will change for the people in the cities and villages who know that these people are just waiting for us to leave. MOABs will never address those issues. Farmers will watch mushroom clouds on the horizon and still know that guys with guns are going to come 15 minutes later and take half his crop (probably of opium).

[Ter]

Well, maybe yes and maybe no, but what is certain is that the terrorists will never feel safe again in their tunnels and caves. That's a big plus at least. Maybe they will become a bit less arrogant if that kind of monster bomb can be unleashed on them at any time.

[Zagadka]

We've bombed the shit out of them with B-52s and drones and cruise missiles for 15 years now. They just aren't afraid. They are insane extremists, why would they just get afraid? Why would we keep doing the same thing and hoping the outcome changes? WE are thus insane. Why not do something to actually (try to) stabilize the cities or establish a police force that isn't already corrupted?

How can we just drop bombs on them when they clearly have the coordination to have their fanatics deployed across the continent? Killing hundreds of them at a time would have no effect.

[Potemkin]

We've bombed the shit out of them with B-52s and drones and cruise missiles for 15 years now. They just aren't afraid. They are insane extremists, why would they just get afraid? Why would we keep doing the same thing and hoping the outcome changes? WE are thus insane. Why not do something to actually (try to) stabilize the cities or establish a police force that isn't already corrupted?

The fundamental problem, it seems to me, is that the West is still mentally fighting WWII over and over again. Hence our self-righteousness, our ruthless targeting of civilians, our belief that we can destroy our enemies by bombing the shit out of them, and so on and so forth. The irony is that this wasn't even how the Nazis were defeated - they were defeated by the Soviet people fighting tenaciously to defend their homeland, and then pouring millions of troops into Germany in the closing months of the War. American B-52s carpet-bombing German cities didn't do the trick. The only thing worse than not learning from history is learning the wrong lessons from history.