{"id":27639,"date":"2016-08-31T07:32:53","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T15:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=27639"},"modified":"2016-08-31T07:32:53","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T15:32:53","slug":"send-in-the-b-52s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/31\/send-in-the-b-52s\/","title":{"rendered":"Send in the\u00a0B-52s"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Usaf.Boeing_B-52\"
Sixty Years of B-52s (U.S. Air Force photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perhaps there should be a \u201cnew rule\u201d on the American military scene: When the B-52s are called out (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan), it means America has well and truly lost.<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to most Americans, since April of this year, B-52s flying out of \u201cAl Udeid airbase in Qatar \u2026 have conducted more than 325 strikes in almost 270 sorties, using over 1,300 weapons\u201d against ISIS and now in Afghanistan, notes Paul Rogers at Open Democracy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For those of you unfamiliar with B-52s, they are huge long-range bombers, originally deployed in the 1950s to carry nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union. In the 1960s and early 1970s, they were called upon to carry conventional bomb loads during the Vietnam War. Their enormous bomb tonnages did not serve to win that war, however, nor has the subsequent use of B-52s in places like Iraq and Afghanistan served to win those wars. They have become a sort of stop-gap weapon system, their ordnance called upon to stem the tide of American military reversals even as their presence is supposed to demonstrate American resolve.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In a way, America\u2019s B-52s are like the Imperial Star Destroyers<\/a> of the “Star Wars” universe.<\/p>\n

\"ImperialstarDestroyer480ppx\"
An imperial star destroyer loses yet another chase<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Big, lumbering ships that never seem to provide a winning edge vis-a-vis the smaller, \u201crebel\u201d forces against which they\u2019re deployed. But the empire, which never seems to learn, keeps using them, even as it seeks even bigger, \u201cDeath Star\u201d weaponry with which to annihilate the resistance.<\/p>\n

Of course, when Americans think about air power, they don\u2019t think of \u201cStar Wars\u201d battles or B-52s on bombing runs. They think of audacious and cocky fighter pilots, like Tom Cruise\u2019s \u201cMaverick\u201d in the highly popular movie, \u201cTop Gun.\u201d For me, the most telling scene in that movie is when the flashy, undisciplined, and self-centered Maverick puts his F-14 Tomcat jet into an irrecoverable flat spin. That wouldn\u2019t be so bad, except Maverick has a backseater, \u201cGoose,\u201d who dies during the ejection. Maverick, of course, ejects safely and lives to fight another day.<\/p>\n

\"goose\"
It’s too late for Goose, but Tom Cruise lives on to make more bad movies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Again, most people probably remember the cheesy ending<\/a> to this movie where Cruise is shooting down MiG after MiG<\/a>. But take another look at the flat spin scene<\/a>. America, like Maverick and Goose\u2019s jet, is dropping from the sky, spinning wildly and uncontrollably all the way. And while a few Mavericks may be lucky enough to get away unscathed, many Gooses in the process are going to end up dead.<\/p>\n

Goose didn\u2019t deserve to die in \u201cTop Gun,\u201d and neither do the many \u201cgooses\u201d around the world caught in the violent and all-too-real backwash of America\u2019s jet-fueled wars.<\/p>\n

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views<\/a>. He can be reached at wastore@pct.edu<\/a>. Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author’s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sixty Years of B-52s (U.S. Air Force photo) Perhaps there should be a \u201cnew rule\u201d on the American military scene: When the B-52s are called out (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan), it means America has well and truly lost. Unbeknownst to most Americans, since April of this year, B-52s flying out of \u201cAl Udeid airbase in Qatar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-27639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27639"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27641,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27639\/revisions\/27641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27639"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=27639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}