In some of the heaviest attacks on Afghanistan thus far, American forces dropped 350 bombs in one day, south of the Afghan city of Gardez, according to The New York Times. One of those bombs was the “thermobaric bomb BLU-118S,” a new bomb developed in the category of fuel-air munitions. Navy Lieutenant Commander Matthew Klee reported, “It was the first time we used it.”

These types of bombs work effectively because fuel and atmospheric oxygen can penetrate areas usually safe from regular missiles, simply because gas can go around corners. “It works as a combination of a shock wave and a fuel explosion,” Klee explained. “The first explosion spreads flammable aerosols through the underground complex. Then, the second ignites the fuel.”

This is a brilliantly simple destructive device, easily understood through an analogy of a home full of propane. Once the air has enough propane in it, a single strike can cause the house to implode, all the oxygen gets sucked out of the air and the house collapses due to the dramatic pressure change, dissolving into flames. The Russians used this dramatic technology in Chechnya and, according to one Russian military scientist writing for the magazine Voyennyye Znaniya (Military Knowledge),”In its destructive capability, it is comparable to low-yield nuclear munitions.”

The destructive element of this bomb is awesome. Once the area is hit, everything near the epicenter is flattened due to the pressure waves but the subsequent vacuum reduces humans to pate. A 1993 study by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency tells us that the lungs are ruptured, and if the fuel does not detonate, it will severely burn the victims while they inhale the burning fuel.

A CIA study on these types of bombs is even more graphic. “Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, and thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness,” the study showed. A person?s lungs can be pulled, from the force, out of their mouth.

With the U. S. military planning on spending $159 million this year for new means of obliteration, we need to speak out against the spending of tax dollars for this hideous method. Sue Payton, deputy undersecretary of defense for advanced systems and concepts is “working hard to rapidly transition technologies from the Department of Defense into the hands of the war fighter.” Payton said that various agencies worked on the thermobaric bomb last year, and are now developing new, more efficient fillings that would create an even higher pressure blast, driving all air out of an area. This type of bombing is even more dangerous for the civilians of Afghanistan, for there is no escape from it.

As much as 70 percent of the population of the three major Afghan cities is on the move, according to the United Nations. Dr. Marc W. Harold of the University of New Hampshire has calculated that in this undeclared war we killed 3,767 civilians in the first eight and a half weeks. These are deaths of farmers, children, women and hospital workers, most of whom do not support Osama bin Laden. Mohammed Gul, who worked at the Kandahar military hospital, told the BBC, “Because of the bombing, no one can sleep. Women and children cannot eat anything. Everyone is looking to the sky and waiting and thinking ?when will the American aircraft come and start killing them.?”

Another Afghan refugee expressed her sorrow for our loss. “We are also sorry for the victims of the attack [on the World Trade Center]. But now these American and British planes have added our nation?s blood [to that of the dead in Washington and New York] and they have made all people frightened.” The thermobaric bomb adds a new terror for the innocents of Afghanistan, and more suffering caused by our country.

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