Making the new better.

Dear George,

Many are the ties that grip America and Israel in their danse macabre. The music plays, the couple turn and turn again around the dance floor and with each turn people die and buildings collapse.

The ties go deep, far beyond APIAC’s ownership of Congress and the Whitehouse. And the one tie that is never mentioned is Israel’s use as a testing lab for American weapons that are still in a state of development.

It impossible to judge a new weapon’s effectiveness unless it is first tested on real people and Israel’s attack on the Gaza Ghetto has been a boon to weapon developers.

On such weapon is the Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME). This little baby creates a small but lethal blast in an area 10 meters in diameter, thus minimizing collateral damage to humans, except for the collateral damage created within the blast area. Of course, we have to take into account the Circle Area Probability which posits that half of the projectiles will miss their target.

The injuries the DIMEs cause are delicious: severed or melted limbs and internal ruptures. The up side is that the weapon produces no shrapnel, only a “fine dusting of minute metal particles.” I guess we can say that Israel is going to knuckle and DIME Gaza to death. (I swear there’s nothing like a well-turned pun to take the edge off carnage.)

Then there are the flechette shells. When these babies explode they release thousands of tiny metal darts that turn humans exposed to the blast into pin cushions.

However, the boys in weapon development never rest on their laurels. The downside of the flechette is that a dart only has one point, so while the injury might be painful, it is possible it wouldn’t be lethal. So they came up with the Kalanit, a cute little goody that releases hundreds of razor sharp little discs upon explosion. You might call it death by Frisbees.

Now the beauty of these weapons is that they are not banned by international law because they are still in development.

Granted, the use of these weapons is still sinful, in a manner of speaking, but the morality of their use may be moot since Israel has declared a unilateral ceasefire, and sin evaporates as soon as peace breaks out. The dead come to life and body parts reassemble themselves. All is forgiven; all is forgotten, except among the survivors who have seen loved ones and friends slaughtered. Every grieving parent, every grieving child is an angry seed that will remain dormant until conditions are right for it to germinate and produce the rage that will continue the madness.

In peace, war crimes are glorified and failure is redefined as success.

As for the Gazian dead, a spread sheet will be their shroud upon which the jet-black numbers that tote up the cost-benefit analysis of the assault will march across the paper, paper that will be thick and heavy so the blood of the vanquished can’t soak through.

Even now, in an office buried deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, geeks are pouring over an analysis of their new weapons’ efficiency. The key to successful weapon development is to maximize efficiency, and Israel has made an invaluable contribution to our arsenal of democracy.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones