Bomb that killed 40 children in Yemen was supplied by the US

Don’t it make ya feel proud? **sigh**

Bomb that killed 40 children in Yemen was supplied by the US

CNN) The bomb used by the Saudi-led coalition in a devastating attack on a school bus in Yemen was sold as part of a US State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia, munitions experts told CNN.

Working with local Yemeni journalists and munitions experts, CNN has established that the weapon that left dozens of children dead on August 9 was a 500-pound (227 kilogram) laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of the top US defense contractors.

The bomb is very similar to the one that wreaked devastation in an attack on a funeral hall in Yemen in October 2016 in which 155 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. The Saudi coalition blamed "incorrect information" for that strike, admitted it was a mistake and took responsibility.

*

"I saw the bomb hit the bus," one witness said. "It blew it into those shops and threw the bodies clear to the other side of those buildings. We found bodies scattered everywhere, there was a severed head inside the bomb crater. When we found that, that was when I started running. I was so afraid."

Some of the bodies were so mutilated that identification became impossible. Left behind were scraps of schoolbooks, warped metal and a single backpack.

BFA4659A-6B12-41CF-81BA-42A44ED5E59B.jpeg
Munitions experts said the numbers on this piece of shrapnel confirmed that Lockheed Martin was the maker of the bomb.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/08/17/middleeast/us-saudi-yemen-bus-strike-...

If we’re not the ones murdering innocent people we’re selling the arms and everything else necessary for another country to use.on people who just want to raise their childtten in the safety of their own country.. They’re the ones who really suffer during wartime. ‘Collateral Damage’ is the term for it. And if you look at Iraq, you’ll find evidence that we”re very good creating all that damaged ‘collateral’.

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What CNN will never report is how allegedly Saudi Arabia was on a terrorisim list at the time and was barred from buying such weapons without getting a waiver from the Secretary Of State. Supposedly the Pay To Play list said it cost them 5 million.

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On to Biden since 1973

People with US-supplied bombs kill people.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

CB's picture

that this bomb killed innocent children on their way to school. The Pentagon works diligently and tirelessly to ensure the bombs, missiles and airplanes they sell to Saudi Arabia are to be used strictly for the honorable humanitarian purpose of promoting peace and stability in this region.

A full investigation will be done by the Pentagon before the end of the year to find out how this unfortunate mistake occurred.

In the meantime, Washington has authorized the shipment of 40 brand new Mickey Mouse school backpacks

plus a shiny yellow school bus for the start of the new school year in September to replace the damaged ones.

More news: Employees at Lockheed Martin have come together and will donate pencil coloring sets plus a unbreakable water bottle to go with the 40 back packs.

This outpouring of kindness is what makes America the greatest force for good in the world.

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lotlizard's picture

@CB

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Big Al's picture

corporate media and some in the democratic party. It's much more than just selling bombs to Saudi Arabia. The war in Yemen is actually a proxy war, just like the war in Syria is and has been a proxy war for western imperialists and Israel. In Syria the U.S. is using Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other mercenaries to do it's damage whereas in Yemen it's Saudi Arabia and company. I think the narrative that the U.S. is simply supplying weapons is meant to obfuscate that fact. The war and genocide in Yemen is happening primarily because of the U.S. imperialist agenda.

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CB's picture

@Big Al @Big Al
gorilla in the region that pulls the Empire's strings.

Edit: Upon rereading your post I see you hadn't forgotten the 800-pound gorilla.

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Big Al's picture

@CB

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@Big Al

what WE were responsible for in Yemen when a school bus of kids were murdered with weapons we sold the Saudis. Nobody is ‘forgetting’ anything

Oh, and thanks for trying to hijack my thread. Start one of your own if you want to go off on a tangent about something other than the OP why don’t you?

.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

snoopydawg's picture

COmment from Common Dreams:

A total of 51 people were killed in the attack, and 79 were wounded.”

It’s amazing the things you can find out from wiki-pedia. The price of an MK-82 bomb is $2082.50. So the next time someone asks, “what’s the value of a human life,” you can do the math and say, “$40.83”. On the other hand, it seems like such a small price compared to all the other military equipment we read about, and accountants at Lockheedless Martin probably have more sophisticated formulas to determine how many of these bombs have to be produced (and sold to authoritarian governments) to make production worth their trouble.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

CB's picture

human life so cheap, especially the lives of little children.

The $2082.50 is just the base price. The average price for a complete PGM (precision-guided munition) is about $65,000.


Saudi Arabia may have used guided bomb on Yemeni school bus

The 500-pound US-made bomb fitted with a guidance kit is a very accurate weapon and this is not the first time a civilian target has been hit

The Saudi Coalition dropped a 500-pound MK-82 bomb on a Yemeni school bus, killing 54 and wounding scores of others, mostly children.

The MK-82 is an old “free fall” bomb that today is often sold with upgrade kits, making it a precision-guided munition (PGM) and thus much more accurate.

If the bomb was the old-fashioned version, hitting a civilian target could be plausibly called an accident, but a guided bomb would have given the Saudis the ability to target even a moving bus. Markings recovered at the site strongly suggest that a PGM kit was part of the bomb assembly.

In 2015 Saudi Arabia ordered 20,000 PGMs from the United States, spending nearly $1.3 billion. In the 500-pound bomb category, the order included:

  • 4,020 GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bombs
  • 8,020 MK-82 bombs, also designated BLU-111

...

@snoopydawg

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@CB

government can stand to look at themselves in a mirror. I wonder if their conscience ever bothers them late at night while they’re lying there in the dark?

I couldn’t live with myself if I had a hand in anything like this. But again, I am talking about some of the most despicable people in this country.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

lotlizard's picture

@Amanda Matthews  

I wonder if their conscience ever bothers them

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CB's picture

@lotlizard
A simplified description:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PNyVwA1ii4]

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CB's picture

@Amanda Matthews
are sleeping after that bomb run.

They had to personally set up targeting the bus.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRtTUzBhxqA]

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@CB

ever square the murder of those children with their conscience.

We need to start referring to the people we’re killing as murder victims, not let them get away with using that neat and tidy word ‘casualties.’

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

CB's picture

@Amanda Matthews
that result in the large number of PTSD cases and subsequent suicides of servicemen.

The Saudi pilots would have been trained in the use of these weapons in the US by American contractors. This wanton killing of innocents in faraway lands for mostly economic greed is morally rotting the nation from the inside. The world knows it is the US and it's BFF who are ultimately responsible.

Lockheed Martin receives bloody images instead of cool weapons photos in failed Twitter campaign
20 Aug, 2018 13:02


Lockheed Martin’s social media appeal to send them the best photos of its products went horribly awry, as unimpressed Twitterati responded with gruesome images of the horrors of war.

The world’s largest defense contractor and one of the top defense manufacturers posted a tweet last week, asking Twitter users to send them an “amazing photo” of a Lockheed Martin item. It is unclear what the company expected to receive, given that it produces deadly weapons of war, but the campaign backfired spectacularly.

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