My Favorite Weapons
Let me say right off the get-go here: I’m no pacifist, don’t play one on TV, don’t really believe in non-violence in a world that’s inherently violent. I’m no Martin Luther King and I’m no Mahatma Ghandi. On the other hand, I don’t go out of my way to get into fights and I’m happy to look like a coward if it will help me avoid one. Once, in high school our band went to some redneck town across the state and some banty hen yahoo wanted to fight me, I forget what the reasons were now, something stupid no doubt, probably the reason I forget. “Let’s go,” I said, seemingly raring to get into it. My would-be duelist put up his dukes right then and there in the pizza joint and I said, “Whoa, Tiger, I see your game. You start a fight right here in public and right away the owner comes over and stops it. You think I’m stupid, you just haven’t got the guts to fight.”
Well, this stopped my pugilist in his tracks. “Whadda ya mean?” he asked, worried that our bout was about to be cancelled. “I mean, you go out the back door first. We don’t go out together, don’t want to call attention to this. I’ll be out in half a minute and then you better be ready to take a beating like you never got before but you obviously need.” This guy was way dumber than I could believe, but he looked like he didn’t need brains to knock mine out. As soon as the back door closed, I was up and out the front, running down the empty streets of that yahoo town, hoping like hell he wouldn’t see me before I got to my hotel.
We just dropped a MOAB on Afghanistan. Taliban, I assume, the boyz we used to give SAM missiles to when they were fighting the Russians. Mother of all Bombs. Cute name, right? We launched 59 cruise missiles on Syria in response to them, somebody over there, using sarin gas to kill babies and kids and moms and dads. We don’t approve of sarin gas. We do approve of big ass bombs. Trump just sent an armada over to menace N. Korea, a show of force to maybe get them to rethink their nuclear ambitions. Okay for us to have nuclear ambitions, not for anybody else. Except maybe Pakistan. India. Oh, Isreal. Not Iran, though. Destabilize the Middle East. Did I mention Isreal?
It’s not that I’m okay with chemical warfare, don’t get me wrong. Mustard gas, sarin gas, bad, very bad. Nuclear, way bad. Bio-warfare, well, probably not okay. Cluster bombs, pretty bad. Nuclear tipped artillery, not as bad. Mines, sometimes okay, sometimes not. Saturation bombing, like in Germany, firestorms, deaths in the many thousands, nobody said much against that, so probably okay. MOAB, bunker busters, have at it. Drones, sure.
I realize the gentility of old school warfare is passe. Line up the archers on each side, let loose the longbows, next wave steps up, another round of arrows flies. At least we kept the civilians out of it. These days, collateral damage is justified, but not every version of weaponry. What I think is, killing is pretty much killing. Might be better to acknowledge that. Or just run out the front door.
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Tags: bully, cluster bombs, MOAB, nuclear warheads, sarin gas
Jesus wept.
In my grade school in Georgia, must’ve been about 6th grade, we had to recite the Pledge and then one of us munchkins had to read a passage from the Bible. When my turn came, I read ‘Jesus wept’ and sat down. Just before my teacher hauled me outside and berated me for being a smartass little Yankee who had no respect. She was right.