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Posted by Don Foreman on March 15, 2006, 3:18 am
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wrote:
>
>> TMT's question deteriorated into a [somewhat interesting] political
>> discussion, but the question as to what to do techically about IEDs is
>> a very interesting question and very much on topic of this
>> newsgroup. Perhaps, in this sub-thread, we could post our own thoughts
>> as to what could be done to reduce the threat of IEDs.
>>
>> I would like to ask NOT to post any political opinions into this
>> sub-thread.
>>
>> My own thinking is that if about 2,000 miles of roads were made safe
>> from IEDs, the safety of US convoys could be greatly improved. If that
>> could be done by spending $1,000 per every 100 meters, or $16,000 per
>> mile, then securing 2000 miles would cost 32 million dollars. That's
>> really not too much.
>>
>> What can be done for $1,000? A couple of light/IR cameras, solar
>> chargers and batteries, lasers and motion sensors and a transmitter
>> does not seem to be far fetched. It would be stuff similar to what is
>> sold at home depot and x10, only a little more rugged. It does not
>> have to be terribly reliable, as they can be treated as consumables
>> and replaced when it breaks.
>>
>> So... if they set up some motion sensor activated cameras,
>> transmitters etc, then a few computers that receive these
>> transmissions can monitor those 2,000 miles of roads. If activity is
>> detected in any area, it can first of all be marked as "treat with
>> caution and search for mines", and second, maybe photos of suspects
>> could be taken and displayed.
>>
>> That could go quite a long way. Obviously, development of such a
>> project would take some money too, but I think that it is a feasible
>> project.
>>
>> It may be more problematic to do it inside of cities, but still
>> doable.
>>
>> i
>
>
>Nothing wrong with your idea but it's not really practical. The problem we
>are facing with the IEDs in Iraq is a classic example of measure and
>countermeasure that is the cornerstone of warfare. As such there is no way
>for a long term win in this conflict. Everything we do, and I mean
>everything, can and will be countered by a clever enemy. As we have already
>learned, the insurgents are indeed smart so you must expect that no matter
>what we do they will find ways to beat it.
>
>There is only one reason why the insurgents are using IEDs in the first
>place. They can't fight our forces head to head. Their solution to that is
>to use bombs of all stripes to inflict damage to our troops instead of
>actually fighting us. If we could stop that they would just come up with
>some other way to hit us. The point is they have only one way to win against
>us and that is by the good old "death of a thousand cuts" strategy. The use
>of IEDs allows them to bleed us day by day. They will not stop until we have
>had enough and call it quits. So there is really no solution to that problem
>aside from pulling out. Of course, by now everyone knows that's exactly what
>we are going to do but it's only a matter of when. As such we have gotten
>into a return to the Vietnam days when nobody wants to be killed in a war we
>know we are losing and are going to pull out from. Just like in that war, in
>this one all the troops will find themselves doing everything to avoid being
>killed instead of aggressively fighting the enemy. Which only adds to our
>problems. Ultimately, we have to acknowledge we made a mistake and then
>rectify it by leaving Iraq to the Iraqis. The question is how long do we
>keep up a policy that doesn't work before admitting our mistake and changing
>the policy.
>
>Hawke
>
There may have been some of "troops doing everything..." as you say,
but it's incorrect as a blanket statement. Westy was far more a
politician than a general officer or leader. There were plenty of
troops who were frustrated as hell by being prevented from doing the
job they were trained to do and quite able to do if adequately
supported by HQ. It's impossible to kick ass and take names with
the constraint of being politically correct to waffling "leadership"
that leaves you high, dry, disowned and rots 'o ruck hopeyadisappear
when mission accomplishment turns out to have politically ugly
ramifications, hope ya don't E&E so as to cause any embarrassment by
having done as asked to do at the time.
I am not a warrior, never have been . I don't like conflict,
particularly mortal conflict. But I have been there and done
that. I led small teams because it was my job at the time. Ya
don't have to like it but ya do have to do it.
Don't park the 'Nam fiasco on the troops. That flat isn't fair.
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Posted by Rex B on March 15, 2006, 10:03 am
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Don Foreman wrote:
> wrote:
>> aside from pulling out. Of course, by now everyone knows that's exactly what
>> we are going to do but it's only a matter of when. As such we have gotten
>> into a return to the Vietnam days when nobody wants to be killed in a war we
>> know we are losing and are going to pull out from. Just like in that war, in
>> this one all the troops will find themselves doing everything to avoid being
>> killed instead of aggressively fighting the enemy. Which only adds to our
>> problems. Ultimately, we have to acknowledge we made a mistake and then
>> rectify it by leaving Iraq to the Iraqis. The question is how long do we
>> keep up a policy that doesn't work before admitting our mistake and changing
>> the policy.
>>
>> Hawke
>>
>
> Don't park the 'Nam fiasco on the troops. That flat isn't fair.
The troops in Iraq are far different from those in 'Nam.
Our people are better educated and highly motivated, committed to
finishing the mission. And they, working with the decent Iraqis, are
making progress, despite all the gloom and doom from the media and the
skeptics.
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Posted by on March 18, 2006, 10:32 am
Please log in for more thread options It's really not an issue among the leadership, after all it's not their
sons who do the bleeding.
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Posted by F. George McDuffee on March 15, 2006, 2:42 pm
Please log in for more thread options On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 16:13:57 GMT, Ignoramus4546
>TMT's question deteriorated into a [somewhat interesting] political
>discussion, but the question as to what to do techically about IEDs is
>a very interesting question and very much on topic of this
>newsgroup. Perhaps, in this sub-thread, we could post our own thoughts
>as to what could be done to reduce the threat of IEDs.
>
>I would like to ask NOT to post any political opinions into this
>sub-thread.
=========================================================
Long "first principals" response ---
This is a typical American response to a perceived problem,
probably because we were leaders in both creating and producing
technology for many years, and to slightly mangle an old saying
"when the tool you use best is a hammer, everything looks like a
nail."
This is not a bad approach as long as it is "A" *TECHNICAL*
problem you are trying to solve and not a multitude of
inter-related problems lumped under one convenient codeword or
acronym. An additional danger is the misidentification of the
problem even when it is nominally technical - See appended
Business week article.
==> An implicit *MAJOR* assumption is the Iraqi insurgents are
not innovative and will/can not develop alternative tactics,
which does not appear to be correct.
Over a 30 year career in industry [1st tier suppliers of
automotive & heavy truck components] and 15 years in
post-secondary education [technology instruction and
administration] I have repeatedly seen well financed and planned
"technical solutions" (some of the proposals should have won a
Pulitzer prize for creative writing) go down in flames because
these were attempting to address either a non-technical problem
with at most a few and generally a single technical aspect, or
more commonly a totally non-technical problem.
These attempts were uniformly expensive in both time and money,
generally produced minimal to no measurable results, and
frequently exacerbated the underlying problem(s). They had the
advantage of generating large amounts of activity, expending
large amounts of money, avoiding examination of the foundational
problems(s) in depth (which were directly the result of
management), and engendering warm and fuzzy feelings such as
"we're doing something!" while avoiding distasteful personnel
confrontations.
One technique for avoiding this is what I call the "plunk the
magic twanger" technique [Google "Froggy the Gremlin" for
background] whereby you assume that whatever you are proposing is
fully operational, and examine how things change.
All together now let's PLUNK THE MAGIC TWANGER and the IEDs are
neutralized. -- Now, how have things changed?
The immediate answer is - not much. Our armed forces are still
confined to their fortified posts, albeit with [more] secure
communications, but are subject to instant death or injury if
they set one foot outside their secure parameters. Operationally
they are still prisoners in Iraq although with an expanded
exercise yard.
The popular "when you have them by the b***s, their hearts and
minds will follow" technique, which is operational and efficient
in hierarchal command organizations such as the military,
corporations or police states, is being applied in amorphous Iraq
with the same success it achieved in amorphous Viet Nam. The
creation of the required police state would simply replace
"their" Saadam with "our" Saadam who would have the additional
baggage of being known as a US puppet. [Ghost of Ngo Dinh Diem
enters stage right at this point.]
When we step back and examine the problem from "first principals"
we see that what is now occurring is an attempt to sell hoards of
very averse, diverse and increasingly hostile customers a change
in their basic lifestyles without speaking their language,
understanding their customs/social structure, or comprehending
their history. [E.g. Would you like a beer with those pork rinds
Ali?] One example of this on a much smaller scale was the
[highly unsuccessful] attempt by a major US car company to sell
their product in Latin America with a name that meant "No Go" in
the local idiom.
The Iraq "problem" is not *A* problem but rather a tremendous
number of separate, overlapping and mutually reinforcing
problems, which are continually evolving and mutating into to
evermore toxic and poisonous forms, many of which are *NOT* the
result of U.S. occupation.
We would do well to remember that the resolution of basic
questions about the political structure and economic basis of the
United States, commonly shorthanded as "slavery," required a
protracted and bloody civil war to resolve. Iraq was in the
process of moving from the 19th to the 20th century under Saadam,
and these questions may have been resolved with fewer Iraqi
deaths and property destruction on a percentage basis that the US
experienced in their civil war.
Additionally, the "solution" to any one existing problem has the
potential to generate (and in many cases are generating) two or
new more problems, producing the classical hydra headed monster.
What is required is a multidisciplinary evaluation including
anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, demographers,
marketing experts and statisticians, although this will produce
highly distasteful conclusions, as these are certain to be
different from the assumptions [wishes? dreams?] of the policy
makers of the cheap quick fix.
=========== Business Week Article from Google =================
Dig Before You Decide
By Keith McFarland Wed Mar 15, 8:08 AM ET
Entrepreneurial companies make fast decisions. And most of the
time, that counts in their favor. But if we don't take care, we
can spend a lot of time, effort, and money chasing solutions that
merely mask the symptoms without diminishing the real problems. A
key sign of a company achieving a transition from
entrepreneur-centric to a real organization: when it begins the
hard work of identifying a handful of root issues facing the
company, which if addressed will best leverage its future
potential.
A good way to identify root issues in your business is to keep
asking: "Why?"
A few years ago National Parks managers noticed the Jefferson
Memorial was crumbling at an alarming rate. When they asked why,
they found out it was being washed far more often than other
memorials. For most organizations, the analysis would stop here.
The solution is clear, right? Adjust the cleaning schedule to
match those of the other memorials.
Midge Of Trouble.
Unfortunately, that solution would have only led to a very dirty
Jefferson Memorial. Because when Parks managers asked about the
reason for the frequent washings, they found it had an
exceptionally large amount of bird droppings deposited on it
every day [no, this isn't a metaphor -- it really happened].
What's the solution now? Erect scarecrows? Declare open season on
pigeons?
Luckily, National Parks managers kept inquiring. And when they
asked why the birds seemed to soil Jefferson at rates higher than
they did so to Kennedy or Lincoln, they discovered the
Virginian's memorial harbored an incredibly large population of
spiders upon which the birds were feeding. And the population of
spiders had exploded because of an abundance of midges (tiny
aquatic insects) in and around the Memorial.
By now, you have the routine down. When Parks managers asked why
so many midges congregated on the Jefferson memorial, they
learned what any fly-fisherman finds out his first day on the
river: Midges are stimulated to emerge and mate by a unique
quality of light (for the rivers of my home state of Utah, it
usually falls between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on a cloudy day).
Gratis And Easy.
It just so happens park managers were inadvertently creating this
unique quality of brightness by turning the lights on the
memorial just before dusk. This one variable caused the whole
chain of events -- lots of midges, lots of spiders, lots of bird
droppings, lots of effort on the part of the cleaning crews, and
finally, the crumbling of the statue.
The solution ended up being pretty simple, and actually saved the
Parks Department money: Just wait until dark to turn on the
lights.
Ridiculing the inanities of government decision-making has turned
into something of a national pastime, but let's give it credit
for getting it right this time. I shudder to think what might
have resulted had the problem been assigned to some of the
entrepreneurial companies I know -- companies that move so fast
they find it hard to stop and think deeply about root causes. My
guess: They would have called task forces charged with
simultaneously formulating new detergent formulas, spreading bird
poison around the memorial (later ingested by children and pets),
and designing intricate spider traps.
Of course, I'm not suggesting entrepreneurial companies should
slow down. Their ability to react quickly can enable them to
better position themselves against deeper-pocketed foes. But
eventually, entrepreneurial companies do need to develop a skill
for getting to the root of an issue. As they grow and become more
complex, the companies will surpass the abilities of all but the
most ingenious entrepreneurs. That means founders need to "clone"
themselves and hone their skills to get to root causes. Most
important, they need to teach people to keep asking: "Why?"
Unka George
(George McDuffee)
What a country calls its vital economic interests are not
the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things
which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat
to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic.
«The Power of Words», in Nouveaux Cahiers (1 and 15 April 1937;
repr. in Selected Essays, ed. by Richard Rees, 1962)
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Posted by carl mciver on March 17, 2006, 11:00 pm
Please log in for more thread options | TMT's question deteriorated into a [somewhat interesting] political
| discussion, but the question as to what to do techically about IEDs is
| a very interesting question and very much on topic of this
| newsgroup. Perhaps, in this sub-thread, we could post our own thoughts
| as to what could be done to reduce the threat of IEDs.
One of the things that the Iraqi people have in abundance now is cell
phones, all to exercise their new-found freedoms. The perverse part of it
is that these are the thing that are used to set off the IED's. Connect up
a bomb to a phone bought from the rack at the local "stop and rob" and use
it as a trigger. When you call your new toy, it'll have a rather
distinctive "ring" to all those in the area.
I'm guessing that many high value vehicles and personnel travel with
cell phone jammers going, which prevents their use. Personally, I think
there should be a system that calls every phone there is in the system at
random intervals, at least once a day, perhaps more depending on certain
criteria such as newness, type of service, how little you paid for your
phone, etc. It'll blow up a lot of bad guys trying to make bombs, and
merely be an annoyance for everyone else, long enough for them to abandon
that technique and look for something else to use. Gotta be careful, they
might come up with something worse!
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| Similar Threads | Posted | | Re: OT - IEDs | March 14, 2006, 12:07 am |
| Re: OT - IEDs | March 14, 2006, 12:09 am |
| Re: OT - IEDs | March 14, 2006, 12:14 am |
| Re: OT - IEDs | March 14, 2006, 12:21 am |
| Re: OT - IEDs | March 14, 2006, 3:15 am |
| Re: OT - IEDs | March 14, 2006, 7:31 am |
| Re: OT - IEDs | March 14, 2006, 7:35 am |
| Re: OT - IEDs | March 14, 2006, 11:20 am |
| Re: OT - IEDs | March 15, 2006, 1:02 am |
| Re: OT - IEDs | March 16, 2006, 7:09 pm |
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