Major Player Involvement In Iraq

[ThomWV]

Pamela Hess was on "Washington Journal" (C-Span) this morning and there are several posts commenting on her overall performance. I believe 'performance' is the correct word.

She said something I'd like to point out. It was said in a passing moment and I doubt that it was noted by very many people but it seems to me to be extremely important.

Here is what she said, and I paraphrase but I'll come very close. She said that most of the IEDs that go off in Iraq are small. She went on to say that many of our troops have actually been hit by 4 or 5 of them but they don't do disabling damage and the troops are not injured. Of course the larger ones kill.

So what does that tell us?

I was in Viet Nam for 3 tours and I saw hundreds and hundreds of vehicles that had hit mines. Out in the countryside mines were commonplace and effective. The thing is that when a mine when off under one of our vehicles that thing and generally everyone in it was toast. There was no such thing as a small one. I suspect the reason we got big hits is because the mines being used against us came from Russia and China - state players with the resources necessary to fight with modern tools made just for the purpose. However, the lady tells us that in Iraq most of the mines are small - maybe one out of 5 or 6 is large. So what does that say about where they come from? It says that they are home made and not coming from a state player - like Iran or Syria or Korea or anyone else you can name. It also tells me that the hatred for us in Iraq is so widespread that its the common people who are making these things from anything available.

When a Government is at odds with your you can beat it at war, but when the people hate you all you can do is go home.