Terrorist Nation?

GBU-31 Munition






Takes One to Know One

By DAVE LINDORFF
CounterPunch

"The idea that the US could be considering classifying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization, based upon some dubious evidence that the organization is supplying some weapons-in particular those shaped charges that have been so effective in roadside bombs against US military vehicles-is pretty preposterous when you consider the source.

Whatever the truth about the activities of the Iranians, certainly when it comes to terror, the US is unrivalled in the world today......

Nor are we getting any figures on the numbers of dead innocents in Afghanistan, where the blackout on reporting is even more effective than in Iraq.

What is clear is that American tactics are causing an unending slaughter in both places-a slaughter that is clearly not just part of but central to the policy, and that is so serious that it has led to protests from Britain and other NATO countries that have soldiers in Afghanistan.

And let's be honest: this is no matter of "collateral damage." It is a deliberate policy of terror. As I've written before, when your army is killing vastly more civilians than enemy fighters, the deaths of innocents cannot be termed "collateral damage." It's the deaths of enemy fighters which are the "collateral damage." The innocents are the targets.....

"Dropped from a plane and hurtling toward its target at 300 mph, the 14-foot steel bomb uses small gears in its fins to pinpoint its path based on satellite data received by a small antenna and fed into a computer. Just before impact, a fusing device triggers a chemical reaction causing the 14-inch-wide weapon to swell to twice its size. The steel casing shatters, shooting forth 1,000 pounds of white-hot fragments traveling at speeds of 6,000 feet per second. The explosion creates a shock wave exerting thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch (psi). By comparison, a shock wave of 12 psi will knock a person down; and the injury threshold is 15 pounds psi. The pressure from the explosion of a device such as the Mark-84 JDAM can rupture lungs, burst sinus cavities and tear off limbs hundreds of feet from the blast site, according to trauma physicians. When it hits, the JDAM generates an 8,500-degree fireball, gouges a 20-foot crater as it displaces 10,000 pounds of dirt and rock and generates enough wind to knock down walls blocks away and hurl metal fragments a mile or more. "

Herold notes that several of these terror weapons were dropped by a B-1B bomber earlier this month on a group of Afghans during an open air market outside the town of Baghran, killing an untold number of civilians, including children. The US military described this bombing as a "successful" raid on a gathering of Taliban leaders, and claimed no civilians were present, but the severely injured men, women and children delivered to various hospitals following the attack gave the lie to this cover-up. Furthermore, given the extensive 2600-foot radius of this weapon's kill-range, it clearly is no "precision" weapon for targeting fighters, if any were even present......

Indeed, the very administration that is talking about calling Iranian Republican Guard troops "terrorists" is at this moment developing plans for an unprovoked aerial assault on Iran that would feature the dropping of 30,000-lb bombs, all manner of anti-personnel weapons, and possibly even tactical nuclear weapons, on Iranian targets, many of them in populated areas.

There is a word for this kind of behavior: terrorism."