This needs to be the next Pantone color of the year 
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I’m still a bit fuzzy as to what the target really was and the justification was to why the bomb was deployed. If this was in planning for months then clearly they had some very particular sites in mind. Don’t think that’s been reported on yet but interested to see the “rationale” here.
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Let’s see:
Orange
Very Dangerous
Targets Poor/Brown People
Moves forward via noxious plume/ejecta
Nah.
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… US public opinion
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No joke. If tRump can blame President Obama for Assad’s use of chemical weapons, then…
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Hopefully, to become one of the failed, unpopular colors.
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Likely he timed it with his monthly conjugal visit with Melenia.
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/thread
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High-Density mix of Velveeta Cheese, Lego blocks, and Dr. Zog’s ‘Gi-Gotdamn-Normous Bag O Glass’.
You’re welcome
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They targeted a network of caves and tunnels used by ISIS fighters fighters in Afghanistan. This same area is where a US soldier died last week. This bomb is really designed for attacking infrastructure, so I could imagine why it might work against the target they described. But I can also understand why it might be totally ineffective.
It seems like with both this and the thing in Syria, the audience for these attacks is not anywhere near the target area. I could imagine how Trump’s heavy handed style of diplomacy might be successful, if it were used by a president capable of conceiving a plan and seeing it through to successful completion. But his leadership style seems even more situational than our past presidents.
I think he was too entranced by his fleet of drones. For a long time he personally authorized every strike. 563 drone strikes under Obama, vs. 57 under Bush. In a quick Google search it appears that Trump has increased the pace by more than 400% since he took office. So we’ll probably have ISIS and the Taliban and Syria and Al Qaeda and Al Nusra beat any minute now.
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According to the FoxtrotAlpha blog, it’s an effective weapon for hitting a network of caves. The pressure wave means that everyone inside the caves dies, regardless of whether the caves collapse.
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In fairness to Bush, the technology has been developing rapidly. He would have been using them left right and centre if he had them in the arsenal. I’m sure Nixon would have been a drone maniac in his day if it was an option.
That said, the long history of bombing and shelling things has supposedy taught us that bombing mountains doesn’t necessarily hurt the people hiding inside them. Unless they found the exhaust port that led to the main reactor and nailed it like a womprat back home, it seems unlikely that bombing a bunch of caves is going to make much difference to ISIS (or whoever is actually in those caves).
See: Gibraltar (many times), most of the WWI western front, Iwo Jima and a thousand other examples of heavy bombing and shelling followed by minimal effect on the people hiding in the caves/bunkers/shelters etc. For that matter consider the bombing of Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam - heavy, sustained, thorough and ultimately ineffective.
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The US estimates 700 ISIS fighters in all of Afghanistan. I wonder how many were in the affected area.
I think there are two ways to beat ISIS: a non-violent solution or total war. But as usual our approach is to put one more finger on the scale and focus on meaningless metrics like how many ISIS leaders we’ve killed.
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The bigger the bomb, the bigger the slice of cake Trump gets.
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And we said Hillary was the warmonger
Fuck me. First it was the mother of all banhammers, and now Trump’s trying to destroy the whole goddamn world. Fuck Bannon, too.
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What is the non-violent solution? I absolutely hate war and violence but I’m not aware of any diplomatic approach that will beat ISIS. Even if the US was to completely pull out of the Middle East I don’t think it would stop ISIS.
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That’s the problem that the region, and other similar countries have been suffering for centuries. Developed nations think they can “solve” their problems in the area with all out war. It only displaces the problem further down in time, only to reappear again under a new banner or name.
ISIS may be all but beaten soon but i highly doubt this will change the high degree of uncertainty and instability there. Give it some time and history will repeat itself… the US and the rest of the world need to stop abusing poor nations and lift them up through real actual help, education, and the prospect of making a living.
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So once we destroy ISIS, what comes after that? It’s not like we have a great track record of stabilizing the region.
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I want to think that will help, but I don’t think it necessarily does. We’ve been giving material aid to a lot of countries like that for years and for many of them it seems to just free up time to continue an ages old religious war. 
I think that we’ve certainly sown the seeds we’re reaping now by fucking about in the region for decades, but I think the entire rest of the world could collectively hands-off the whole region and it wouldn’t change much other than they might stop bombing european cities and focus on bombing each other…but the second that one of the despots gained power they might start aggressive actions again.
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