B-52s Bombing Iraq — Just for Old Times' Sake

© 2016 Peter Free

 

27 April 2016

 

 

When you wonder who’s actually in charge, incidents like this answer

 

From Military.com:

 

Earlier this month, the B-52s, flying out of the al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, replaced B-1 Lancer bombers in the Air Force inventory for precision-guided bomb attacks against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and for close-air support missions for local forces. The B-1s returned to the U.S. for maintenance and upgrades.

 

"On Monday, this iconic platform conducted its first mission against an [ISIS] weapons storage facility in Qayyarah" in northwestern Iraq south of Mosul, said Army Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman in Baghdad for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

 

The Eisenhower-era B-52s last conducted airstrikes in the Mideast from a base in Saudi Arabia against Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s. The aircraft also flew operational missions against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

 

© 2016 Richard Sisk, B-52 Bombers Carry Out First Airstrikes Against ISIS in Iraq, Military.com (20 April 2016)

 

You heard that right. We are using B-52s for close air support because they are so precise:

 

 

"There are memories in the collective unconscious of B-52s, decades ago, doing... arguably indiscriminate bombing," [Colonel Steve] Warren said during a briefing Wednesday.

 

"Those days are long gone. The B-52 is a precision-strike weapons platform and it will conduct the same type of precision strikes that we have seen for the last 20 months."

 

© 2016 Oriana Pawlyk, Watch a B-52 bomb an ISIS weapon facility for the first time in Iraq, Air Force Times (21 April 2016)

 

We see’s ‘em. We drills ‘em. Ain’t nobody in the ginormous blast zone, ‘ceptin the bad uns. Prez Obama tells us so.

 

 

Talk about mangling language and reality

 

Former Lt. Colonel William Astore got this aspect of modernity’s intentional perversion of clear talking exactly right.

 

 

Does this B-52 use make sense?

 

Not really, except if you want to go out and play with your old toys.

 

As War is Boring pointed out:

 

 

The Air Force spends around $70,000 for every hour a B-52 is in the air.

 

By comparison, the Bone [B-1 bomber]costs the flying branch just over $61,000 per flying hour.

 

At some $20,000 an hour, the smaller F-16s are significantly cheaper to put into combat. The venerable A-10 costs even less than that.

 

You don’t need a Stratofortress when an F-16 will do.

 

© 2016 Joseph Trevithick, Let’s Be Real, Blasting Islamic State With B-52s Is Overdoing It a Little, War Is Boring (22 April 2016) (resequenced extracts)

 

 

The moral? — The Military Industrial Complex runs almost everything now

 

It’s a profitable business. And fun as heck for the folks who get to call the shots and still stay clear of deadly frolic’s painful effects.

 

Meanwhile, the Constitution’s assignment of war-making power to Congress has been out-pooped by a scrawny dog in a forgotten alley. Maybe down Sparta Way.