Tag: B-2 bomber

Stone Age Bombing

A Dead Crippled Country Can Still Bomb People to Smithereens

BILL ASTORE

APR 02, 2026

I watched President Trump’s speech to the nation last night on the Iran War. The lies and boasts flew thick. According to Trump, America is winning and winning big. Under Joe Biden, America was “crippled” and “dead,” but Trump has reanimated the dead and healed it. (An obvious aside: Trump has a serious Christ complex.)

From dead and crippled, America is now the meanest, toughest, hombre in the valley. We take what we want and if you resist we’ll bomb you back to the Stone Age. As the New York Times reported: “We are going to hit them extremely hard,” Trump said. “Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”

The proud Iranian people, with Persia as one of the cradles of civilization—they mean less than zero to Trump. It doesn’t matter how many people have to die for Trump to feel like a winner. 

“Beautiful” damage in Tehran (Majid Saeed/Getty)

A transcript of the speech is here. You’ll read about America’s “beautiful” B-2 bombers and how they’ve performed “magnificently.” You’ll read about America’s “warriors” and “heroes” who “laid down their lives” to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. You’ll read about their families who, even as they grieve the loss of loved ones in this war, are beseeching Trump to “Please, sir, please finish the job.” Every one of them, Trump added.

There were many reasons to be offended by Trump’s speech last night, but the idea of every grieving family member begging the president to “finish the job” by continuing to bomb and kill Iranians is certainly high on the list of offenses to morality and truth.

More than anything, what Trump’s speech told us is what he values. First, of course, himself and his identity as a man of action—a winner. The economy and the stock market. Oil and gas. Military might. And taking cheap shots at perceived opponents.

This sentence was especially revealing: The most violent and thuggish regime on earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield.

Trump was referring to Iran here, but what he’s really saying is that only one violent and thuggish regime merits such a blank check on inflicting global violence protected by a nuclear shield. It’s not Iran’s, it’s his.

America’s Bizarre Cult of Death

KCM_FlyOverHealthcareme0249
B-2 bomber flies over Kansas City to honor Covid-19 workers

W.J. Astore

A recent news item caught my eye: “Whiteman Air Force Base [in Missouri] to salute health care workers with flyover on Tuesday: Flyover will include B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber, four T-38 Talons and two A-10 Thunderbolt lls.”  New York City had its own flyover by the aerial demonstration teams of the Navy and Air Force.  “America Strong” was the theme of the latter.

Isn’t it curious that we celebrate our life-saving medical workers with flyovers by warplanes that are designed to take life?  And, regarding the B-2 stealth bomber, a life-taker on a truly massive scale, since it’s designed for nuclear warfare.

Maybe there’s a weird form of (unintentional) honesty here.  We use death-dealing machinery to celebrate life-preserving medical workers, highlighting a bizarre cult of death in America, one seemingly embraced and advanced by Donald Trump’s policies on Covid-19, among other policies working against the health and welfare of ordinary people.

As Tom Engelhardt notes in a new piece for TomDispatch.com, Trump is only America’s latest assassin-in-chief, but this time the killing is happening here in the homeland, rather than being exported to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries across the globe.  Speaking of violence coming home, together with homeland insecurity, is there any other country in the world in which gun sales have soared during this pandemic?  From an article in The Guardian:

Estimated gun sales also soared to 2.58m in March, Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting reported, an 85.3% jump from the same time last year.

An explosion in gun sales during a pandemic suggests something about the American psyche that is truly scary.  So too do combat jets screaming in the skies as a celebration of heroic lifesavers.