Category: Technology

We Are Our Own Death Star

Who Needs Darth Vader?

BILL ASTORE

NOV 05, 2025

“Star Wars’“ fans will recall the Imperial Death Star, a ship the size of a small moon that was powerful enough to obliterate planets.

Who needs the Death Star when we humans are doing such a bang-up job of obliterating our planet?

This thought came to mind as a friend queried me about nuclear accidents. I recalled a piece I wrote in 2017 about various accidents we’ve had involving nuclear weapons. We’re incredibly lucky not to have nuked ourselves with megatons of thermonuclear explosive power and radiation.

Maybe we should echo Voltaire and cultivate our gardens while we’re still alive.

Anyhow, here’s my article from 2017, timely as ever as the Trump administration embraces new nukes and a “golden dome,” both representing yet another golden fleecing of American taxpayers.

The Threat of Nuclear Weapons to America

W.J. Astore (posted in April 2017)

Did you know the U.S. has built nearly 70,000 nuclear weapons since 1945? Did you know the U.S. Air Force lost a B-52 and two hydrogen bombs in an accident over North Carolina in 1961, and that one of those H-bombs was a single safety-switch away from exploding with a blast equivalent to three or four million tons of TNT (roughly 200 Hiroshima-type bombs)? Did you know a U.S. nuclear missile exploded in its silo in Arkansas in 1980, throwing its thermonuclear warhead into the countryside?

nuclear_explosion_AP
On more the one occasion, the U.S. has come close to nuking itself

That last accident is the subject of a PBS American Experience documentary that I watched last night, “Command and Control.” I highly recommend it to all Americans, not just for what it reveals about nuclear accidents and the lack of safety, but for what it reveals about the U.S. military.

Here are a few things I learned about U.S. nuclear weapons and the military from the documentary:

  1. During the silo accident, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) general in charge of nuclear missiles was a pilot with no experience in missiles. His order to activate a venting fan during a fuel leak led to the explosion that destroyed the missile and killed an airman. (Experts from Martin Marietta, the military contractor that built the Titan II missile, advised against such action.)
  2. Airmen who courageously tried against long odds to mitigate the accident, and who were wounded in the explosion, were subsequently punished by the Air Force.
  3. The Air Force refused to provide timely and reliable knowledge to local law enforcement as well as to the Arkansas governor (then Bill Clinton) and senators. Even Vice President Walter Mondale was denied a full and honest accounting of the accident.
  4. Nuclear safety experts concluded that “luck” played a role in the fact that the Titan’s warhead didn’t explode. It was ejected from the silo without its power source, but if that power source had accompanied the warhead as it flew out of the silo, an explosion equivalent to two or three megatons could conceivably have happened.
  5. Finally, the number of accidents involving U.S. nuclear weapons is far greater than the military has previously reported. Indeed, even the nation’s foremost expert in nuclear weapons development was not privy to all the data from these accidents.

In short, the U.S. has been very fortunate not to have nuked itself with multiple hydrogen bombs over the last 70 years. Talk today of a threat from North Korea pales in comparison to the threat posed to the U.S. by its own nuclear weapons programs and their hair-raising record of serious accidents and safety violations.

Despite this record, President Obama and now President Trump have asked for nearly a trillion dollars over the next generation to modernize and improve U.S. nuclear forces. Talk about rewarding failure!

Threatening genocidal murder is what passes for “deterrence,” then and now. This madness will continue as long as people acquiesce to the idea the government knows best and can be trusted with nuclear weapons that can destroy vast areas of our own country, along with most of the world.

To end the insanity, we must commit to eliminating nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan saw the wisdom of total nuclear disarmament. So should we all.

An Addendum: In my Air Force career, I knew many missileers who worked in silos. They were dedicated professionals. But accidents happen, and complex weapons systems fail often in complex and unpredictable ways. Again, it’s nuclear experts themselves who say that luck has played a significant role in the fact that America hasn’t yet nuked itself. (Of course, we performed a lot of above-ground nuclear testing in places like Nevada, making them “no-go” places to this day due to radiation.)

Update (4/27/17): I’d heard of Air Force plans to base nuclear weapons on the moon, but today I learned that a nuclear test was contemplated on or near the moon as a way of showcasing American might during the Cold War. As the New York Times reported, “Dr. [Leonard] Reiffel revealed that the Air Force had been interested in staging a surprise lunar explosion, and that its goal was propaganda. ‘The foremost intent was to impress the world with the prowess of the United States.’ It was a P.R. device, without question, in the minds of the people from the Air Force.” Dr. Reiffel further noted that, “The cost to science of destroying the pristine lunar environment did not seem of concern to our sponsors [the U.S. military] — but it certainly was to us, as I made clear at the time.”

The U.S. military wasn’t just content to pollute the earth with nuclear radiation: they wanted to pollute space and the moon as well. All in the name of “deterrence.”

Two pictures of above-ground nuclear testing in Nevada in 1955

Atom Bomb Blast
Atom Bomb Blast
Here’s a tip, ladies: Wear light-colored dresses during a nuclear war. They absorb less heat

Autonomous Killer Drone Swarms

“New Forms of Domination and Oppression”

BILL ASTORE

AUG 27, 2025

Just what we need: autonomous killer drone swarms powered by algorithms and AI.

Part 3 of the excellent Al Jazeera documentary The Business of War focuses on Israel’s use of killer drones in Gaza. The trend is toward “fully autonomous weapons”—drone swarms that rely on algorithms to identify targets to hit and humans to kill. Officially, a human is still supposed to make the final decision to strike, but in some cases the operator has only 20 seconds to give a “go” or “no go.” And, let’s be honest, the system drives operators toward “go.”

The documentary is especially powerful in showing the devastation in Gaza (images of Stalingrad in World War II come to mind), the deliberate killing of journalists (a war crime), and how drones are used not just for killing but as tools of intimidation and control.

Images of AI-enabled drone swarms chasing and killing people recall scenes from the Terminator films. But as the documentary notes, the danger right now isn’t some future Skynet—it’s how these drones have already emerged as “new forms of domination and oppression.”

Almost as troubling is the military-corporate fusion as these drone swarms are supported by “cloud” resources supplied by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. A new conceit boasts of Israel as an “AI superpower,” even as corporations make a killing in profits.

All this technology, all this high-tech prowess, is fueling a holocaust in Gaza. Eisenhower warned us in 1953 that humanity might crucify itself on a cross of iron. Looking at today’s autonomous weapons, perhaps we’ve chosen a different cross—one made of silicon.

War, the Intelligence Community, and the Deep State

Judging Freedom in America

BILL ASTORE

AUG 24, 2025

Last Tuesday, I appeared again on Judge Napolitano’s show. We talked about the Russia-Ukraine War and President Trump’s efforts to foster a peace deal, as well as the so-called Deep State and (briefly) the CIA.

The show’s lede raises a provocative question: Can America be rid of the CIA? Anything is possible in theory; the problem is the sprawling size and enormous power of the so-called intelligence community, or IC. (This idea of “community” was already a euphemism in the 1970s, as the movie “Three Days of the Condor” reveals; I’ve always liked how Robert Redford’s character scoffs at the “community” conceit.)

There are eighteen (18!) agencies that make up the IC with a combined yearly budget just north of $100 billion. For all that spending on intelligence, America has not fared well in recent wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. A bureaucracy of that size and reach is difficult to corral and control, especially since its budget keeps rising. Threat inflation is a major component of these rising budgets; you’re not going to get a threat assessment from the IC that says, well, actually, America’s pretty safe, let’s spend money on infrastructure, education, and social uplift.

As Chuck Schumer once said about Trump’s efforts to challenge the IC, the community has “six ways from Sunday” to get back at the president. That is, of course, more than worrisome. POTUS is supposed to command the IC; the IC is supposed to serve the president while upholding the U.S. Constitution. The IC shouldn’t scheme to “get back” at the president—any president.

My guess is that Trump has learned that lesson from Schumer. He’s appeasing the IC by giving it more and more money. Meanwhile, a Trump loyalist, Tulsi Gabbard, is trying to exert a measure of control as DNI, or Director of National Intelligence. I can’t imagine the in-fighting going in within the “community” as Gabbard releases files that suggest elements within the IC put their thumbs on the scale against Trump’s runs for president.

Eighteen agencies, $100 billion, and less than impressive results suggest a deep state that is out of control and in urgent need of major reform. Meanwhile, Edward Snowden’s revelations show a power structure that is more than willing to illegally spy on and surveil Americans.

For democracy to prosper, Americans need privacy and the government should be transparent to and controllable by the people. Instead, the IC is shrouded in secrecy and Americans are the ones whose lives are transparent to and controllable by the IC. 

Of course, I’m not suggesting the IC is peeking under every door—unless you’re some kind of crazy dissident who believes genocide is wrong and the military-industrial complex is dangerous. You know—someone like Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Teaching in the Age of AI

Unthinking Robots for the Man?

BILL ASTORE

AUG 19, 2025

AI, of course, stands for artificial intelligence, and I’ve played with it here at Bracing Views. I’ve used ChatGPT and DeepSeek to write critical essays on the military-industrial complex, critiquing the results in my posts. Overall, I was impressed—and glad that I no longer have to wade through student essays completed outside of class.

I stopped teaching eleven years ago, before AI was available. Of course, the Internet was, and I did have students who cut and paste from sources online. Usually, I could tell; I would do a search using a “student” passage that just sounded a bit too good, and often whole paragraphs would come up that the student lazily cut and pasted into an assignment as their own work. Those were easy papers to grade. F!

Today’s AI programs make this more difficult. If I were teaching today, I’d assign fewer essays outside of class, and I’d probably bow to reality and allow students to use AI to help clarify their arguments.

The challenge remains: In this new world of AI, how do you evaluate student performance in a humanities course where research and writing skills are important, along with some command of the facts and an ability to think critically about them?

I’d likely employ a mix of the old and new. Standard exams—the usual multiple choice, short answer, written essay, all completed in the classroom—still have a role. But I’d incorporate AI too, especially for class discussion.

Consider, for example, debating the merits (and demerits) of the military-industrial complex. AI can easily write short essays both in favor and against (or even an essay that examines the pros and cons of the MIC). Those essays could then be used in class to tease out the complexities of the MIC, and how evidence can be used (manipulated?) to tell vastly different stories.

Another example: Should atomic bombs have been used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Again, AI can easily write essays in favor, or against, or “neutral” (pros and cons again). Those short essays could then form the basis for class discussion and further debate.

In a way, AI is a selective manifestation of evidence that is already out there. And there’s the rub. Who’s doing the selecting? Who’s writing the algorithms? Which evidence is being favored and which is being suppressed or disregarded?

AI, as I understand it, uses algorithms that favor certain kinds of evidence over other kinds. Generally speaking, AI favors “official” sources, e.g. government documents, mainstream media reporting, scholarly think tanks with credentials, and so on.

Alternatively, it’s possible AI could gather information from less than reputable sources. Again, what algorithms are being used? What are the agendas of those behind the AI in question?

To students, AI is something of a black box. It spits out answers without a lot of sourcing (unless you specifically ask for it). Students in a hurry may not care—they just want answers. But as Tom Cruise demands In A Few Good Men: “I want the truth.” What happens when AI Colonel Jessup decides, “You can’t handle the truth” and feeds us convenient half-truths and propaganda. Will students even care? Will they have the skills to recognize they’re being misled? Or that they’re not getting the full story?

That’s what I worry about. Students who simply accept what AI has to say. Not that they learned nothing—but that they learned exactly what they were programmed to learn. Strangely, in this scenario, the students themselves are reduced to automatons. And I don’t think most students want to be unthinking robots for the Man.

Or do they?

Postscript: Over at his new Substack site, Mike Neiberg is tackling AI and the humanities. Check it out at michaelneiberg.substack.com.

Trinity, 80 Years Later

Haunted by Thermonuclear Nightmares

BILL ASTORE

JUL 22, 2025

This month marks the 80th anniversary of the Trinity test, the first explosion of an atomic device in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Next month, of course, marks the grim anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of August 6 and 9, 1945. The atomic nightmares of those two cities have morphed into the thermonuclear nightmare of far more powerful nuclear weapons that continues to haunt us still. The U.S. and Russia combined have roughly 11,000 nuclear warheads and bombs of various types, most of them far more powerful than those used against Japan 80 years ago.

The short clip of the Trinity test above is all the more haunting because it’s silent and in black and white.

I’ve walked the Trinity test site and co-taught a course at the Air Force Academy on the making and use of the atomic bomb. Walking the site was an eerie experience. I did it in 1992. Once was enough.

So much pressure was applied to get the atomic “gadget” to work that the scientists and government were reckless. Shrouding it all in secrecy didn’t help. The “downwinders” — those who lived in the path of radioactive fallout from the test —they weren’t given much consideration, if any. Certainly, the effects of radiation and fallout weren’t fully known and were likely underestimated. That said, the government should have taken far more care here. Check out the documentary Trinity released earlier this year, which focuses on these “downwinders” and how they suffered from the blast. As one of the interviewees suggests, the government’s attitude may have been that only a few Indians and Mexicans lived in the area, an attitude summed up by “collateral damage,” a common if unseemly euphemism used all too frequently today.

Readers may recall a podcast I did on Trinity and our leaders’ cavalier attitude toward nuclear weapons: https://bracingviews.substack.com/p/playing-with-nuclear-matches

Historians will forever debate whether the atomic bombings were necessary or if they served to shorten the war. The documentary “The Day After Trinity” by Jon Else is just superb here. My reading of the events is that there was never any doubt the atomic bomb would be used. Luckily for the Germans, VE Day came before Trinity. But the Japanese were still resisting, so they became the new target.

The only man who could have stopped the bombing was President Harry Truman–and he wasn’t about to stop it. A new president, not even elected, who didn’t even know about the bomb until FDR died: Truman used the bomb because it was the easiest path to take. All pressure was on ending the war as quickly as possible, so why not use the bomb? After all, the U.S. continued its firebombing raids on Japanese cities well after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This is the inexorable logic of near-total war. The only consolation is that nuclear weapons haven’t been dropped on a city since 1945. That is one valuable legacy from Hiroshima/Nagasaki: some recognition of the horror unleashed there. Nevertheless, U.S. presidents from Obama to Trump to Biden and Trump again are forging ahead with new nuclear weapons—always in the stated cause of “deterrence,” naturally.

It’s staggering the money dedicated to total destruction in the cause of preventing total destruction. It’s a powerful reason to remember what Trinity unleashed 80 years ago, and the price the Japanese paid at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unless we wise up as a species, it absolutely can happen again at levels of destruction that are simply unfathomable.

Nuclear disarmament, not rearmament, is the only sensible policy here.

Golden Dome Idiocy

A “shield” against nuclear attack makes nuclear war more likely

BILL ASTORE

JUN 09, 2025

Donald Trump has a dream: a “golden dome” over America to defend the country against nuclear missiles. It’s a repeat of Ronald Reagan’s dream, the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed “Star Wars” after the movie. The problem is that the dream represents a nightmare.

How so? Golden Dome would be dangerously escalatory, wildly expensive, and unlikely to work as a “shield” to America. It is worse than a mistake: it is a crime. It represents a massive theft from those who hunger and suffer in America. As Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 1953, wasting enormous resources on weapons systems is no way of life at all. It is humanity crucifying itself on a cross of iron. Crucifixion is not made more pleasant when the cross is golden.

A new golden idol occupies his mind

Put differently, the Golden Dome is a golden idol, a false god, one that by making a massive nuclear strike more likely endangers all of us and God’s creation.

Golden Dome is a grotesque example of makework militarism and warfare as welfare for weapons makers. Though it’s unlikely to work, if it did (partially) it would make a massive nuclear strike more likely, not less, endangering the world with the ecocidal terror of nuclear winter.

Golden Dome and the so-called investment in America’s nuclear triad are both examples of socio-technological madness–America’s leaders are like the mutants in “Beneath the Planet of the Apes,” worshipping the bombs that twisted them and which can only destroy what’s left of civilization.

Some Christians today await the apocalypse when Christ is supposed to return–but the most likely apocalypse features not the second coming of a God-man but a third world war featuring bomb-gods of thermonuclear destruction.

As Daniel Ellsberg once noted, U.S. nuclear attack plans in the early 1960s envisioned 600 million killed, or 100 Holocausts (before we knew such an attack would lead to nuclear winter). We’re lucky this insanity never came to pass. The only sane policy is to cancel Golden Dome and end “investment” in a new nuclear triad. Disarmament, not rearmament, is what’s needed.

*****

The Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space has released a statement against Golden Dome that you can read here. You can add your name to the statement, as I have. Here are some bullet points released along with the statement:

  • Golden Dome is financially reckless and unsustainable. Early cost estimates range from $550 billion to several trillion dollars over two decades. This dwarfs even the Pentagon’s annual budget and adds to the US’s $37 trillion national debt—a price tag that makes the project fiscally indefensible.
  • Experts overwhelmingly agree that 100% effective missile interception is a fantasy, especially against complex attacks involving decoys, hypersonic missiles, and maneuverable warheads. Even Israel’s Iron Dome has been bypassed by more rudimentary drone and missile attacks.
  • Golden Dome includes space-based interceptors—effectively weaponizing the Earth’s orbit and triggering an arms race. This violates the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty and pushes nations like China and Russia to accelerate space weapons development.
  • By giving the illusion of first-strike survivability, it runs counter to the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine that has prevented so far a nuclear holocaust and incentivizes other powers to retain or expand their nuclear arsenals, blocking disarmament efforts permanently.
  • Thousands of rocket launches for satellite interceptors would further damage the ozone layer, could generate dangerous orbital debris (Kessler Syndrome), and will harm our already fragile space environment.
  • The only guaranteed winners of Golden Dome are weapons giants like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Palantir, which stand to profit enormously regardless of the system’s effectiveness or risks.
  • The trillions funneled into Golden Dome could be used for urgent domestic priorities—such as healthcare, infrastructure, climate action, and education, directly benefiting millions of Americans.

In short, Golden Dome is a massive, dangerous, and futile vanity project, cloaked in patriotism but driven by profit, politics, and illusion.

Zuckerberg Tells a Truth

W.J. Astore

Ready for Your AI “Friends”?

I caught this snippet from Mark Zuckerberg, guru of Facebook:

There’s this stat that I always think is crazy. The average American, I think has, I think it’s fewer than three friends, three people that they’d consider friends and the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it’s like 15 friends or something.

If you’re familiar with Facebook, every personal contact you make on there is categorized as a “friend.” When you want to add someone to your Facebook page, you “friend” them. Alternatively, when you want to get rid of someone, you “unfriend” them.

Now, the typical Facebook user has roughly 200-300 “friends.” What Zuckerberg is unintentionally revealing in that snippet above is that Facebook “friends” aren’t real friends. They’re mostly acquaintances. People we’ve met once or twice, maybe even people we’ve never met. They’re not close friends, intimate friends, “real” friends. 

So why call them “friends,” Facebook? For obvious reasons. Just about anyone would like more friends, and indeed I know people with over 2000 “friends” on Facebook. But, again, how many close or intimate friends can you really have?

That’s where Zuckerberg comes in, yet again, riding to the rescue with AI “friends.” Yes, he’s suggesting that the solution to loneliness in America, our lack of intimacy, is AI programs that will be your “friend,” a little bit like the movie “Her” with Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson.

So, I suppose you’ll soon be able to buy AI “friends” from Mark Zuckerberg or someone like him. Or perhaps they’ll be offered for “free,” as Facebook is, with your most intimate data being sold to the highest bidder.

I really don’t want AI “friends.” I have a few real friends, people I’ve known for decades, people I do feel close to, and I’m lucky to have them. Two quick lessons come to mind. First, of course, friends aren’t perfect. They can be annoying, frustrating, maddening. (Guess what? I can be too.) Part of being a friend and keeping one is tolerance, acceptance, patience. The second lesson: To have a friend you have to be a friend. If you want people to be there when you need them, it’s a good idea to be there when they need you.

Sorry, Zuckerberg: I don’t think AI “friends” are the answer here. But thanks for debunking the whole idea of “friends” on Facebook.

The DOGE Is All Wrong

W.J. Astore

You can’t do a wrong thing the right way

During World War II, the Nazi system of extermination camps was fairly efficient. Relatively small death camps like Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka killed an astonishing number of people, more than 1.6 million and nearly all Jews, quickly and efficiently. If there were a Nazi DOGE, I suppose these death camps may have won “efficiency” awards from it. They stripped the incoming victims of all their valuables and then killed virtually all of them. The loot stolen by the SS was then distributed, again fairly efficiently.

Yet, conducting a genocide, a mass murder, a horrendous atrocity, efficiently is nothing to praise. Right?

Today, America doesn’t need a government that wages wars more efficiently around the globe. We don’t need more efficient genocidal nuclear ICBMs. We don’t need more efficient weapons delivery to Israel so that Gaza can be leveled and its people murdered or displaced from their land.

What we need is an effective government that does the right thing. 

The DOGE associated with Elon Musk can’t seem to recognize that you can’t do a wrong thing the right way. If you’re doing a wrong thing, you must stop doing it. Period.

Genocidal nuclear missiles are wrong. Stop building them.

Genocide in Gaza is wrong. Stop supplying Israel with weapons.

Waging war for peace is wrong. Stop doing it.

That said, efficiency does have some relevance. Consider the Pentagon. It has failed seven audits in a row. It is grossly inefficient even as it continues to be ineffective. How do you rein in a vast government bureaucracy that lacks both efficiency and effectiveness?

You don’t do it by rewarding it with more money. But that’s exactly what President Trump, Elon Musk, and Congress are doing. They all seek a trillion dollar war budget. They all want the Pentagon to grow and then grow some more.

If a sprawling bureaucracy is out of control, you must cut its budget in a big way, forcing it to confront its own waste, fraud, abuse, and related forms of corruption. That said, efficiency is again less important than effectiveness. Is the Pentagon effectively defending America? If not, how do you make it more effective?

Pentagon misadventures around the world are making Americans less safe. Incessant warfare is strengthening authoritarianism and militarism in America while weakening democracy and hollowing out infrastructure and finances.

A more effective Pentagon is one that would focus strictly on defending America proper while upholding the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. After achieving that, one could then focus on efficiency. A Pentagon budget cut roughly in half would lead to a more effective defense of America. A much smaller Pentagon budget could then be more easily audited, leading to greater efficiency.

Committing murderous wrongs in an efficient way is nothing to celebrate. Didn’t the Nazis already provide us with the most horrifying example of this?

The F-47, Another New, Pricey, Warplane for the Air Force

W.J. Astore

A Pilot in the Cockpit Is a Major Win for My Old Service

Recent Air Force projects have not been entirely successful, to put it gently. The F-22 Raptor was never built in the quantities the Air Force desired, nor was the B-2 stealth bomber. The F-35 has proven to be a disappointment, an overpriced “Ferrari” by the Air Force’s own admission that spends too much time in the shop even as its price over time continues to soar. The less said about the KC-46 tanker the better, as its future remains very much up in the air (or stuck on the ground, leaking fuel).

No worries. The Air Force and Boeing have been rewarded for their stellar performance with a new jet announced by President Trump yesterday, the F-47. (I don’t know what happened to the F-36 through 46 models.)

Look how badass that F-47 “bird” looks in that artist’s depiction!

Its key attribute, besides the usual hype about stealth and ultra-powerful engines and super-sensors and the like, is that it’s got a human pilot in the cockpit. This wasn’t a foregone conclusion, given Elon Musk’s belief in drones, whether fully automated or flown by pilots on the ground, at a distance. Keeping men and women in the cockpit was, is, and will always remain the most important goal of the Air Force, built as it is around the allure of pilots as masters of the air.

An interesting feature of this “6th generation” program is that the pilot will allegedly be able to control autonomous drones acting as “loyal wingmen” to the piloted F-47. That complexity should add scores of billions to the eventual price tag.

Trump always likes to boast that stealth planes like the proposed F-47, which have a low RCS, or radar cross section, will literally be invisible. The enemy will never see the F-47 coming, Trump said, jumping on board the hype train. Meanwhile, Boeing, the main contractor for the F-47, is already reaping rewards as its stock price has climbed at Mach 2 in the aftermath of Trump’s announcement.

The initial budget request of $20 billion will soon rocket skyward as the usual cost overruns kick in their afterburners. The Air Force promises the F-47 will cost less than the F-22 per unit, but if you believe that, take a look at the rising costs of the B-2, or the F-35, or the KC-46.

America may be a shitstorm today, but no other country burns through money for needless warplanes than the great USA. You may have stellar bullet trains, China, but do you have invisible 6th generation air supremacy jets? I thought not. USA! USA!

Bombs and Bulldozers Are Us

W.J. Astore

More Weapons to Israel to Power a Genocide

I recently ordered a few items from Amazon. Random stuff like a shower caddy, an iPhone case, and lamp sockets. It won’t surprise you to learn they were all “Made in China.”

I ordered some clothes from a fancy online retailer. The clothes said “Designed in California” but they were, of course, Made in China.

What is America making? What are we sending overseas? Bombs and bulldozers for the devastation and dismantlement of Gaza and other Palestinian Territories. Consider this article from Ken Klippenstein (excerpt follows), which details roughly $10 billion in “foreign aid” to Israel.

Here’s what Klippenstein had to say:

*****

While the entire news media is focused on Trump’s suspension of arms for Ukraine, the administration is arming Israel to the teeth. The nature of the bombs being sold indicates Israel’s military is preparing to continue its bombing campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen; as well as preparing for possible war with Iran.

Included in the sales are tens of thousands of controversial 2,000 lb. bombs so heavily criticized during the Gaza war for their destructive capacity, and thousands of “Hellfire” missiles that are used for targeted killings.

When I visited the Defense Security Cooperation Agency website’s section for major arms sales to see a breakdown of the weapons, I was immediately struck by the fact that five of the last six sales were to Israel.

Screenshot of DSCA’’s “Major Arms Sales” landing page

The U.S. bombs and missiles being sent to Israel, almost all made by Boeing, are included in:

  • February 28 sale worth $2.04 billion, including:
    • 35,529 MK 84 (general purpose) or BLU-117 (hardened) 2,000-pound bomb bodies (or combination of both).
    • 4,000 I-2000 (hardened) 2,000 lb. advanced penetrator warheads for 2,000-pound bomb bodies.
  • February 28 sale worth $675.7 million, including:
    • 201 MK 83 MOD 4/MOD 5 general purpose 1,000-pound bomb bodies.
    • 4,799 newer BLU-110A/B General Purpose 1,000-pound bomb bodies.
    • 1,500 KMU-559C/B Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) anti-jam enhanced GPS guidance kits to attach to MK 83 bomb bodies.
    • 3,500 KMU-559J/B JDAM guidance kits to attach to MK 83 bomb bodies.
  • February 7 sale worth $660 million, including:
    • 3,000 AGM-114 Hellfire Air-to-Ground Missiles, aircraft, helicopter and drone carried, used to attack vehicles and individuals.
  • February 7 sale worth $6.75 billion, including:
    • 2,166 GBU-39/B 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) Increment 1.
    • 2,800 MK 82 General Purpose, 500-pound bomb bomb bodies.
    • 13,000 KMU-556 JDAM Guidance Kits to attach to MK-84 (2,000-pound) bomb bodies.
    • 3,475 KMU-557 JDAM Guidance Kits to attach to BLU-109 (2,000-pound) bomb bodies.
    • 1,004 KMU JDAM Guidance Kits to attach to 500-pound GBU-38v1 bomb bodies.
    • 17,475 FMU-152A/B multi-function fuzes for bombs.

*****

Holy shit! Nearly thirty-six thousand 2000-pound bombs! That is 36 kilotons, roughly the equivalent of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. And that’s not including the assorted 1000- and 500-pound bombs tossed into the mix.

This is an astonishing amount of ordnance for Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza and the West Bank.

President Trump, of course, has the full support of most Democrats in sending this stockpile of destruction to Israel. Call it bipartisan genocidal enablement.

America sure is an “exceptional” nation. No nation is better at bombing others—or supplying the bombs for others like Israel to do so—then flattening what remains with “Made in USA” bulldozers.

Honestly, I wish my country made shower caddies, iPhone cases, and lamp sockets instead of bombs and bulldozers. Don’t you?