When The Bomb Goes Off

[xoxoxoBruce]

Excerpted from “The Greedy Ones” by Michael Yon.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/the-greedy-ones.htm

During detonation of high explosives, the shock front can move through the explosives at more that five miles per second. When the shock front finds air, the air becomes a giant hammer: a giant hypersonic hammer. But this is much more than hypersonic. Hypersonic is a mere five times the speed of sound. This hammer starts at closer to twenty-five times the speed of sound, making it hyper-hypersonic. Even if a nearby person is untouched by shrapnel the concussion from the air is more than lethal.

When the hypersonic hammer hits a person, their clothes are first to go. The person is stripped naked. All the clothes are gone, but the victims never know that they are naked for a millisecond before being ripped to pieces.
The shock front becomes a violent sphere of annihilation. Birds overhead are blown apart in flight. On the ground, walls become as shotguns. When the blast wave finds glass and shatters through it, the shards and shrapnel from disintegrated window frames are drawn into the current, adding a gruesome dimension of lethality. For those people far enough away from the seat of the blast to escape the deadly blows of the naked hammer, the bomb-makers leave plenty of work for the surgeons, who must dig out the hidden glass and whatever other debris, including bits of dead victims, that are shot into the living.

The blast wave speeds down the road, tearing up anything in its path and using it like bullets and cannonballs. Even the naked hammer knocks people flat. Some die without being struck by solids. They are found afterward without apparent injuries, dead from internal wounds, from blunt trauma by air. But most victims are hit with solid objects. At the edge of the blast wave, windows continue to shatter further down the road; more bodies are lacerated, punctured, and shot by glass and stone as the wall of air knocks them off their feet and heaves them into the rubble.

Further down the road, the hammer weakens, the hurtling objects lose energy as the wave releases its hold on the cloud of debris. The shock front quickly lessens, rattling walls but unable to rend them from their foundations, plates fall and shatter while ripened fruit drops from the shaken trees, and the front slows down to the speed of sound and rumbles harmlessly off into the night, delivering only the message that something big happened. Then comes the brief silence. Darkness.

Now they come. The thuds. Always the thuds. Thump… bmmp, brakkk, thudd. Some of the objects come down like meteorites, crashing through roofs, while others fall in a steady downpour, like the baseball-sized hailstorms in Tornado Alley. Large projectiles continue to rain down, some a kilometer away.
Back at the blast seat, the fireball has long gathered and mushroomed and there is only the smoke and crackling of fires and the screams of the wounded and gurgles of the dying. The sirens begin. And then the second blast and a new hammer is unleashed, and some victims are swept away while others fall naked and tangled.

The bait and ambush is a common terrorist tactic. The first bomb summons rescuers and crowds, the scene swells, concerned citizens rush in to see if their sons, or mothers, or sisters who worked there, or had appointments there, or had mentioned they might be stopping there, were in fact there, and were hurt. Just at the time when many are poised to help, the second device is timed to explode.

I'd suggest reading the rest of the article.

[Griff]

I'm not sure I want on B.

[richlevy]

This is also the effect felt by anyone on the business end of an aerial bomb, whether they are an insurgent or someone who lives next door to an insurgent, or some people mistaken for insurgents.

Death and pain are pretty much shared between coalition forces, insurgents (including terrorists), and civilians in a war zone.

Of course GWB says that the civilians are free now, so I guess he wonders why they're still bitching about everything.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by richlevy

. . . so I guess he wonders why they're still bitching about everything.

Once again, Rich, you are showing not deep thought, but deeply held prejudice.

I think I'd be ashamed, if I were you. Do not exhibit prejudice if you wish to be thought wise.

[Ibby]

oh, we all apologise for Rich's sake. Please, enlighten us, oh glorious one!

I cannot figure out why we do not treat all who live in insurgent neighborhoods as accomplices. They are if they do not talk.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

I cannot figure out why we do not treat all who live in insurgent neighborhoods as accomplices. They are if they do not talk.

"Kill 'em all and let Allah sort them out." Yeah. That's wise/careful/fair/worthwhile/thoughtful. Do *you* like to be tarred by the brush meant for another? Does the phrase "collective punishment" mean anything to you?

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Once again, Rich, you are showing not deep thought, but deeply held prejudice.

I think I'd be ashamed, if I were you. Do not exhibit prejudice if you wish to be thought wise.

I know I'd definitely be ashamed if I were you. Although I'm glad to see you're finally thinking.

It's not prejudice to acknowledge the death and pain of any human being, even an enemy. It's just common decency. If you ignore it, you start down the path to enjoying it.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

I cannot figure out why we do not treat all who live in insurgent neighborhoods as accomplices. They are if they do not talk.

Yeah, and every American who didn't personally physically try to stop their own troops, the government, or the generals should also be on trial for killing those people in Haditha.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I thought the insurgents were like the mafia, operating with the full knowledge of everyone in the hood, who were afraid to take sides.

But after reading Michael Yon's stories while embedded is Stryker brigades, along with some of his associates blogs, apparently they are more like old west outlaw gangs. They don't fraternize with the locals, have hideouts and move in the shadows.

Even though the locals don't for the most part know the insurgents the do have to observe their movements and hear rumors. But these people are scared...they've been scared for a long time. Their loyalties are mostly to their families and don't want to back anyone for fear it will come back to haunt them. They have good reason to dislike and/or mistrust every faction in this mess.

I think it's going to take a lot of convincing to have them support the new government and even if they do there's going to be red states and blue states......and green states......and yellow states.....and

[AlternateGray]

It does seem that way- in the fight between coalition forces and AIF. And I completely understand why the average person wouldn't want to get involved, I think they often see it as foreigner/US vs. foreigner/insurgent. (which is changing as the IP/IA get more involved). But what gets me down is the increasing sectarian violence. I get the feeling sometimes that the Iraqi people don't give a f*** if a civil war breaks out, as long as "their" side wins. I don't think most of the populace realizes the realities of such a thing yet(I can see a lecture coming about what the Iraqi people have been through, I don't need it), or that a civil war would be far, far worse than the conflict going on now. I'm thinking Afghanistan with a little Yugoslavia tossed in. Another thing that complicates the issue is the different types of insurgent groups and their completely different goals. A neighborhood might be sympathetic to one group of local Iraqi insurgents, terrified of another that operates in the same region and is run by foreigners or extremists, and hostile to yet another that is comprised of Iraqi's of a different religious slant. It's a damn free-for-all.

Originally Posted by Ibram

Yeah, and every American who didn't personally physically try to stop their own troops, the government, or the generals should also be on trial for killing those people in Haditha.

Not even remotely the same thing... we have no immediate control or knowledge of their actions.
If they want the insurgency/terror to end, they have it in their immediate power to do something about it.
This is also true of those neighborhoods and individuals that have knowledge of ANY terrorist support/whereabouts.
If they want it to end... it would take a week. "This person, this house, this family, this business and these organizations/charities are insurgents/terrorists... please remove them now, we want to govern ourselves."
This does not happen, so they don't want it. Harboring the enemy is compliance, it is support, being accomplices and they should be treated as such. I'm not saying attacking them... I'm saying leave.
BTW, fear is not an excuse for not doing the right thing... our boys & ladies are afraid, but they risk their lives and die for Iraq's freedom every day.
Keep in mind, this post is true of all neighborhoods worldwide that harbor terrorists. Don't help, you are an accomplice.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Rich, I do not harbor a deep prejudice against Republicans (nor these Republicans in particular), and you are showing you do. I fault that.

"If you ignore it," you also have the mental equipment to win the war against a stubborn, antidemocracy enemy. For the sin of being antidemocracy, antifreedom, anticapitalist and therefore on all counts anti-human as well, they must either convert from their evil ways or they must die -- as examples if nothing else. They'd do better if they converted into liberal capitalists (c'mon guys, you can charge interest on bank loans, really), which is about the best outcome I can possibly expect, but if they only convert into fertilizer, that's an acceptable second choice. Politics and war are both the art of the possible.

Sure, I'm some kind of fanatic. It mirrors what the other guys are doing -- the first fanatics never seem to consider that their fanaticism will cause a mirroring fanaticism to rise in opposition. Considering the kind of thing I'm standing to oppose, I think I've got the right idea.

Ibram, I work on that enlightenment each and every time I come here. At bottom, it's the one thing I do. The results are varied, and not always encouraging. Some few, unable to impeach me on substance, speciously go after my style. While I understand their motivation here, I do not think it good.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

"If you ignore it," you also have the mental equipment to win the war against a stubborn, antidemocracy enemy. For the sin of being antidemocracy, antifreedom, anticapitalist and therefore on all counts anti-human as well, they must either convert from their evil ways or they must die -- as examples if nothing else. They'd do better if they converted into liberal capitalists (c'mon guys, you can charge interest on bank loans, really), which is about the best outcome I can possibly expect, but if they only convert into fertilizer, that's an acceptable second choice. Politics and war are both the art of the possible.

What you appear to be saying is that we have to become like them to defeat them. I do not think that I can agree with that. Wolf doesn't have to become insane to deal with insane individuals. Police do not have to become criminals to defeat criminals.

Maybe at some point Pat Robertson will convince his followers to strap on suicide belts, but I'm guessing not. Ignoring the civilian death toll is a sure way to fuel the insurgency. If we want to change tactics, we can do so, but we will lose all moral authority. No more democracy or liberation. We would become an occupying force of conquerers and have to deal with the tens of millions of armed muslims in the region.

And BTW, Vietnam is now our trading partner, something they decided to do after our troops had left.