Tag: weapon of mass destruction

When to call it a weapon of mass destruction (WMD)?

Posted on by kathiemm

In its Criminal Complaint against accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, the FBI charged him with “unlawfully using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely, an improvised explosive device).” That is, the FBI labeled the pressure cooker device that killed two people and injured more than 200 others a WMD.

Boston Marathon bombing site
Boston Marathon bombing site. Photo by Aaron Tang used under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Glen Greenwald, in the Guardian, wrote a powerful essay entitled “Why is Boston ‘terrorism’ but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine?” Reminder:

  • In Aurora, 12 people were killed and 58 others wounded with multiple weapons, including a semiautomatic rifle.
  • In Sandy Hook, 20 school children and six adults were murdered with a semiautomatic assault rifle.
  • In Tuscon, six people were killed and 14 (including Gabrielle Giffords) were wounded by a semiautomatic pistol.
  • In Columbine, 12 students and one teacher were killed and 24 others were injured by several weapons, including a semiautomatic pistol.

So, here’s another question: When can a weapon or weapon system be called a weapon of mass destruction? Choose one or more of the following answers:

  1. When it falls into the category of nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) weapons.
  2. When its sale and use does not profit the weapons industry.
  3. When it can result in as many fatalities over time as nuclear weapons systems.
  4. When it serves the purposes of the military-industrial-corporate media complex.

Let’s consider these possibilities in relation to the Tsarnaev brothers’ pressure cooker devices.

  1. The most common definition of WMD has been NBC weapons. Pressure cooker bombs do not fall into this category.
  2. The pressure cooker bomb does not profit the weapons industry, although semiautomatic weapons do.
  3. Since World War II, pressure cooker bombs have accounted for a miniscule  portion of fatalities. In contrast, as reported (opens in PDF) by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, “small arms” have killed as many people as all other weapons combined.
  4. You decide: in what ways can frequent use of the term “weapons of mass destruction” play into the hands of the military-industrial corporate media complex that Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned our country to beware?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology