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Title: Afganistan Photo of the DAY
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Published: Oct 27, 2009
Author: wired
Post Date: 2009-10-27 19:13:52 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 468
Comments: 31
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#27. To: tom007 (#0)
This picture looks photo shopped. Dust rising from a hit on a vehicle? I don't buy it but I'm willing to listen. The guy lying on the ground...on the left...I don't buy it.
I barely looked at that photo at first, but now that you mention it, the more you inspect it the stranger it looks. 1) There seems to be a detonation in a vehicle that has already been destroyed. 2) The powerplant looks to be on fire, yet the apparently injured soldiers on the right almost seem to be taking shelter in the shadow of its smoke. Two other soldiers, apparently unconscious, are layed out right next to the burning truck. Helluva place to position injured. 3) Some idiot local has casually parked his little sedan with the driver's door ajar next to a burning military vehicle. Maybe he's parked there just having a cigarette. 4) The injuries to the soldiers do not seem comensurate with the amount of damage to the vehicle. Perhaps this image isn't photoshopped, but it might be posed or the result of some kind of drill or exercise. In any case, it doesn't look natural.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/fighting-afghanistans-dumbed-down-and-deadly-bombs/
#31. To: tom007 (#30)
Afghanistan’s low-tech, relatively primitive bombs might be even harder to stop than Iraq’s comparatively sophisticated improvised explosives. The Pentagon is sinking almost a billion dollars into new tools to stop this dumbed-down threat, like sensors and software that can detect minute changes on the ground, along with dozens of other initiatives. It’s a particularly urgent need: Between 70 and 80 percent of coalition casualties in Afghanistan are now caused by improvised bombs. The International Security Assistance Force announced today that eight U.S. troops — and an Afghan civilian working for the coalition — were killed in “multiple, complex” roadside bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan. In Iraq, the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization played a cat-and-mouse game against sophisticated insurgent bomb-making cells who used military-grade explosives and radio-frequency triggers. As violence crested, insurgents there were laying as many as 100 of the deadly devices in one day. The organization spent billions to field radio-frequency jammers and speed the development of mine-resistant vehicles, and the total number of deadly attacks dropped precipitously. In comparison, Afghanistan’s bombs are much more crude. Insurgents there often mix up homemade explosives that are triggered by command wire or a simple pressure plate. But detecting those elementary components “is a very difficult physics problem,” JIEDDO director Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz tells Danger Room. We’ve become accustomed to the idea that a weapon’s potency grows with its sophistication: “Smart” munitions are more effective than dumb ones; supersonic jets can shoot down slower planes. But Afghanistan and its IEDs are proving the exception to that rule.
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#28. To: Fred Mertz (#27)
#30. To: randge (#28)
Replies to Comment # 30. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/fighting-afghanistans-dumbed-down-and-deadly-bombs/
End Trace Mode for Comment # 30.