The World of Walking Bombs
By Kamangir • Dec 27th, 2007 • Category: Human Rights, WarThere is something in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination that hurts me. It is not the fact that she was relatively young; it is rather about the way she and many others like her are being killed everyday. What makes me terrified is the popularity this weapon is gaining.
I am a fan of Empire Earth and I love to send B52s over to demolish “enemy” buildings. However, the fact is, even in my little computer game, there are people who are doctors and lawyers and teachers and then there are soldiers. When I send an artillery unit, there is no chance that my enemy might think an ice cream van is approaching. With a suicide bomber, however, the postman blows himself up right at your face. But what does this mean?
With the advance of technology, similar to how the terrorists managed to assemble bombs in the lavatory of a plane, using ingredients smuggled in in water bottles and such, we can easily imagine a world in which you can build a bomb using the gas you pass and a bit of your saliva, given that you have drunk a very specific substance a few hours back. Your sweat can be helpful as well. At the end of the day, if you are a suicide bomber, you only need to stay alive for a few hours.
The fact that human beings are turning into bear-hand killers means that the person standing right besides you can potentially be a killing machine. How can security be defined in such a world? One can be carrying a horrid virus. “Land the plane right here or I will sneeze on your face!”
While there is reason to hate, there is reason to invent genius method to kill people. And about hatred, we are in no shortage of it.
Related: How to Produce Angry Muslims
p.s. This post has been edited. That’s why some of the comments might seem irrelevant.
Posted by Kamangir
Author's email address: arash@kamangir.net | All posts by Kamangir
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That is a very sobering and very scary thought. But you are quite right in your assessment; even something smuggled into a plane in a small 3 ounce bottle can be made into a bomb. Only yesterday, there was a news article about a passenger with resistant TB on a flight from India to Chicago, requiring now, a screening of over a dozen people who sat around the woman on the plane.
But the part of your post most saddening, is the perceived need for such means of deaths– hatred and fear.
Ice Cream trucks, motorcycles, and even abused children become agents of attack.
As we progress scientifically and technologically there are always those who will use that science to build a better mouse obliterator. It always happens, probably always will. Consider the current investigations into invisibility, which has had some breakthrough in avoiding microwave detection. What possible value can it have other than to the military, organizations dealing in subterfuge or for criminal activity? I can see no particular usage of value to the common man unless he has voyeuristic tendencies, and peeping-Toms are still considered criminals. I can remember reading as a kid science fiction dealing with cloning. Part of that would delve into the idea of cloning humans with desirable animal characteristics. Hmmm, whatcha got there is little bit of Huxley’s “Brave New World” in the making. You make a human and design him in he make where his existence is predetermined. Need slave labor clone in some Ape or Equine DNA. Need a soldier, clone in some feline DNA. We are already genetically altering plants to make better vegetables. How long before we start making the better soldier or the ideal labor force?
Kamangir,
There is a flip-side to this coin. If you study development of military technology, you will see that it follows single pattern - action and reaction.
British invented longbows, and dominated battlefields of Europe for 100 years. French, being soundly beaten in Hundred Years’ War, came up with crude cannons loaded with stone rubble - crude version of what was later called grape-shot. Nuclear-tipped rockets, which were the ultimate weapon for almost 60 years, soon will be rendered useless by missile defense technology. Guns resulted in bullteproof vests, so on and so forth.
If technology can be used by bad guys in sick ways and nothing can be done about it, that means that we, scientists and engineers are not doing our job to create an antidote, a counter-weapon (offensive or defensive).
Kamangir: So this is a battle between engineers, right? The only problem is, the engineers which work in either side are at the end of the day inventing new methods for killing people. I am not sure if I want to use my math skills towards that goal. Though, the fact is, there is no escape from it, kill or be killed.
I worked for a government contract lab developing sensors to detect bacteria and viral based “weapons”. Sometimes working to help humanity by combating aimless evil is a very fulfilling line of work for engineers.
Kamangir: I agree.
So, Kamangir, how is it that soldiers are ‘murderers’? Have you ever looked up the definition of murder?
Kamangir: This is from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:
Murderer: someone who murders another person:
Murder: the crime of deliberately killing someone
I guess it lies on the way you define “crime”. To me, killing a person is a crime.
Actually, Kaman, murder is killing someone without legal justification, and with malicious intent.
By your definition, killing someone in pure self-defense is also a crime. And to extend the soldier analogy further, by your logic a policeman is a criminal thug who takes your freedom by force, a judge is a mini-dictator, and taxes are theft.
Kamangir: I agree, I wrote this post when I was very angry, and therefore I became too idealistic.