U.S. drops 'mother of all bombs' on Afghanistan, largest non-nuclear bomb in arsenal

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/13/u-s-drops-mother-of-all-bom.html

6 Likes

Okay, you can go back to being unpresidential now.

41 Likes

Holy crap…

12 Likes

Follow the money…

Who makes these bombs?

Does ⊥rump own stock in that company?

Did the share price of that stock improve after this event?

23 Likes

So, aside from being a plausible response to the “more explosions means more presidential” feedback; any word on what sort of Target they managed to find to justify one?

My memory of our glorious victory in Afghanistan was that we spent a lot of time being frustrated by an adversary that was either sneaky, mixed with civilians, or sufficiently decentralized that there was very little with using our complete air superiority on, even with much smaller weapons(to such a degree that the hellfire missiles were expensive overkill often enough to inspire a mortar conversion project: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/drone-economics-tiny-tactical-drones-get-dirt-cheap-gps-guided-bombs/).

I’m having trouble imagining how we went from that to “send the largest legal weapon we have”.

32 Likes

I’m assuming Trump just watched the first Iron Man movie and thought it had good ideas about shock and awe.

26 Likes

And they say that Trump is unpredictable.

Look at that circle over there. It’s actually a Venn Diagram of Trump Supporters vs. People Who Believe That Reasonable Criticism During Wartime is Treason.

21 Likes

Oh, I don’t doubt that the actual reasons involved a senile jingoist with a taste for showmanship and poll numbers that need juicing; I’m just wondering how the people obligated to sound vaguely same and professional about who and how we blow up will account for this sudden change.

6 Likes

Post-modern politics I guess?

Ceci n’est pas une bomb.

(Quick edit: I don’t know enough about art history to know if I just conflated two movements and I also don’t care)

9 Likes

You forgot “As Long As The President Is A Republican (And Also White, Of Course).”

Add me to the list that doesn’t understand what we accomplished here. Is this any more than the impotent explosion-fapping that happened in Syria?

14 Likes

It’s entirely likely Trump had nothing to do with this. But we can mock him anyway.

7 Likes

How much did I pay for you to just murder people in my name? And what consequences do you think I should leverage against you for doing so?

11 Likes

This ^^^ :exclamation:

What changed, militarily, that makes the use of this weapon anything other than terrorism?

7 Likes

But if that’s true, then hasn’t he abdicated responsibility as commander in chief forhaving no oversight of a major escalation in weapon use?

17 Likes

We turned a few large rocks into many small rocks. Stupid rocks!

19 Likes

So all of the right wingers I know bitched and moaned that Obama was a warmonger and we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan, and ignored the fact that he did back off on our military presence there. They voted for POTUS because he was going to “get us out of all wars” and yet in 3 months he has actively bombed two nations now.

25 Likes

"…largest guided bomb in the history of the world”

Something humanity should be proud of?

12 Likes

Actively and completely unilaterally.

3 Likes

Well, considering the praise that 45 got from the media with his Syria wrist slap I wouldn’t put it past him to keep on going for that brass ring. But you’re probably right, it’s not like he’s really dictating strategy from his bunker, he’s too busy eating chocolate cake. It’s probably McMasters giving the go-ahead on the tough love.

7 Likes

Please, please. “Shock and awe”. Only terrorists do terrorism.

10 Likes