“A devastating new weapon will be part of the US’s massive assault on Iraq. …(I)ts use is likely to destroy civilian lives in their thousands.” Opendemocracy Read this thoughtfully and figure out what you think about explosives that have a blast as devastating as a tactical nuclear weapon although without the firestorm or the radiation. Some claim they are ‘humane’; for example, there would be no barriers to the invading army sweeping in with medics to attend to the casualties immediately, unlike in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then, of course, there’s the argument that they will spare lives overall if they are effective armour-killers and bring the war to a more rapid close (as they said about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan as well). Of course, you would have to buy several premises to accept the use of these things — that the war is legitimate in the first place; and that we might otherwise have to use tactical nuclear weapons.