In comedy, timing is everything. Apparently the same holds true for warfare. As the US marches closer and closer to war with Iraq, today the military showed off its newest muscle mass. An Air Force C-130 cargo plane dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb of its kind from the skies over Florida.

This device is known as MOAB, or Massive Ordinance Air Blast. Some refer to it as the Mother Of All Bombs. Uh, that’s clever. Either way, MOAB weighs in at 21,000 pounds – a full 6,000 pounds heavier than its predecessor, the infamous Daisy Cutter of the Vietnam era. Unlike the Daisy Cutter that was aimed by “Kentucky eyeball,” MOAB is high tech and can be more precisely directed to its target.

Today’s test is the third conducted by the MOAB project in the past two weeks. Earlier tests were static (without an explosion), but today there was bomb detonation. Assessment was promised to be speedy, and sure enough, at press deadline the news was broadcast on MS-NBC that the test was a success. Bombs away!

It’s all the Military’s Obnoxious Asinine Bravado. This shameless and perverted exhibitionism comes right on the heels of a couple of similar acts in the form of the recent missile tests carried out by North Korea. A coincidence? I think not. It’s obvious the US military believes that merely waving this massive, phallic tool in the faces of Iraq and North Korea will render their military machines impotent. Is dear Uncle Sam’s memory faltering like that of former President Reagan?

One can’t help to wonder if a return trip to warfare is going to lead to the US military scrambling back home, tail between its legs, as it did when leaving Vietnam. Superior technology, unlimited supplies and “my bomb is bigger than your bomb” doesn’t always win wars.

Coming across like a farm league rookie tripping on his own shoe laces, the US was caught in an embarrassing SNAFU today in the skies over Iraq. Military leaders feeling that more is better decided to send up a second U2 spy plane, apparently in direct violation of an existing UN resolution.

The first report said Iraq had threatened U2 missions and that was why the US pulled these planes from the sky. Later in the day there was a correction broadcast stating that Iraq did not threaten these aircraft, but had complained to the UN that a second plane was considered a hostile act. Rules are rules. I fully expect that yet another version of this story will be broadcast later this evening.

We’ll see how this one is going to shake out. Executive privilege isn’t going to get (p)Resident Dubya out of this one, as he is Commander-in-Chief. And to paraphrase Bonzo’s bud during the thick of the Iran Contra abortion, this DID happen on Bush’s watch.

The U.S. (p)Resident said in his surprise press conference that enough is enough and that Iraq has had 12-years to comply with UN resolutions mandating the destruction of their weapons of mass destruction, or WMP for those fond of the acronym du jour.

Dubya also said that if Hussein doesn’t disarm, then the United States would disarm Iraq, UN blessings or not. Ole Dubya likes to hold others to UN resolutions, but as discussed in the previous story, he doesn’t necessarily play by the rules himself.

So as we approach Nuclear Spring, a question slowly surfaces: just who is the defiant dictator?