Fierce Planet

The passing from the world of our closest relatives is not a political tragedy, like Burma; it is not a humanitarian nightmare, like Darfur; it is not an ideological disaster, like Iraq. All the same, it makes me unspeakably sad. How lonely to inhabit the planet without that familiar and alien gaze to keep us company. The fact that magnificent, uncomprehending, essentially helpless animals have to pay the ultimate price for our indifference seems at times like a worse crime than anything human beings do to one another. Our belated awakening to the distant prospect of collective suicide known as global warming might be the last chance to prevent the more imminent crime of kin-killing.

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Drums of War

Posted on October 25, 2007 by jnfrOctober 25, 2007

Bomb Iran? U.S. Requests Bunker-Buster Bombs

White House Bomber Request Leaves Some Wondering if U.S. Is Preparing Action in Iran

Tucked inside the White House’s $196 billion emergency funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is an item that has some people wondering whether the administration is preparing for military action against Iran.

The item: $88 million to modify B-2 stealth bombers so they can carry a newly developed 30,000-pound bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator, or, in military-speak, the MOP.

The MOP is the the military’s largest conventional bomb, a super “bunker-buster” capable of destroying hardened targets deep underground. The one-line explanation for the request said it is in response to “an urgent operational need from theater commanders.”

What urgent need? The Pentagon referred questions on this to Central Command.

ABC News called CENTCOM to ask what the “urgent operational need” is. CENTCOM spokesman Maj. Todd White said he would look into it, but, so far, no answer.