Gunship diplomacy

The C-130 gunships are coming! C-130s are flying platforms for hi-tech observation and weaponry. U. S. Military leaders have announced that they are deploying C-130s to Iraq in greater numbers, one of them called “Spooky.” You wonder -why now? What’s happened in Iraq that we now want to rain death upon the Iraqi population without needing to differentiate between men and women, adults and children, between friendly and unfriendly Iraqis?

Have you seen the video footage smuggled to the press which documented a now infamous C-130 raid upon an aledged Taliban compound in Afghanistan? From a safe height, gunners on the plane destroyed cars and buldings and picked off every single person running for cover. Infrared imagery illuminated every person’s body against the dark ground.

There were some valiant dashes for cover in the Afghan example, even a run that resembled a miraculous field-length touchdown where the runner was able to zig-zag between each shot from the C-130 cannons. You couldn’t help but want to cheer the little figure on. In the end the C-130 got everbody and redirected its fire to obliterate the entrance to a nearby cave.

One advantage to using the C-130 gunships in Iraq now will be that we will know how many Iraqis we are killing. The C-130s will have video records of the Iraqi casualties. We’ll have tiny white images of every body we destroy. We’ll know the children in the videos because although the little white figures emit a similar heat footprint, the children will have been taking smaller final steps.

Gunship diplomacy denotes the practice of bringing colonies to heel by the mere show of force, usually a technologically advanced ship sent to patrol the coast of a subjugated people who have known otherwise only houses made of natural materials.