BOOBYTRAP

There is a bomb named the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB). Born in 2003 in the US, this 9-meter-long, 9.5-metric-ton bomb is as large as Totoro, that creature from the Miyazaki film. Of course, stuffed with all manner of explosives, the MOAB isn’t quite as cute as Totoro. Indeed, being the most explosive conventional bomb ever, the MOAB is second only to nuclear bombs. And when this bloodthirsty fucker is released, it creates two blasts, and obliterates every living organism within a one-kilometer radius.

The first explosion creates a blast radius of 350 meters, no less. Anything within that radius is killed either from the shockwave or the heat. Then, when the aerosols from the first blast have sufficiently diffused into the atmosphere, there is a second explosion creating temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius, effectively burning all the oxygen within 1,000 meters of ground zero. Those exposed to this second blast are killed either by the back blast or the ensuing burns. Anyone lucky enough to have a deep underground bunker to hide from the back blast and heat, will eventually die from asphyxiation.

The MOAB is more commonly known by its nickname: the “Mother of All Bombs.” Who knew bombs had mothers? Sometimes I wonder how the warm and tender word that is “mother” could be attached to something so horrific as a bomb. American soldiers chose the name probably because they lacked the imagination and vocabulary necessary to think of a better substitute for the acronym. They could have chosen anything else. Monkey of all bombs, mouth of all bombs… Heck, even that would have been better than mother of all bombs.

Not being a fluffy anime character or a missile, the MOAB cannot fly on its own. And because it’s so fat, you can’t load it onto a plane. Ignoring its thin shell, this fat fucker is 100% pure explosives. If they made a nuclear bomb as big as the MOAB using today’s technology and detonated it, the whole world would be turned to ash.

The first reason they made such a large and immobile bomb was because it was cheap to build. The second was that, at least compared to nuclear weapons and chemical bombs whose use in war was heavily criticized by the public, this bomb had a relatively good public image. Despite the fact the MOAB releases aluminum oxide and other harmful chemicals into the air when exploding, making it a sophisticatedly devastating bomb, as far as the public is concerned, the MOAB is just another conventional bomb and, in fact, an improvement over the napalm bombs of the Vietnam era. In fact, if it could talk, the MOAB would probably try to convince us of its banality: “I’m not a nuke. I’m no different from the cannonballs Napoleon used at the Battle of Waterloo. I’m based on the same principles as the Molotovs used by university demonstrators. I’m a proper and fair weapon. Admittedly, I do contain more explosives than the cannons at Waterloo. But that was two hundred years ago.”

Hansen Brown is a nice fellow. He’s an honest husband, a good father, and has volunteered to help immigrants and impoverished children in his community since he was a young boy scout. Once he was even featured on the front page of the local newspaper for donating half of his fortune to save a local girl from heart disease. And every morning, Hansen Brown goes to work at the munitions factory to build MOABs.

One day, Hansen Brown’s daughter came home from school in a fit.

“People say you make the biggest bomb in the world,” she said. “Is that true, Daddy?”

Hansen Brown’s face went white as he thought for a moment.

“Yes,” he finally answered. “Daddy’s job is to make misfortune. But if Daddy didn’t make misfortune that explodes on the other side of the world, that misfortune would end up in our sitting room or somewhere like your savings.”

There’s a boobytrap called PERSCOM. This anti-personnel, anti-tank boobytrap, which is laid around M114 155 mm howitzers, or dropped by planes and helicopters, is a series of eight landmines. If any one of its eight tripwires goes off, all eight landmines will detonate in succession. Whereas most anti-personnel mines only take the life or leg of the soldier who steps on it, this boobytrap can massacre an entire squadron if one person makes a mistake. One detonation trips the detonation of the next mine, which detonates the next mine, and so on and so forth until everything has been turned to dust. If it could talk, this boobytrap would probably try to warn us of trusting others: “Didn’t you say teamwork was important? If that was the case, you should have made sure the guy backing you up was dependable.”

In an odd way, this boobytrap mimics misfortune. Just as one unfortunate event is connected to the next, tripping one wire will set off an explosion of unfortunate events.

Boobytraps are thrown out like bait on a fishing line: you only need to wait. But, unlike with fishing, the person who casts a boobytrap has little interest in food or sport; people who set boobytraps are only interested in the amount of misfortune they can create. Indeed, the more unhappiness they can bring to their prey, the better. Another difference is that, when it comes to fishing, there is at least a contest between the caster and the fish – albeit an unfair contest, as is often the case in life. But boobytraps present no contest. Indeed, the despicable thing about boobytraps is that, by hiding in anonymity, the setter makes contest impossible.

Boobytraps work via the principles of temptation and error. According to the ROK Military Field Manual, rice, canned foods, guns, maps, compasses, and water are common incentives used to lure people into making contact with a landmine detonator. Death awaits anyone who removes such an item from the top of a boobytrap. Survival awaits those who don’t. Now, let’s imagine the case in which someone does take the bait, causing the detonators that have been waiting so long to go off; was their death due to temptation? Or was it due to error?

Had we the power to see the future, we would be astounded by just how many spiderweb-like boobytraps are lain throughout the world and our daily lives. Indeed, you would begin to wonder if avoiding such a dense web of tripwires were even possible. Won’t I eventually be lured in by one of these temptations and make an error? And if not me, what about the person in front of me? Or the person behind?

When people go bankrupt or suffer some unexpected disaster, they lament how life and misfortune happen so suddenly. But life is not as simple as that. In fact, the boobytrap wire is tripped way before we become aware of the misfortune. A moment as simple as making a left turn instead of a right could have caused a crack to form on your brakes, starting the countdown to your inevitable misfortune. Something as simple as giving your boss a firm “no,” or telling yourself, “What could go wrong?” as you get up to accept an unassuming handshake from a shadowy hand. Something as simple as being merely unlucky. And sometimes, without any provocation, for no reason whatsoever, the tripwire might one day decide to just snap, all on its own.

We can never escape this web of misfortune that blankets our lives. It is just too expansive, too intricate. The history of power is a story of boobytraps. Or, to phrase it slightly differently, the history of humankind is a story of boobytraps. Out of fear and anxiety, we keep laying boobytraps, even if they might harm us. Countless wires rigged with detonators, wires of misfortune that multiply ad infinitum. Surveillance cameras and thick legal dictionaries demanding restrictions and regulations. Order necessitates thousands, millions, billions of boobytraps. The person in front of me, the person behind me, my lover, my enemy – if any one of them trips on a single wire, there will be a cascade of unfortunate events. It’s not enough just to be careful myself. You and I both have need to avoid temptation and making a mistake. After all, there’s a man with a kind face all the way on the opposite side of the globe who goes to work every morning to build giant bombs for us.

The Book of Genesis is also a story about boobytraps. When God made the universe, God also made boobytraps. And in the Garden of Eden, God placed a trap in the form of the forbidden fruit. Through the serpent, God created an elaborate plan to tempt Adam and Eve. And according to this plan, the two were caught in the boobytrap. They triggered the detonator, setting off a cascade of unfortunate events. Work, labor pains, hate and regret, shame, murder and theft. Not to mention good and evil, which never would have existed if it weren’t for God.

But, through this boobytrap, what did God hope to learn about humanity?