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Thread: Quagmire?

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    click here to read the quoted original
    Originally posted by http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti...49&ItemID=3812
    Bush's Vietnam

    by John Pilger
    New Statesman
    June 22, 2003

    America's two "great victories" since 11 September 2001 are unravelling. In Afghanistan, the regime of Hamid Karzai has virtually no authority and no money, and would collapse without American guns. Al-Qaeda has not been defeated, and the Taliban are re-emerging. Regardless of showcase improvements, the situation of women and children remains desperate. The token woman in Karzai's cabinet, the courageous physician Sima Samar, has been forced out of government and is now in constant fear of her life, with an armed guard outside her office door and another at her gate. Murder, rape and child abuse are committed with impunity by the private armies of America's "friends", the warlords whom Washington has bribed with millions of dollars, cash in hand, to give the pretence of stability.

    "We are in a combat zone the moment we leave this base," an American colonel told me at Bagram airbase, near Kabul. "We are shot at every day, several times a day." When I said that surely he had come to liberate and protect the people, he belly-laughed.

    American troops are rarely seen in Afghanistan's towns. They escort US officials at high speed in armoured vans with blackened windows and military vehicles, mounted with machine-guns, in front and behind. Even the vast Bagram base was considered too insecure for the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, during his recent, fleeting visit. So nervous are the Americans that a few weeks ago they "accidentally" shot dead four government soldiers in the centre of Kabul, igniting the second major street protest against their presence in a week.

    On the day I left Kabul, a car bomb exploded on the road to the airport, killing four German soldiers, members of the international security force Isaf. The Germans' bus was lifted into the air; human flesh lay on the roadside. When British soldiers arrived to "seal off" the area, they were watched by a silent crowd, squinting into the heat and dust, across a divide as wide as that which separated British troops from Afghans in the 19th century, and the French from Algerians and Americans from Vietnamese.

    In Iraq, scene of the second "great victory", there are two open secrets. The first is that the "terrorists" now besieging the American occupation force represent an armed resistance that is almost certainly supported by the majority of Iraqis who, contrary to pre-war propaganda, opposed their enforced "liberation" (see Jonathan Steele's investigation, 19 March 2003, www.guardian.co.uk). The second secret is that there is emerging evidence of the true scale of the Anglo-American killing, pointing to the bloodbath Bush and Blair have always denied.

    Comparisons with Vietnam have been made so often over the years that I hesitate to draw another. However, the similarities are striking: for example, the return of expressions such as "sucked into a quagmire". This suggests, once again, that the Americans are victims, not invaders: the approved Hollywood version when a rapacious adventure goes wrong. Since Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled almost three months ago, more Americans have been killed than during the war. Ten have been killed and 25 wounded in classic guerrilla attacks on roadblocks and checkpoints which may number as many as a dozen a day.

    The Americans call the guerrillas "Saddam loyalists" and "Ba'athist fighters", in the same way they used to dismiss the Vietnamese as "communists". Recently, in Falluja, in the Sunni heartland of Iraq, it was clearly not the presence of Ba'athists or Saddamists, but the brutal behaviour of the occupiers, who fired point-blank at a crowd, that inspired the resistance. The American tanks gunning down a family of shepherds is reminiscent of the gunning down of a shepherd, his family and sheep by "coalition" aircraft in a "no-fly zone" four years ago, whose aftermath I filmed and which evoked, for me, the murderous games American aircraft used to play in Vietnam, gunning down farmers in their fields, children on their buffaloes.

    On 12 June, a large American force attacked a "terrorist base" north of Baghdad and left more than 100 dead, according to a US spokesman. The term "terrorist" is important, because it implies that the likes of al-Qaeda are attacking the liberators, and so the connection between Iraq and 11 September is made, which in pre-war propaganda was never made.

    More than 400 prisoners were taken in this operation. The majority have reportedly joined thousands of Iraqis in a "holding facility" at Baghdad airport: a concentration camp along the lines of Bagram, from where people are shipped to Guantanamo Bay. In Afghanistan, the Americans pick up taxi drivers and send them into oblivion, via Bagram. Like Pinochet's boys in Chile, they are making their perceived enemies "disappear".

    "Search and destroy", the scorched-earth tactic from Vietnam, is back. In the arid south-eastern plains of Afghanistan, the village of Niazi Qala no longer stands. American airborne troops swept down before dawn on 30 December 2001 and slaughtered, among others, a wedding party. Villagers said that women and children ran towards a dried pond, seeking protection from the gunfire, and were shot as they ran. After two hours, the aircraft and the attackers left. According to a United Nations investigation, 52 people were killed, including 25 children. "We identified it as a military target," says the Pentagon, echoing its initial response to the My Lai massacre 35 years ago.

    The targeting of civilians has long been a journalistic taboo in the west. Accredited monsters did that, never "us". The civilian death toll of the 1991 Gulf war was wildly underestimated. Almost a year later, a comprehensive study by the Medical Education Trust in London estimated that more than 200,000 Iraqis had died during and immediately after the war, as a direct or indirect consequence of attacks on civilian infrastructure. The report was all but ignored. This month, Iraq Body Count, a group of American and British academics and researchers, estimated that up to 10,000 civilians may have been killed in Iraq, including 2,356 civilians in the attack on Baghdad alone. And this is likely to be an extremely conservative figure.

    In Afghanistan, there has been similar carnage. In May last year, Jonathan Steele extrapolated all the available field evidence of the human cost of the US bombing and concluded that as many as 20,000 Afghans may have lost their lives as an indirect consequence of the bombing, many of them drought victims denied relief.

    This "hidden" effect is hardly new. A recent study at Columbia University in New York has found that the spraying of Agent Orange and other herbicides on Vietnam was up to four times as great as previously estimated. Agent Orange contained dioxin, one of the deadliest poisons known. In what they first called Operation Hades, then changed to the friendlier Operation Ranch Hand, the Americans in Vietnam destroyed, in some 10,000 "missions" to spray Agent Orange, almost half the forests of southern Vietnam, and countless human lives. It was the most insidious and perhaps the most devastating use of a chemical weapon of mass destruction ever. Today, Vietnamese children continue to be born with a range of deformities, or they are stillborn, or the foetuses are aborted.

    The use of uranium-tipped munitions evokes the catastrophe of Agent Orange. In the first Gulf war in 1991, the Americans and British used 350 tonnes of depleted uranium. According to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, quoting an international study, 50 tonnes of DU, if inhaled or ingested, would cause 500,000 deaths. Most of the victims are civilians in southern Iraq. It is estimated that 2,000 tonnes were used during the latest attack.

    In a remarkable series of reports for the Christian Science Monitor, the investigative reporter Scott Peterson has described radiated bullets in the streets of Baghdad and radiation-contaminated tanks, where children play without warning. Belatedly, a few signs in Arabic have appeared: "Danger - Get away from this area". At the same time, in Afghanistan, the Uranium Medical Research Centre, based in Canada, has made two field studies, with the results described as "shocking". "Without exception," it reported, "at every bomb site investigated, people are ill. A significant portion of the civilian population presents symptoms consistent with internal contamination by uranium."

    An official map distributed to non-government agencies in Iraq shows that the American and British military have plastered urban areas with cluster bombs, many of which will have failed to detonate on impact. These usually lie unnoticed until children pick them up, then they explode.

    In the centre of Kabul, I found two ragged notices warning people that the rubble of their homes, and streets, contained unexploded cluster bombs "made in USA". Who reads them? Small children? The day I watched children skipping through what might have been an urban minefield, I saw Tony Blair on CNN in the lobby of my hotel. He was in Iraq, in Basra, lifting a child into his arms, in a school that had been painted for his visit, and where lunch had been prepared in his honour, in a city where basic services such as education, food and water remain a shambles under the British occupation.

    It was in Basra three years ago that I filmed hundreds of children ill and dying because they had been denied cancer treatment equipment and drugs under an embargo enforced with enthusiasm by Tony Blair. Now here he was - shirt open, with that fixed grin, a man of the troops if not of the people - lifting a toddler into his arms for the cameras.

    When I returned to London, I read "After Lunch", by Harold Pinter, from a new collection of his called War (Faber & Faber).

    And after noon the well-dressed creatures come To sniff among the dead And have their lunch

    And all the many well-dressed creatures pluck The swollen avocados from the dust And stir the minestrone with stray bones

    And after lunch They loll and lounge about Decanting claret in convenient skulls
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    John Pilger is a renowned journalist and documentary film-maker. A war correspondent and ZNet Commentator, his writings have appeared in numerous magazines, and newspapers such as the Daily Mirror, the Guardian, the Independent, New Statesman, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and other newspapers and periodicals around the world. His books include Heroes (2001) Hidden Agendas (1998) and Distant Voices (1994).
    i have been in doubt of the efficacy of these policies for sometime, for how long do north americans think that the ostrich defence for bad news is wise to uphold?
    are these failures of planning 'afterwards' phases for these recent wars defensible? what are the reasons for supporting these deadly follies?

  2. The Drawing Room   -   #2
    Rat Faced's Avatar Broken
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    Hey, ask ShockAndAwe or FallenKnight.

    People throughout the world hate USA for what they have, not what they do...
    <sarcasm>


    BTW:

    John Pilger isnt a "Leftie", he&#39;s just as scathing against Left Wing governments (probably more so in fact )

    An It Harm None, Do What You Will

  3. The Drawing Room   -   #3
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    Why ask me?
    I never said we were pure, but This article has more holes than a block of swiss cheese.
    It figures Rat Faced would gobble it right up.

    It&#39;s full of "shhhh it&#39;s secret and we found out about it" with absolutely no proof at all.
    Who is this group of American and British academics and researchers.
    Talk about vague&#33;
    You present this..ahem, article as though it has hard facts and I see very few if any.

    Who is Jonathan Steele and where did he get his numbers?
    How can we verify any of those numbers or for that matter anything the writer of the article says?

    As for the "uranium contamination" you are very quick to believe that it&#39;s the US&#39;s fault and not the Evil regime we excised from the region.
    Agent orange may be the only facts here, and I mean maybe.

    An official map distributed to non-government agencies in Iraq shows that the American and British military have plastered urban areas with cluster bombs,
    Of course there were bombs dropped in urban area&#39;s...remember the Iraqi cowards setup most of there military operations in urban areas including schools, hospitals and peoples houses.
    Whom they forced to fight and when they tried to get away they were shot.
    Hell, they used their own people as cover.

    This story writer keeps referring to cluster bombs and only cluster bombs being used in urban area&#39;s.
    I think he has it in for the US, as cluster bombing in urban area&#39;s is a ridiculous choice.
    The whole world saw first hand (on TV even) what we used.
    Their were thousands of reporters there when we did it and not one of them says that he witnessed a cluster bombing of Baghdad.
    Except this writer, who only went there after the fact.
    The writer of this article has an obvious anti US bias.
    I&#39;m surprised you posted it, but not that you believe it.

    Show me real proof that cluster bombs were used in the Iraqi hood.

  4. The Drawing Room   -   #4
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    Originally posted by ShockAndAwe^i^+30 June 2003 - 16:23--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ShockAndAwe^i^ &#064; 30 June 2003 - 16:23)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Why ask me?
    I never said we were pure, but This article has more holes than a block of swiss cheese.
    It figures Rat Faced would gobble it right up.

    It&#39;s full of "shhhh it&#39;s secret and we found out about it" with absolutely no proof at all.
    Who is this group of American and British academics and researchers.[/b]

    the reason RF asked you i presume is that you are such a vocal supporter of US policy, therefore maybe you should be able to argue in it&#39;s favour
    you have also posted media articles supporting your views, yet have to deride this one though childish taunts, and in terms of not presenting any evidence supporting your position, you are one of the worst offenders

    so in hindsight maybe suggesting you could defend the US position might be ill-founded

    back to those facts and your questions;

    i think the US/UK researchers are; http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
    Originally posted by ShockAndAwe^i^+30 June 2003 - 16:23--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ShockAndAwe^i^ &#064; 30 June 2003 - 16:23)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
    Talk about vague&#33;
    You present this..ahem, article as though it has hard facts and I see very few if any.[/b]

    everyone managed to research references in news stories without hyperlinks or internet searches for hundreds of years, it&#39;s not vague just the way journalism works.
    in terms of hard facts where are the WMD? where are the &#39;hard facts&#39; leading the USA to the presumption that war should be waged for WMD?
    once again you negate evidence presented by others, while not presenting any support for your own position

    Originally posted by ShockAndAwe^i^@30 June 2003 - 16:23

    Who is Jonathan Steele and where did he get his numbers?
    How can we verify any of those numbers or for that matter anything the writer of the article says?
    i think Johnathan Steele is a journalist working mostly for the UK paper &#39;The Guardian&#39;

    Originally posted by ShockAndAwe^i^@30 June 2003 - 16:23

    As for the "uranium contamination" you are very quick to believe that it&#39;s the US&#39;s fault and not the Evil regime we excised from the region.
    US standard issue munitions from heavy machine guns to anti-tank shells and rocket tips are all DU
    DU and any uranium have been embargoed from importation into iraq for over 12 years
    the USA/UK is THE ONLY supplier of uranium to iraq in that time and it has all been delivered by weapons systems
    to argue that the &#39;evil regime&#39; that the USA liberated iraq from caused the DU contamination demonstrates that you cannot deal with reality
    or that you think that women dressed attractively deserve to be raped
    Originally posted by ShockAndAwe^i^@30 June 2003 - 16:23

    Agent orange may be the only facts here, and I mean maybe.

    An official map distributed to non-government agencies in Iraq shows that the American and British military have plastered urban areas with cluster bombs,
    Of course there were bombs dropped in urban area&#39;s...remember the Iraqi cowards setup most of there military operations in urban areas including schools, hospitals and peoples houses.
    Whom they forced to fight and when they tried to get away they were shot.
    Hell, they used their own people as cover.

    This story writer keeps referring to cluster bombs and only cluster bombs being used in urban area&#39;s.
    I think he has it in for the US, as cluster bombing in urban area&#39;s is a ridiculous choice.
    The whole world saw first hand (on TV even) what we used.
    Their were thousands of reporters there when we did it and not one of them says that he witnessed a cluster bombing of Baghdad.
    Except this writer, who only went there after the fact.
    you are telling lies or have only read pro-US media
    cluster bombs were specifically developed with area denial/destruction of urban areas in mind [much better than mines in such situations]

    i saw very little of what actually went down from all the &#39;embedded&#39; journos, lots of kids talking double-speak and looking scared, cruise missile launches, and artillery divisions and transport convoys.
    i saw no fighting or examinations of the remains of battle from media under the guidance of US forces
    [i did hear and read reports from embedded sources that US forces deployed napalm though]
    <!--QuoteBegin-ShockAndAwe^i^
    @30 June 2003 - 16:23

    The writer of this article has an obvious anti US bias.
    I&#39;m surprised you posted it, but not that you believe it.

    Show me real proof that cluster bombs were used in the Iraqi hood.
    [/quote]
    do you have a pro-US blindness?
    real proof? like the proof we went to war for?
    but here you go hypocrit, from the horses mouth;
    <!--QuoteBegin-http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0415-13.htm

    The U.S. Central Command acknowledged Monday in response to questions from Newsday that U.S. forces have hit urban areas of Baghdad with "cluster bombs,” which scatter hundreds of small "submunitions” in an area the size of a football field.

    A CentCom spokeswoman said that the cluster bombs were aimed at Iraqi missile systems and artillery and that "we had to use them in an urban environment because that was where Saddam Hussein put those weapons.”

    Human rights groups want cluster bombs banned because their hundreds of grenade-like explosives scatter widely, sometimes out of combat areas, and can linger for years, detonating unexpectedly.

    "From a humanitarian perspective, you don&#39;t use them, because they&#39;re very hard to target,” Goose said. He also noted that they have a high failure rate -- up to 25 percent -- leaving hundreds of bomblets "lying on the ground acting like little landmines.”
    [/quote]
    so maybe you should give us some real reasons why your position is sound, rather than just wasting you own time as you have, demonstrating nothing except your blind patriotism
    tell us why you feel justified as a US cit?

  5. The Drawing Room   -   #5
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    Originally posted by echidna@29 June 2003 - 06:46

    i have been in doubt of the efficacy of these policies for sometime, for how long do north americans think that the ostrich defence for bad news is wise to uphold?
    are these failures of planning &#39;afterwards&#39; phases for these recent wars defensible? what are the reasons for supporting these deadly follies?
    The Bush Administration&#39;s increasingly obvious misperception of the realities facing them in the Middle East ( and, obviously, Iraq in particular) shows that they were woefully unprepared to deal with the aftermath of their decisions.

    Bush had the luxury of studying a successful blueprint of how to deal with the aftermath of war- Japan, and apparently couldn&#39;t be bothered.

    As an American citizen there is little I can do personally outside of not voting for him in the upcoming election.

    What would you like to see happen, Echidna?
    "I am the one who knocks."- Heisenberg

  6. The Drawing Room   -   #6
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    Originally posted by clocker+30 June 2003 - 22:10--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (clocker &#064; 30 June 2003 - 22:10)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-echidna@29 June 2003 - 06:46

    i have been in doubt of the efficacy of these policies for sometime, for how long do north americans think that the ostrich defence for bad news is wise to uphold?
    are these failures of planning &#39;afterwards&#39; phases for these recent wars defensible? what are the reasons for supporting these deadly follies?
    The Bush Administration&#39;s increasingly obvious misperception of the realities facing them in the Middle East ( and, obviously, Iraq in particular) shows that they were woefully unprepared to deal with the aftermath of their decisions.

    Bush had the luxury of studying a successful blueprint of how to deal with the aftermath of war- Japan, and apparently couldn&#39;t be bothered.

    As an American citizen there is little I can do personally outside of not voting for him in the upcoming election.

    What would you like to see happen, Echidna?[/b][/quote]
    i&#39;d like to see a lot more americans expressing their disappointment at the failures of the current administration as you have clocker.
    the power of each of your votes is a sorely under-rated thing

    it is interesting that you chose the example of japan, as i had been thinking of the post war reconstruction of west germany as an example of a well planned and executed post-conflict reconstruction
    it goes to show that there is more than one example of the US dealing with the post conflict issue much better than has been demonstrated since
    these two examples not only demonstrate that the US can oversee successful reconstructions, but demonstrate that the US can foster truly great and independent democratic nations to develop from the ashes of war

    [the example of japan also shows that extremely difficult cultural and linguistic complexities can be overcome and even that the potential back-lash which could be expected from the only atomic target in history can be overcome :: which unfortunately calls the current administrations actions[or lack there of] into further question]

    specifically in this thread i&#39;d like to see the reasons people have for supporting bushes policy now [not that your lack of support for the bush administration is not heartening to me ]

  7. The Drawing Room   -   #7
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    cluster bombs were specifically developed with area denial/destruction of urban areas in mind
    They were actually developed to take out airfields, POL points (fuel dumps), Ammo compounds and areas held by a regiment or greater in the open...not Urban areas.

    Whoever ordered that they be used on an Urban area is a fool, they would cause widespread collateral damage, without necessarily touching the actual target......so i doubt it was an entirely military decision.



    The Gardian is a newspaper, not a tabloid. It is the only National Newspaper in the UK that doesnt lean to left or right....its straight down the middle (for information)

    An It Harm None, Do What You Will

  8. The Drawing Room   -   #8
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    Originally posted by echidna@30 June 2003 - 07:59

    i&#39;d like to see a lot more americans expressing their disappointment at the failures of the current administration as you have clocker.
    the power of each of your votes is a sorely under-rated thing

    The papers are full of people expressing their disappointment over the way things are being handled. Probably branded as "leftists" or "Democrats"(gasp&#33, but expressing dismay, nonetheless.

    So what?

    Bush is at the helm for at least another year, so suck it up and get used to it.

    Personally, I think that Bush is turning into the biggest public relations disaster since Richard Nixon. It is almost inconcievable that he will be reelected based on merit, but it&#39;s hard to discount the massive money machine that is the Republican Party and the amount of power that said money affords them.
    Given the success that Bush has had propagating his version of "the big lie" it&#39;s hard to buy into the "liberal media" control that we supposedly suffer from, isn&#39;t it?
    "I am the one who knocks."- Heisenberg

  9. The Drawing Room   -   #9
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    Originally posted by Rat Faced+1 July 2003 - 03:11--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Rat Faced &#064; 1 July 2003 - 03:11)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
    cluster bombs were specifically developed with area denial/destruction of urban areas in mind
    They were actually developed to take out airfields, POL points (fuel dumps), Ammo compounds and areas held by a regiment or greater in the open...not Urban areas.

    Whoever ordered that they be used on an Urban area is a fool, they would cause widespread collateral damage, without necessarily touching the actual target......so i doubt it was an entirely military decision.



    The Gardian is a newspaper, not a tabloid. It is the only National Newspaper in the UK that doesnt lean to left or right....its straight down the middle (for information)[/b]

    CBU munitions are the most common &#39;cluster bomb&#39; used today;

    Originally posted by http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/cbu-87.htm+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ons/cbu-87.htm)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The CBU-87/B Combined Effects Munitions (CEM) is an all-purpose, air-delivered cluster weapons system. A total of 202 Combined Effects Bomb (CEB) effective against armor, personnel and material, are loaded in each dispenser enabling a single payload attack against a variety and wide area coverage. The CBU-87 is a 1,000-pound, Combined Effects Munition (CEM) for attacking soft target areas with detonating bomblets. The CBU-87 CEM, an all-purpose, air-delivered cluster weapons system, consists of a SW-65 Tactical Munitions Dispenser (TMD) with an optional FZU-39 proximity sensor.

    "Combined Effects Munition ("CEM") system" means any unguided, air-delivered cluster bomb of the 1000-pound class designated by the United States Department of Defense as CBU-87, including but not limited to CBU-87/B, CBU-87(D-2)/B, CBU-87(T-1)/B, CBU-87(T-2)/B, CBU-87(T-3)/B, CBU-87A/B, CBU-87B/B, and CBU-87C/B. Each CEM system consists of a cluster of 202 anti-armor, anti-personnel and incendiary bomblets that disperse over a discrete area and explode upon impact; a tactical munitions dispenser; a proximity sensor; and a shipping and storage container.
    [/b]

    please note the bold text is done by me to emphasise that these munitions are not currently intended only for the specific targets you detail RF, also note the use of the term &#39;soft target&#39; which has become synonymous with terrorist tactics, and usually indicating undefended and civilian targets.
    <!--QuoteBegin-http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/cbu-87.htm
    @
    [/quote]
    the sub-munitions are pretty little yellow things to find in a street, aren&#39;t they?
    i had thought they were intended for the destruction of airfields too, but my research indicated that other types of air delivered munition were more suitable for this nowadays, such as;
    <!--QuoteBegin-http://www.vectorsite.net/twbomb2.html

    the French Matra "Durandal" runway-cratering weapon, known in US service as the "BLU-107/B". The Durandal was based on the conceptually similar PAPAM "runway dibber" weapon, developed by Israel Military Industries (IMI) using Matra design concepts and employed during the 1967 Six-Day War.

    The USAF has purchased thousands of Durandals. The Durandal weighs about 195 kilograms (430 pounds) and is parachute-retarded after low-level drop. Once it achieves a nose-down attitude, it fires a rocket booster that slams it into the ground, where it explodes and blasts out the runway. It can penetrate up to 40 centimeters (16 inches) of concrete, and leaves a crater with an area of about 200 square meters (2,150 square feet). USAF F-111s could carry up to 12 of these weapons at a time, while French Mirage 2000s could handle a total of 8.
    [/quote]
    the &#39;67 war was a while ago now, so i don&#39;t think that cluster-bombs are the primary means of wrecking an airstrip anymore
    [if you have good electronic references on this RF i&#39;d love to read them :: it is also good to hear the guardian being defended for it&#39;s integrity too]

  10. The Drawing Room   -   #10
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    Echidna
    Every single view you have is clouded by your obvious anti US bias.
    I don&#39;t think you&#39;ve ever started or responded to a topic in any other way.
    I on the other hand have criticized my goverment on many occasions and would be allot more if I didn&#39;t have constantly defend her from outright lies, innuendo and outrageous insults.
    I think you would be very surprised&#33;

    If I hurled the same amount of insults (and I&#39;m only talking about insults here) at your country or any other country for that matter, I would be assailed from all directions.
    Maybe even banned from the board&#33;
    Do you ever start a non anti US topic in here?
    Hell, some you people are so anti US that topics started that have nothing to do with the US are turned into ones pretty quickly.
    I&#39;m not even going to directly respond to your retort because the content is obviously skewed to one thought and one thought alone-
    How can I bash the US today?
    MKULTRA/COINTELPRO
    Whistleblower


    Btw, Just because you can show weapons exist doesn&#39;t mean a whole lot.

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