🚀 go-pugleaf

p515dfi@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Daniel Fischer) writes:

>From ACTIV-L@UMCVMB.bitnet Mon Feb 18 16:02:50 1991 - it deserves more readers
>Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 18:57:31 CST
>From: csime%cdp@labrea.Stanford.EDU

>BUSH'S WAR OF ANNIHILATION

>By Dr. Michio Kaku
>Professor of Nuclear Physics
>City University of New York
>     The magnitude of these murderous strikes defies
>imagination.  In the first three weeks, 47,000 sorties were
>sent over Iraq.  (By contrast, during Nixon's infamous
>Christmas bombing of Vietnam, only 2,500 sorties were sent
>to bomb Hanoi and Haiphong.)  There are 2,000 each day; a
But the X-mass bombing was deliberate city-busting in large part.

>   *  The laser weapons cleverly hide the fact that much of
>the brutal air war is fought with gravity (dumb) bombs.  For
>example, the carpet bombing by the huge B-52s is
>indiscriminate; each B-52G can drop 40,000 pounds of high
>explosives, which destroy everything in a swath one mile
>long and half a mile wide.  Every day, almost 30 B-52s have
>been dropping about 450 tons of high explosives in the war.
Almost entirely on Republican guard positions and on the military
sector of Basra.
>   *  The huge guns of battleships like the Missouri (which
>were used to rain death and destruction in Lebanon)
>regularly miss their targets and indiscriminately slaughter
>people in the killing zone.  These crude World War II
>vintage weapons are mainly terror weapons used to crush
>civilians and have marginal military value.  Each shell
>fired from the 16-inch guns can travel 25 miles and weighs
>as much as a Volkswagen.  Without any guidance systems
>whatsoever, they rarely hit their intended targets, but can
>create vast carnage to a civilian population.

Due to their short range and high firepower, they are being used to bombard
military positions along the coast.  (Probably where the two divisions are
dug in just north and south of Kuwait city.)  With a maximum range of
25 miles, they can't get close enough to Iraq to shell that country.

>   *  By the Pentagon's own estimate, 20% of the strikes
>have missed their targets, meaning that the destructive
>power of at least one Hiroshima bomb has exploded on non-
>military targets.  Military analysts who have studied the
>kill rate of smart weapons, point out that a 50% success
>rate for high-tech weapons is probably more realistic,
>meaning that perhaps half the tonnage dropped over Iraq has
>hit civilian targets.
Apples and Oranges.  Approximately 20% (in the initial days) of the strikes
were unable to aquire their targets, most of these brought their ordinance
home.  A 50% success rate for high-tech weapons is the rate at which targets
are knocked out.  A failure does not imply hitting a civillian target. A failure
might be narrowly missing a bridge and hitting the water, failing to explode,
only damaging a hanger etc.

>   *  The Pentagon has now finally admitted that pilots have
>been given the freedom to select their own targets.  This is
>partly because the Pentagon is rapidly running out of
>targets to hit.  Traveling faster than the speed of sound,
>without benefit of satellite pictures, these pilots cannot
>possibly distinguish civilian from military targets by
>eyesight.  This has vastly increased the destruction over
>Iraq.
Utter bullsh*t!  First, the freedom to select their own targets refers to
operations in and near (mostly in) the KTO.  Planes are sent on missions to
hit targets of opportunity, which means any tank, artillery, APC etc. they can
find.  This has been going on during the entire war, but has stepped up 
recently.  It is very counterproductive to extensively plane a strike on
a dug in tank platoon, it's just not large enough a target (plus it may have
moved.)  The author makes it sound as if the pilots were just sent over
Bagdad with instructions to hit what they wanted.  Secondly, military targets
can be distinguished from civilian.  An A-10 pilot, flying well below the 
speed of sound, and at low level, can presumably tell a tank from a mosque.
Especially in the open desert area in the KTO.  Third, no one ever flys
supersonic bombing missions.  (Actually, most planes can't go supersonic
with external ordinace, at least not with 2000kg bombs.)

>every building of significance in Iraq.  With fewer and
>fewer targets left to hit, the Pentagon, in frustration, is
>now hitting the same targets repeatedly, which only makes
>the rubble bounce.  With so many bombing raids, the U.S. is
Airfields and bridges get repaired.
>now accidentally killing its own Marines with Maverick
>missiles.
That happens quite a lot in warfare.  The only reason why its noticable
now to this extent is that the Iraqi's haven't been able to do much on their
own.

ami silberman - janitor of lunacy