Even in areas in which the United States is considered weak among bomb techs -- in the area of preventing bombs like the explosive-filled truck that was responsible for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, for example -- the Bomb Squad excels.
Four alleged assailants are said first to have set off a weak car bomb outside an unused building in a smart suburb of Damascus, then tried to flee by tossing hand-grenades and firing wildly.
Terrorism is the weapon of the weak -- bombing civilian targets was not invented by Arabs (nor by the Jews who engaged in it before 1948).
It is a weak argument: cluster bombs are weapons for conventional wars with conventional battlefields.
Failed governments had left China impoverished and weak; Shanghai was bombed and invaded by Japan in 1932.
Even with today's weak peso and bombed-out Manila stock exchange, the Tan family's 79% stake in Jollibee is worth $330 million.
Commitment to love and compassion will defuse the ticking bomb of Weak Peace and build solidarity.
But if the alternatives are bloody hand-to-hand combat, or a siege that starves the weakest, then precision bombing looks a lot more humane.
The petition also charges that "the evidence linking Mr. Padilla to the alleged 'dirty bomb plot' is weak at best" and not enough for prosecutors to obtain a criminal indictment against him.
Your article about malfunctioning heart defibrillators ("Troubling Flaws in Heart Device Shake Industry," front page, April 7) is just the latest example of how medical implants can become ticking time bombs because of weak federal oversight.
