| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Improvised Explosive Defeat? |
| 2007-06-12 |
| There may be an unlimited supply of explosives in Iraq, but there is not an unlimited supply of people who know how to wire the detonators. In 2004, CIA operatives in Iraq believed that they had identified the signatures of 11 bomb makers. They proposed a diabolical -- but potentially effective -- sabotage program that would have flooded Iraq with booby-trapped detonators designed to explode in the bomb makers' hands. But the CIA general counsel's office said no. The lawyers claimed that the agency lacked authority for such an operation, one source recalled. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #17 too many people that should be the decision makes are too willing to delegate their responsibility to their counsel. Until then, some of them [lawyers] are going to have to be slapped down. I quite agree, Natural Law. The bad decision makers and lawyers, both. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-12 23:02 |
| #16 There are lawyers who are good people out there; some of them read and post at Rantburg. ;-) Yes, TW, there are lawyers out there that are good people, no doubt. But the whole legal system has been corrupted, and too many people that should be the decision makes are too willing to delegate their responsibility to their counsel. And then there are all the lawyers that have gamed the system out of greed. I'll have a better opinion of the profession when I see the good lawyers cleaning up their profession. Until then, some of them are going to have to be slapped down. |
| Posted by: Natural Law 2007-06-12 22:56 |
| #15 There are lawyers who are good people out there; some of them read and post at Rantburg. ;-) Certain of those with executive responsibility simply need to put their legal sections back in their place as advisers, not deciders. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-12 22:36 |
| #14 Can we use the technology in Law books at Harvard and Yale? |
| Posted by: airandee 2007-06-12 22:10 |
| #13 We need to nail these eleven bomb makers and then move on to the top 30 Islamic terrorist players, including a few Saudi Princes. Well Zenster, I could certainly go for some of that. However, when I said: It is going to be necessary to tear their throats out, and yes, Matilda, that means extra-judicial warfare. I was thinking about our domestic battle-space. Perhaps the solution is to compensate all lawyers on a contingency basis. Perhaps the solution is to line all the lawyers up and go: eenie, meanie, minie, moe everyone that gets tagged with "meanie & moe" gets a .45 ACP to the forehead. These people (politicians/lawyers) have deliberately gamed the system, time for them to collect their just rewards. |
| Posted by: Natural Law 2007-06-12 21:25 |
| #12 We are not going to survive as the society our founders envisioned as long as we continue to play by the rules the other side has created for our defeat. It is going to be necessary to tear their throats out, and yes, Matilda, that means extra-judicial warfare. Word, Natural Law! We need to nail these eleven bomb makers and then move on to the top 30 Islamic terrorist players, including a few Saudi Princes. I fear that even our military does not fully comprehend how high context cultures, like those in the MME (Muslim Middle East), rely upon a select few well connected big wigs and highya-mucky-mucks to make the wheels turn. if you think "billable hours" then it makes complete sense that movement is slow and that there is little interest in getting to an end result too quickly. Perhaps the solution is to compensate all lawyers on a contingency basis. Losing side must pay all court and attorney's fees. Lawyers would be far less inclined to run up huge bills if there was a risk that they might not be remunerated for them. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-12 14:09 |
| #11 Yes, the legal system is adversarial, i.e. one side is pitted against the other side. if you think "billable hours" then it makes complete sense that movement is slow and that there is little interest in getting to an end result too quickly. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2007-06-12 13:17 |
| #10 Lawyers; why do they hate us? Well. Most Lawyers are Liberal (Leftists), and as such they are not on our side. Lawfare is just another tactic in the Leftist arsenal, and they are using it to great effect in working to defeat us. We are not going to survive as the society our founders envisioned as long as we continue to play by the rules the other side has created for our defeat. It is going to be necessary to tear their throats out, and yes, Matilda, that means extra-judicial warfare. Our government has been suborned by the very ideology that wishes to destroy us, they are not on our side. I think a lot of people that have been asleep are starting to realize this. If they don't now, they will as soon as the effects of the (Sh)Amnesty Bill (if it passes) start kicking in. I saw Tony Snow lying through his teeth on Fox this early AM, what a douche! His eyes and facial expression revealed that he did not buy the crap he was peddling, but peddle it he did. Heat up the Tar, and sack the feathers, the time is near. |
| Posted by: Natural Law 2007-06-12 12:23 |
| #9 We wrote the book for the insurgents, in a sense. By arming and training the mujaheddin in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in the 1980s, we created the modern dynamics of asymmetric warfare. That extends even to the fearsome armor-piercing "explosively formed penetrators," or EFPs, that we have accused the Iranians of supplying to Iraqi insurgents. The CIA referred to these tank busters as "platter charges" in the days when we were covertly helping provide them to the Afghan rebels. Aha! So it IS our fault. This is, after all, the WaPo. But wait! The simple, low-tech answer to the IED threat is to reduce the number of targets -- by getting our troops off the streets during vulnerable daylight hours, to the extent possible. It's an interesting fact that very few IED attacks have been suffered by our elite Special Forces units, which attack al-Qaeda cells and Shiite death squads mostly at night, with devastating force. They blow in from nowhere and are gone minutes later, before the enemy can start shooting. That's the kind of asymmetry that evens the balance in Iraq and Afghanistan. So the answer is to bring home all the troops except the Special Forces guys? Or is this the intelligent recognition in WaPo that we need to fight the enemy asymetrically? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-06-12 10:29 |
| #8 BS. Half the lawyers are proved wrong everyday. If one lawyer says no, the chances are there is another one who will say yes. Its an adversarial system. If the CIA really had a plan, then it would have found a way to make it happen. I think this is more like finding and IDing a "goat' to make up for some ops deficiencies. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-06-12 10:18 |
| #7 I've worked with attorneys. Their mindset is really, well different. You really don't want them waging a clandestine war. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2007-06-12 09:23 |
| #6 Drop the lawyers off in downtown Baghdad. See how many manage to talk their way out. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-06-12 08:50 |
| #5 Ok, if the pansies at CIA won't do it then it's time to contract some manufacturing and give the resulting ordnance to Iraqis willing to risk getting them into the proper hands. Not everyone is as constrained as our own folks. |
| Posted by: DanNY 2007-06-12 08:24 |
| #4 the agency lacked authority for such an operation WTF?! It's a WAR you idiots! Another example of the bureaucratic mindset. CIA (or DoD) leadership should have said "thanks for your recommendation" and then have had the balls to go ahead with it. But no, we have to be sensitive to the needs of the terrorists. After all, they're |
| Posted by: Spot 2007-06-12 08:17 |
| #3 They probably wouldn't approve my plan to implant combination bug/tracking device/exploding appendices in prisoners before releasing them either. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-06-12 07:24 |
| #2 And why do they run our spy company??? |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-06-12 07:22 |
| #1 Lawyers; why do they hate us? |
| Posted by: AEinstein 2007-06-12 07:20 |