"Improvised" Explosive Device...

[Endangered Specie]

Im sorry, but any device which utilizes a shaped charge to flip a 25 ton vehicle, is many things, but it is NOT 'improvised'.

Im always amazed at the language the military uses to try to upplay its own side and downplay the other. Using the word "improvised" suggests a smaller, cheaper, inferior, and potentially defective device. This leads to a very false sense of security. This isnt a rag tag half assed insurgency, its a brewing full scale insurrection.

:rant:

[Eric J in MN]

1. Should they call it a "mine?" (nt)

nt

[Endangered Specie]

4. how about an "anti tank mine"

[EVDebs]

2. Have your read this article by Alternet ?

The Insurgency: Neighborhood Watch
by Gary Brecher, AlterNet. Posted August 3, 2005.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/23851/

IMHO, the "coalition" forces should simply retreat to Kuwait (the old staging areas) and let the cities explode into the nacient civil war. The first to get wasted will be the foreign jihadists without a base with a stake in the civil war's outcome. The Sunni areas will quickly sue for peace once the shia majority asserts itself.

The US can then either be invited back or retain some desert staging areas as requested by the new Iraqi government.

[left hand man]

7. thats about the best idea I've heard to end this "war"

Let them sort it out themselves--- as it should be.

[EVDebs]

8. Our military should NOT view strategic retreat as abandonment

of the 'final objective'. Besides, any force nearer to the Persian Gulf itself would have to augment once the Brits start pulling out as they've hinted they would in 2006 anyway.

As that Clint Eastwood movie 'Heartbreak Ridge' pounded home to us, "improvise, adapt, overcome". Being a handy resource for air support to the Iraqis, whose own operations will take out the sunnis and foreign jihadis on their own, is a better way to ease out of this quagmire.

Bush has got a whole lotta 'splainin to do to his own party whose chances in the '06 elections are dwindling daily. He can't campaign for those Repub candidates either since the protest crowds he'll draw will overwhelm the media !

[leftchick]

3. I think they were just called bombs

in other conflicts.

[Solly Mack]

5. Well, actually, an IED can flip a 25 ton vehicle

my husband tells of one IED, which consisted of 28 150mm arty rounds, each containing 98 lbs of explosive, strung together down both sides of the road way (connected by electrical wire) and set to go off in sequence...taking less than 5 seconds to detonate all of them.

Now, what the military doesn't tell people is how well made an IED can be...they just say IED.

When the military says Improvised, they don't in any way mean "homemade" or on the cheap...they do, however, mean it was improvised from materials available

[ChiDem]

6. Not to mention...

There is still 380 tons of high explosives missing, we find some everytime a IED goes off

[bluecrush]

9. Insurgents

have found a way to get more bang out of their bombs by focusing all of the energy toward a specific direction/point. This is very bad news for all of us. Their own version of "shock and awe?"

[Endangered Specie]

10. I believe you mean "shaped charges"

Whats happened is the dumb ones have already been killed off, leaving the smarter ones to run the show (a little evolution, you could say).