Massive US Bunker Buster Bomb ‘Ready to Go’ July 28, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in War.Tags: boeing, bunker buster, conventional bomb, michael donley, roger hollander, u.s. military, war, war profiteering
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‘The world’s largest conventional bomb’
The U.S. mammoth bunker-buster bomb known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is ready to go today, the Air Force says.
“If it needed to go today, we would be ready to do that,” Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said Wednesday, according to the Air Force Times. “We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is ongoing. We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.”
A B-52 releases a test version of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) during a test of the weapon over White Sands Missile Range, N.M. in 2009. (DoD photo)
The Pentagon has spent over $300 million on the 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” that can hold 5000 pounds of explosives.
The Boeing-made bomb, described by the Telegraph as “the world’s largest conventional bomb” and Spencer Ackerman as a “mega-weapon for blowing up hidden factories of death,” is “a weapon system designed to accomplish a difficult, complicated mission of reaching and destroying our adversaries’ weapons of mass destruction located in well protected facilities,” according to the government’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
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Boeing’s mega-bunker-buster bomb during its first explosive test at White Sands Missile Range, 2007. (Photo/Wikimedia)
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I’m excited!! Now we can go after those evil-doers who oppose the growth of the Wall Street Empire all over the world!! Obomba and his two-party accomplices can kill more people for God and Country!! OR we can support Jill Stein and the Green Party and change the course of history, our choice is clear!!
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The Green Party should have gone with Roseanne Barr. Don’t you want people to know you still exist? The only way you would get any press would be to go with her.
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Ah, getting press, another reason to go with Roseanne. I checked out her statements when I first heard she was after the spot. I know a lot of eyes rolled (I was ready to roll mine) but I really liked what she had to say and I’d bet she would be good in office.
She would probably try to make things work (wot a concept). Despite the mouthy buffoon image I think she is smart (and she can keep that mouth). Would be interesting. Certainly, it would be hard to be the betrayal that Obama is.
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As I have written so many times, you don’t have to make a nuclear attack to create a nuclear catastrophe. All you need is to hit the control and cooling equipment for a reactor and you get instant Fukushima, probably X times worse, as there will be even less left to control with.
The megalomaniacal, greedy, amoral scum that dictate these policies have no empathy, no care about the horrors they so blithely inflict. Just another day at the office and how’s the bottom line looking today?
There has never been any proof or hard evidence that there is a nuclear weapons program in Iran. Every time a report to that effect comes out, Israel screams, “See, we have to destroy them now!!” The US says, “Yup, yer right! Here’s another $3 trillion from our taxpayers and some more super weapons. Use them with care. And now, back to the main issue, how to destroy our middle class and our infrastructure and how much profit can we expect?”
Remember, when the decision was being made as to where the Capitol should be, there was a great deal of arable land about; good for farming and dairy…
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It may have. I heard yesterday that our president has signed to give 700 MILLION to the 51st state for military assistance. WHF? Where is our Medicare for All? We are gonna need it after this. I feel like gw is still in office.
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Israel is not the 51st state, not even metaphorically. None of the 50 states gets subsidies and weapons the way we give them to Israel. To be metaphorically accurate, please refer to Israel as the 2nd capital of the USA, not the 51st state of the USA.
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Yet another way for the insane and impotent psychopaths to rape mother earth with their latest and greatest dildo toy. I also hereby suggest that the generals hold a lottery among themselves to see which one of them should be strapped to it when it is dropped. Or better yet let Obama and Netanyahu ride it down together. What a bunch of fools.
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The sooner the USA follows the Soviet Union into oblivion the safer we all will be.
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Imagine how many people in the USA and outside the USA have this same hope, and despair that it will not happen before we destroy the planet.
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Now Barack the Baby Killer has a non-nuclear way to attack Iran’s underground nuclear facility. He probably won’t do it until after the election, but if he wins Iran better watch out the second week of November.
No one in power has given serious thought to what Iran might do in response. Despite our massive naval and air power, Iran could block block shipping into and out of the Persian Gulf. Giant ships don’t do so well in narrow water ways and even shoulder held missiles would wreak havoc on the tankers or the fleet if it had to come close enough to provide direct protection for oil tankers.
Oil tankers have no mobility and must come very close to Iran’s coast to get to the Gulf of Oman and beyond. Iran has a modern military with the capacity to think outside the box.
If they use that bomb on Iran, the oil economy will crash.
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No one in power ever gives serious thought to new wars, except the compelling need to start them and maintain them in perpetuity. (Remeber Wolfowitz on the cost of invading Iraq? A few weeks and $17 billion, tops. And none of these people ever go to prison; instead they become World Bank presidents for outstanding service to Israel.) War is a profiteers’ racket, and the Boeing bomb is a perfect icon.
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“I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed up, but 10-20 million tops, depending on the breaks”
(General Buck Turgidson referring to US deaths in a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Russia -in Dr. Strangelove)
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HA! Dr Strangelove is exactly the character I pictured, a demented cowboy bucking a bronco down to its target.
Boeing … Boeing … Boom!
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I loved the manual in front of him that was entitled “World Targets in Megadeaths”. Brilliant movie.
These people are nuts. Einstein said that “you cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war”. I guess these idiots at Boeing and the Pentagon didn’t get the memo. -
Our oil economy will crash BUT the oil companies that get oil from places other than the middle east will Profit handsomely.
And the oil corps will also start salivating over the Iranian oil that a war with Iran will open up for them as it did in Iraq.
QE and free jack for the war profiteers and austerity for the rest of us.
Great system we’ve got here -
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What I fear is the loss of one or more U.S. carriers and the escalation that could lead to. Sooner or later that is likely to happen. I suspect that Iran has very effective anti-ship missiles we have never dealt with before. And who knows they may already have assembled atomic bombs.
– Cliff Gieseke
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What good is a weapon if it can not be used? A war budget if it can not be consumed? A president who won the Nobel Peace Prize if he can not lead us to another of his endless wars?
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All Wars are MAD…..Mutually Assured Destruction…Both on the Receiving end with the destruction of People (Humans), Ecosystems, Economies, Cultures and on the Giving End…with resources (economic, human) wasted on weapons….
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Don’t forget the banks and defense contractors who help both sides.
Why didn’t Pappy Bush go to jail?
Or all those that are funding the terrorist organization, MEK?
Silly me, rules only apply to the little people. -
Good Gawd! Do these aswipes that make these destructions of death even think of the pain, suffering and death their toys will bring to children?
I used to date an engineer who worked in the defense industry and just couldn’t understand it.
It was worse then dating the taxidermast.
I really hope there is a hell waiting for these cretins, but first I would have to believe in a being that can turn a blind eye to the suffering and cruelty we do to people. Women and children in thecsex trades.
2000 years of murdering each other. Many wars started over religions themselves.
I saw a poster earlier today hoping for an alien invasion.
I think we could use an intervention.
I imagine them watching us like Reality TV, wondering what dumbass move we will do nect.
Wars. Destroying the .planet. Letting the most vulnerable starve. You get the jist.
Any onevread Under the Dome by King? -
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These bunker busters will spew radioactive material for thousands of miles, reaching India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, if they are used on Iranian nuclear sites. Millions will develop cancer as a result.
Using these bunker busters will be no different to dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran.
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Yeah, what could possibly go wrong? Another war for Israel and a new jobs program. This is the pinnacle of human evolution.
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The champions of mass killings routinely violate every civilized standard of conduct as they build these bombs and are ready to interfere anywhere they feel like it even as they condem other countries. When we see the neocon queen Hillary Clinton all worked up about the civil war in Syria all we have to do is remember her enthusiastic support for the unnecessary slaughter in Iraq where her side killed over 100,000 people fto realize what a hypocrite she is.
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The wall street financial and military enforced empire has us all controlled now…anyone who disagrees is a terrorist…killing, exploitation and mahem are their business model…sounds like nurvana for the masses of the world to me!!
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This is how you spend your time and money when you’re so preemptively guilty about your own imperial behavior that you’re absolutely sure that blowback is on the way. The joint state of USrael is a league of psychotic putzes with the audacity and weapons to try to bring the world to their oily heel. They’re going to lose and destroy themselves instead—and the most damning thing of all will be that none of this was even necessary. They’d rather spend trillions on weapons than invest one dollar in building peace. So, to hell with them, where all the other maniacs of history reside.
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They’d rather spend trillions on weapons built for the sake of stealing oil and other natural resources than spend one dollar developing alternative, renewable, non-polluting energy sources.
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US pulled out of the UN Arms Transfer Treaty this AM. Followed by Russia and China.
Predicted this some time ago.
Senate wouldn’t have ratified it anyway. Many are crediting the NRA for mobilizing the opposition in the Senate.
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“War IS terrorism with a big budget !” Imperialist amerika’s kill budget is more than the top 18 other nations.
Along with economic collapse, the suffering caused by the fascist amerikan empire will soon drag the empire into the abyss ! -
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Clancynhad a great book where a pilot flew a jet into the Capital when everybody was there. SCOTUS, JCOS, Kongress.
Then, they started over with normal people being elected and theyrewrote thevtax code.
I love happy endings. -
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No doubt the Chinese have one that’s twice the size at half the price. Unimaginative and poorly educated Americans always 10 steps behind. *sigh*
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The Guardian article focuses on the fact that this weapon has been readied and in intended for use on Iran seven times.
Yet Iran is not mentioned in this article.
The Neocon fools in Washington want war with Iran, so war with Iran we shall have. It matters not which of the two corporate tools are elected. Obama promised AIPAC that we would be at war in a disgusting speech this Spring, and Romney’s only disagreement is that we should be at war already.
This will only all end with work stoppages and tens of thousands in the streets.
But, of course, that’s what the NDAA is for.
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$300 million for a weapns system or a new type of bomb is not a lot of money,,, after all a single B-2 bomber costs billions. …. But I wonder how many geothermal or solar power plants could be built with that little amount? Or maybe Helping Haiti to recover? Or a lot of other decent things.
We dropped 25,000 pound bombs on Vietnam and Iraq…. Does it really cost $300 million to enlarge them to 30,000 lbs?
And the photo of the bomb being dropped from that B-52-H model aircraft is not a 30,000 pound bomb, not even close….. That bomb pictured is smaller than a Hounddog missile…. A 25,000 pounder has the diameter of a tour bus.
And some asked if Isreal has them? Probably not, they don’t have any large bombers, but then they do have C-130 aircraft which can drop a huge bomb. …… Well anyway we gave or sold smaller bunker buster bombs to Isreal last year which can be carried by an F-15 fighter and are capable of taking out the nuclear facility in Iran.
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{The Boeing-made bomb, described by theTelegraph as “the world’s largest conventional bomb”}
i can’t wait to hear my liberal senators – cantwell and murray – fawning, on NPR, over the jobs this bomb sustains. gotta love the duopoly that works w/ the MIC.
…peace…
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Good timing since President Obama just announced strengthened ties with Israel including access to more powerful weapons. I guess this would qualify. I heard it on NPR but couldn’t find a source for the exact phrasing. How does that fit into an Obamabot’s fantasy world? Like Bush’s loyal supporters they are proud of their man’s martial instincts.
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The epitome of hate and destruction, you starve they kill! Seems ok to me I guess, but then so did Obama. Will it ever again be right?
Change is now how much change can a big bad bomb accomplished that would not be tied to the successful amount of its annihilation to things and life. You see it is beautiful BANG! Devastation–great job assholes–this ought to help the earth, eh?
Great times we are living in and such bright leaders–they may soon be glowing–maybe end times, eh?
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These are bombs designed to destroy the containment of nuclear reactors and nuclear refineries, so that their radioactive contents can be cast high and wide, so that we all can be contaminated, give birth to deformed babies and die of cancer. What are our government, our military personnel, our media, and we the population who vote for and pay for these weapons, thinking? We are not thinking.
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Having such weapons is alas another incentive to attack Iran. Even if Iran has a nuclear weapons program, and even if Iranian leaders are holocaust-denying zealots calling for wiping out Israel as has been alleged, any attack on Iran is still likely to be disastrous for the US and even more so for Iranians, Israelis and all the people of the Middle East with unforeseeable unintended consequences. I hope despite horrible new weapons, people of goodwill will try to get all sides to cool it before disaster happens.
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