Saturday, July 14, 2007

August 2006

There's an interesting video of an IED team getting ambushed in an agricultural area north of Baghdad at the Jawa Report as seen through the imager of a long-range surveillance device tracking them from about 2,300 meters. The IED team consisted of a digger and a lookout, supported by lookout and logistics vehicles, a sedan and a pickup, which were probably providing uproad and downroad surveillance. The entire process of digging is followed by a long range surveillance system positioned northeast of the IED team until the support vehicles return. And then the digging team is taken under crew-served weapons fire from the southeast, killing one. The other flees, but the video footage skips forward a half hour and the other IED team member is seen being escorted back to a couple of Humvees a prisoner. The implication is that both support vehicles might have been netted as well, though this is far from certain.

What is really eerie about the sequence is how the IED team, despite their precautions, remains unaware of both the watcher (who remains on station throughout) and the shooters, plus the blocking team which picked up the runner and brought him back as prisoner. One moment the IED team is relaxed; you can almost sense the relief at having gotten so far without being being detected. And the next second there is blind panic.

Nothing follows.

5 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

I don't mind seeing that IED team getting machined gunned, dying and being captured. I just wonder how much American money was spent for this operation? I wonder what will happen to that person who seems to have been captured; will he go to Gitmo and more American dollars via lawyers will be spent?

You see, watching that footage tells me we don't control many roads in Irag, nor do the local citizens watch those roads for us, knowing we bring food, dollars, work and perhaps some security.

Watching that video just tells me how screwed up our efforts are after so many years, and how we waste dollars on those idiots!

I would rather see a video of an elite American team going into Pakistan hunting Osama and his number 2 clown.

Bush has lost my confidence, along with this Congress. What's worse is that I see no new players who excite me as true leaders and statesmen, etc.

7/14/2007 09:19:00 AM  
Blogger Whiskey said...

R --

You are dreaming if you think "black clad ninjas" will hunt down Osama in Pakistan.

It will take massive efforts and all out War with Pakistan, possibly nuclear, to get Osama.

Osama has safe refuge because at least half and possibly more of the Pakistani Army and most of the intelligence service is under his sway. Why do you think Musharraf signed "peace treaties" with the Taliban that turned over NWF Provinces (about a quarter of the country)? Because he was too weak to do anything else.

Iraq and Afghanistan were "possible." We won't get Osama until we lose cities and throw off our elites. Being willing to wage total war on our enemies which includes the People (not the regimes) of Pakistan, Iran, Saudi, and much of the Gulf plus Egypt.

7/14/2007 12:42:00 PM  
Blogger Bill Befort said...

Instead of using a video like this as an excuse to vent, why not pay attention to the information it contains? It shows an incident that took place last summer on an azimuth of 208 degrees from 33 56'56.46"N, 44 10'32.82"E.

This turns out to be an agricultural area 15km NW of the Balad airbase, between Baqubah and Samarra. Google Earth provides incredibly good airphoto detail on the patchwork of settlement, cultivation and cover in the neighborhood. With a little imagination you can guess which road is pictured in the video, why these gents might have been hired to mine it, and where the observation point was.

The date is August 10, 2006, so the video doesn't say much of anything at all about present-day operations, whether they're succeeding, or whether Bush or Congress deserve confidence. Different Congress now, for one thing.

7/14/2007 01:23:00 PM  
Blogger hdgreene said...

I saw no evidence that an IED was planted. This may just be the way potholes appear in Iraqi roads.

Here in Ohio potholes result from the freezing and heaving of water. They don't have much water nor cold weather in Iraq. In Iraq, potholes come from the activity of pothole gnomes. Killing pothole gnomes is considered bad luck in the equatorial regions. Much like killing an elf or other untamed things in our own country. If a deer breaks into your living room and steals your Plasma TV, you don't kill it, do you?

7/14/2007 01:59:00 PM  
Blogger Cedarford said...

"r" brings up a good point - why are we spending 700 billion on bastards that won't even help us and stop the roads from becoming unsafe?

Let the Islamoid animals kill one another. The more the better.

We already know that desire to kill infidels does not come from the moronic Bush-Sharansky concept that democrats in secular countries like France, Britain, Canads, India do not engage in terrorism - instead incubators like higher education, access to democratic choice, extensive exposure to "all the West has to offer: only enrages Islamoids.

Let Islamoids kill one another to their heart's content in Iraq and Sudan and elsewhere.

All the high tech in the world matters for nothing if captured terrorists are pledged total safety as POWs, homes families and assets inviolate - in consequence of a little burning as dislimbing or US soldiers - and zealous defense from their ACLU Jewish lawyers...

Whats the downside of infidel-killing?

7/14/2007 04:58:00 PM  

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