Remember this?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/09/wsad09.xml
Almost five years later this incident blurs into many like it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something about the way an entire neighborhood was laid waste by four 2,000 lb bombs in a failed attempt to kill one man struck me as uncomfortably close to the US State Department definition of "terrorism".
Here's an account from the perspective of the pilot of the B-1B that executed this mission, the disarmingly named "Lt. Col. Swan":
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030409-saddam-kill01.htm
The "fate of the butcher" was unknown, as were the fates of any unwitting human beings within a quarter mile of him.
"I didn't know who was there, and I really didn't care," Swan said. "The job was to go put the bombs on the target and worry about that later." Spoken like a true professional.
Well, "later" is finally here and Yankee ingenuity saves the day:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3761691&page=1
The claim that enthusiastic application of the "SDB" will result in less collective "collateral damage" in the coming years of occupation relies, of course, on the sort of optimism one learns to associate with professional "warfighters" like Col. Swan. As US ground forces in Iraq consolidate into the numerous permanent bases that have been built with billions of US tax dollars while Congress pretended to debate a "timetable for withdrawal", what this really means is more frequent use of air strikes--especially in urban areas--to enforce "stability".
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-10-21-airstrikes_N.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16/AR2008011604148_pf.html
And "stability" has been very, very good for "defense" contractors like Boeing:
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/missiles/sdb/index.html
http://www.govexec.com/features/0807-15/0807-15s3s1.htm
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.aspx?Feed=ACBJ&Date=20080130&ID=8114306&Symbol=US:BA
What was that President Eisenhower said on his way out of the White House? Some embarassing, paranoid rant about a "military industrial complex", wasn't it?
