Friday, February 02, 2007

To All You Self-Professed Bomb Experts

This is a picture of an Improvised Off-Route Antitank Mine, an IED recovered by coalition forces in Iraq.

(click for larger image)


Not too big, huh?

It's kinda hard to tell, but it looks to be about the size of a 4 D-cell Maglite. Wouldn't you say?

Hey, whadda you know?

That's about the same size and shape as the suspicious-looking device, with batteries and wires sticking out of it that was attached TO THE UNDERSIDE OF A FUCKING BRIDGE IN THE VICNITY OF A COMMUTER TRAIN STATION in Charlestown.

So, I'm sorry, all you self-professed explosives experts who claim the authorities in Boston over-reacted to something that "obviously" posed no threat, but I'm not buying it.

"But, it's not big enough to do any damage even if it was a real bomb!"

Would it even need to be?

If you think a dozen or so small "harmless" explosions going off simultaneously around the City of Boston wouldn't create massive chaos and widespread panic, you're delusional.

The crippling effect that such an attack would have on the City of Boston would have been 100 times (or more) that which was experienced a couple days ago.

"But, it was obviously that character from Aqua Teen Hunger Force! Don't the police know anything?"

I think Howie Carr said it best yesterday (and I paraphrase):

"The only people who recognized that for what it was were all the 20-somethings still living in their parents' basements, smoking pot, and saving up for tattoos."

Now, perhaps if it were the Great Gazoo instead...

That said, there is an argument to be made against the actions taken by state and city officials in Boston in the aftermath of this incident. But, at the time the shit was going down, I found few flaws in their actions.