Improvised explosive devices were made infamous and frequently used by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now a top US general is claiming IEDs are a threat to the homeland.
“The global proliferation of IEDs and associated technology is pervasive and continues to threaten US interests at home and abroad,” Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, head of the military’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, told a congressional hearing on Thursday.
Americans may be surprised that this is a significant threat to their every day lives, especially because most citizens have never even heard of IEDs because they, in fact, are not a threat. Barbero tried to illustrate how “pervasive” IEDs are becoming outside Iraq and Afghanistan, but he couldn’t name a single American who wasn’t wearing a military uniform and occupying another country that’s been killed by one.
“Since January 2011, there have been more than 10,000 global IED events occurring in 112 countries, executed by more than 40 regional and transnational threat networks,” he added. Oh, scary.
“The threat is indeed real,” Barbero insisted. Except that it isn’t. He seems to have flubbed his numbers a bit, considering the National Counterterrorism Center’s annual report for 2011 found that there were about 10,000 acts of violence that occurred last year that the government classifies as terrorism.
Exactly zero of them occurred in the US and, of those that died, .001% of them were American (and all but one were civilian contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq).
The fact that this US general is the head of a military bureaucracy specifically dedicated “defeating” to IEDs should immediately prompt scrutiny of his estimation of how big the threat is. As Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in Foreign Affairs, “Warnings about a dangerous world also benefit powerful bureaucratic interests. The specter of looming dangers sustains and justifies the massive budgets of the military and the intelligence agencies, along with the national security infrastructure that exists outside government — defense contractors, lobbying groups, think tanks, and academic departments.”
Good article, John. Here's another one of these chrome-domed, lying, no honor/no integrity generals in their new/old Ulysses S. Grant uniforms ensconced in their Pentagon fantasyland telling lies and propaganda to justify his parasite job and the continuation of the perpetual Imperial War State he propagandizes for.
He needs to stoke the fear of IEDs to justify his lavishly supported occupation
"…Barbero laughably claims IEDs are a 'pervasive' threat…"
It will only be pervasive once the Archons decide which Americans they want to sacrifice in order to make the prophecy self-fulfilling – and then begin he terrorizing of the "Homeland"/"Motherland"/"Fatherland" – and the inevitable clampdown on the freedom of movement with our borders – of all people.
Methinks he let the prophetic cat out of the bag a wee bit early.
IED's, car bombs both parked and remotely guided, low-tech drones, and all manner of asymmetric attacks are indeed coming to a neighborhood near you. Absolutely. Blowback, courtesy of the US's imperial savagery around the globe. So whether they're here now or they arrive later is irrelevant.
The general is right, but the general and those like him are the cause. And of course it's all so very logical.
The general needs a paycheck, and the general's business is war. For him and the other generals to have a thriving business — more budget, more prestige, more puffed-up self-importance, and a whopping big paycheck — they need more war, ongoing war, or — the tip top best case for them — perpetual war. That is achieved through the war on terror, which must eventually provoke those under attack by the US across the globe to bring their most successful tactics of asymmetric war here to the homeland.
Then of course the nascent but full-term police state emerges into full-blown all growed up tyranny,…and America, the fading dream, finally dies.
The earth is quite large. Study up. I'm no doomsday conspiratorial survivalist, but right about now I'd have to agree with them: time to start looking for some out of the way place to whether the storm.
Iran should charge a $5,000 fee to inspect for hidden bombs every oil tanker that wants passage thru Hormuz Strait. For what if the CIA does one of its notorious “false flag” operations and blows up a million gallon tanker dead center in the Strait?
And so, then every time the sanctions get stronger, the weeks it takes to inspect a tanker get longer. Anyway, let’s try it for 4 years and see what happens.
might work except for one thing…Iran doesn't "own" Hormuz – it is classified as International waters. Besides, that's something the US might try and do…with a coalition of "willing" co-conspirators, of course – wouldn't want it to look like they're a bully, you know.
Both Iran and Oman share the Strait of Hormuz, half and half, as their own territorial waters — the Strait is only 21 miles wide. Navigation is handled through their territorial waters for transit purposes like this:
(From Wiki:) To traverse the Strait, ships pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.[4] Although not all countries have ratified the convention,[5] most countries, including the U.S.,[6] accept these customary navigation rules as codified in the Convention.
thx for doing the research I should have done.
Considering that a single Black Cat firework properly placed and detonated can qualify as an IED, I'm already beginning to construct an underground bunker complete with lead lining (for those Iraqi nukes- oh, wait) and a six-month food supply (that's a lot of dehydrated hash browns) and a positive air filtration system (for the inevitable danger from rogue hands gaining access to Syrian chem/bio stocks once our coup against Assad is complete). Along with all the guns and ammo I'll need to stock up on, that's a good chunk of money that I really can't afford, but dangit we Americans are in such looming danger EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY I don't see how I'll make it.
Then again, maybe I'll just keep going to work as usual, and maybe I'll get some extra plastic sheeting and duct tape. You know, just in case.
Hash browns, anyone?
We have seen it with the TSA stopping traffic and searching vehicles, we are now seeing Generals make comments of wholesale domestic terrorism of a type not seen in the US. Yes there have been a few car bombs but these are not what is known as an IED, furthermore we have seen the use of th term WMD, a weapon designed to kill thousands, be relegated to weapons like a hand grenade, so as to better pad a criminal charge sheet!
The name of the game is to instill PANIC, because when there is PANIC there is the ability to do things that take away our Liberties! This I believe is an excuse to have UAVs in the skies of America, ARMED UAVs, The wish of the Military Industrial complex, UAVs contracted out to Civilian Contractors to bypass what is left of Posse Commitatus, based on they are a "Police" presence!
Our predator chickens are certain to come home to roost in the forms of car bombs, IEDs, and the like. General Barbarity may have other agendas than the search for truth and anticipation of human nature- but we are kidding ourselves to think that the millions enraged by the ongoing USi MICrampage will not hit back.
What we must remember about coming blowback victimizing passive supporters of the War on Terra is that the just response can never be military mobilization, but instead the less lucrative, less spectacular, even mundane duties of international policing and prosecution against any and all who take up violence against general populations in ostensibly settling bloody scores.
Cults of miltarism and nationalism are exhibiting defining tantrums of irrelevancy, and we shall all get back to more sustainable and sustaining life, both locally and globally, when the hurly-burly is done. We're stuck on stupid only because those of us who can articulate the truth are not sufficiently doing so. Inform and persuade everyone you interact with, that we can't violently achieve any semblance of physical, psychological, or financial security here at the end of the age of empires by behaving as a self-righteous cultural master-race.