Thursday, April 29, 2004
We know things are getting serious now!
In a sign of complete desperation the U.S. Army has demanded that some ski areas in the western U.S. turn over artillery pieces that they have been using for avalanche control!
Artillery is commonly used by ski areas to prevent avalanches. Artillery rounds are generally shot into the snow pack early in the morning before the ski area opens to artificially induce avalanches of lose snow rather than having them occur when the slopes are crowded with skiers. This has saved many lives over the years.
Well, now that the war in Iraq is clearly not going well the Army wants the artillery back. In addition to the absurd situation of putting skiers at risk it also says something about how badly the situation is going in Iraq. Supposedly we are in a guerilla war where we need to wind over hearts and minds and precisely target and "take out" insurgents. But artillery is not the weapon for that. It is an imprecise weapon. Artillery does not hit a specific spot, it hits a specific area. So what this artillery will be used for in Iraq is more random destruction of Iraqi population centers and collective punishment of the type we have seen lately have seen lately.
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Artillery is commonly used by ski areas to prevent avalanches. Artillery rounds are generally shot into the snow pack early in the morning before the ski area opens to artificially induce avalanches of lose snow rather than having them occur when the slopes are crowded with skiers. This has saved many lives over the years.
Well, now that the war in Iraq is clearly not going well the Army wants the artillery back. In addition to the absurd situation of putting skiers at risk it also says something about how badly the situation is going in Iraq. Supposedly we are in a guerilla war where we need to wind over hearts and minds and precisely target and "take out" insurgents. But artillery is not the weapon for that. It is an imprecise weapon. Artillery does not hit a specific spot, it hits a specific area. So what this artillery will be used for in Iraq is more random destruction of Iraqi population centers and collective punishment of the type we have seen lately have seen lately.
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