80,000 cans of Silly String to the troops
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6998816,00.html
Soldier's Mom Finds Silly String Shipper
DEPTFORD TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - After months of frustration, a mother of a soldier in Iraq has found someone to ship about 80,000 cans of Silly String to the troops, who use the foamy substance to detect trip wires on bombs.
Plus... it's fun...
I'm impressed by her determination, if not by her administrative skills (it took her a YEAR?) I'd be interested to know if she bought all 80,000 cans and paid for postage herself. It's not relevant to the outcome of the story - which is a positive one - I'm just nosey like that.
I suspect the larger part of the Silly String Campaign involved acquiring the silly string...or the money with which to purchase it.
Ahhhhh I see - rereading it with the idea that the whole thing was a campaign makes more sense - I thought that the paper were using the term campaign to refer specifically to her search for shipping.
Let me check if I have this straight.
The troops need silly string, and I can see why. Clever solution to the trip-wire problem.
The army should supply it. Since when are soldiers' mothers responsible for supplying their equipment?
Now that a civilian has acquired it ... the army still can't transport it? Sure, bombs, bullets, grenades, no problem. SILLY STRING???!!! Are you nuts? That stuff is dangerous.
If the troops need it, the army should be supplying it. Full &%$#ing stop.
Hey, they still won't explain why they aren't allowed dragon skin, while all the private contractors get to have all it they want.
If the troops need it, the army should be supplying it. Full &%$#ing stop.
Mama is still fighting Vietnam war IEDs. Today's IEDs use remote control radios, buried wires, infrared transceivers, and optical sensors. Trip wires were how another set of insurgents defeated the US Army by not confronting that Army in combat.
Mama is still fighting Vietnam war IEDs. Today's IEDs use remote control radios, buried wires, infrared transceivers, and optical sensors. Trip wires were how another set of insurgents defeated the US Army by not confronting that Army in combat.
I thought that was punji stakes.
And trip wires to mines (usually stolen from the US minefields).
and supplying them with drugs
and sniping
and...
and...
I'm not sure what your point is.
If it is that the soldiers don't need silly string because the insurgents don't use trip wires, well I'm not in Iraq so I can't confirm, but it seems the soldiers
want silly string so I suppose there must trip wire bombs about.
*this* facet of his never-ending point is that we're behind/slow/lacking/etc *again* as this response for silly string is more suited to the previous war (see behind/slow/lacking/etc) since in this one the IEDs are often triggered wirelessly.
You're new, you deserve a little break. But don't sweat it, you'll get it soon enough.
If they feel they need it and they are asking for it, that their parents and loved ones have to be the ones to get it for them is sick. End of story.
But, the fact that they have been used to illegally invade, occupy and subjugate a nation for no reason other than to steal oil is that in spades.
Mama is still fighting Vietnam war IEDs. Today's IEDs use remote control radios, buried wires, infrared transceivers, and optical sensors. Trip wires were how another set of insurgents defeated the US Army by not confronting that Army in combat.
You're out of touch, tw. Indoors they use trip wires.
I'm not sure what your point is.
Point would be obvious if so many front page articles describing IEDs were read. In a long list of the technologies, trip wires are not even listed. What trips IEDs? Some of the more common include pressure, buried wires, remote controls using everything including toy remote controls, cell phone, and anything else that uses radio waves, optical sensors, magnetic detectors .... Some IEDs have an optical sensor to identify which target should be destroyed. Some also include delay functions. Mama is fighting Nam - not "Mission Accomplished". Nam used obsolete 'trip wire' triggers.
Tools used to find IEDs including U-2 aircraft, multi-spectrum satellites, and even long sticks hung in front of humvees hoping to trip IEDs prematurely. Before a soldier can get close enough to spray silly string, he would probably be dead. Easier is to throw a grenade. IEDs clearly are not using obsolete ''Vietnam era" technology. Wireless is only one in a long list of IED triggers. Trip wires do not even appear in that list. Yes, they are even using buried fiber optics to identify the targetted vehicle before exploding it.
The point is obvious. Silly string to detect bombs? Useless. Obviously useless. Mama apparently did not understand what they kept telling her.
we all know that IEDs are often triggered remotely by a wireless control, tw. Especially the roadside ones. But there are sometimes others that use a trip wire, mainly inside buildings, as Bruce already said.
See
this discussion, for example.
While in Iraq (on dismounted infantry patrols) we would sometimes come across areas that we deemed suitable for someone to plant one of those horrible little mines in with a good tripwire.
Gentlemen, you will not use silly string when breaching a room or clearing a building, but when time is available to be careful, believe me it is very useful.
Case in point, my platoon was doing a patrol in an area of Bahgdad, clearing buildings for a convoy to move through a couple hours later. When we would enter a suspicious building (not that any of them weren't) we would sometimes spray the silly string in front of the doorway or around the building to check for tripwires. My commander was in the area one day and saw a yound specialist using the stuff. He threatened the young soldier with an article 15 for spraying flammable substances around, that was until the soldier pointed out the silly string magically floating in air just before a doorway. The silly string had landed on top of a trip wire and give us a heads up on it's location. You won't regularly notice fine fishing line run across the front of a doorway, unless something lets you know it's there.
NO you will not use silly string 24/7 in your AO to recognize ied threats, but when it saves the life of a young soldier (and maybe some higher command) it is a cheap investment.
Posted by: John | August 04, 2007 at 01:49 AM
Tw always seeks our failure in Iraq. It's one of the several ways he keeps reminding us he's really the biggest dic-with-or-without-a-K -- is this circumcision? -- and thus to invite his daily dose of obloquy that he seems to constitutionally require. He's useful to the war effort in that he gives the antiwar effort such a bad name, so chronically, so determinedly.
He might make, for his treasonous utterances and worse personality, a pretty good IED himself, in the manner of Michael Moore in Team America: World Police: shredded ham blasted all over the place.
There is no merit to any argument I've heard that the War on Terror is anything like illegal, rk, and it's an absurd thing for one of your intelligence to believe. The Senate told the Prez he could fight, and that was enough: the Prez is covered by the law, and you can't change that.
Personally, I can't get enough war against fascisms and autocracies: they must go, and it makes little odds to me if they go quietly, as the DDR did, or with blood, fire and noise. It's only important that they go and enlightened, representative governments replace them, permanently. I'd rather have a desert than a dictatorship. Call me a fanatic, but always amend it with the understanding that I am a friend of mankind in ways many of you really aren't.
There is no merit to any argument I've heard that the War on Terror is anything like illegal, rk, and it's an absurd thing for one of your intelligence to believe.
There are a lot of very well respected people and highly intelligent people in the world who share that viewpoint. Just because you disagree as to what constitutes an illegal war (bearing in mind, what may be legal in your country is not necessarily considered legal in International law) does not mean you have a monopoly on intelligence. If people disagree with you it is because they have a different viewpoint, not simply that they lack your amazing powers of intellect.
If people disagree with you it is because they have a different viewpoint, not simply that they lack your amazing powers of intellect.
Which is just another way of saying there is no 'good and evil'. Instead there are 'different perspectives'.
Personally, I can't get enough war against fascisms and autocracies: they must go, and it makes little odds to me if they go quietly, as the DDR did, or with blood, fire and noise. It's only important that they go and enlightened, representative governments replace them, permanently. I'd rather have a desert than a dictatorship.
How ironic. That is completely contrary to what Thomas Barnett says. Barnett is particularly critical of those who would solve problems with military force and completely ignore phase four planning. Phase four planning - the most necessary part to win any war. Phase four is based in civil affairs and planning for the peace; not in deserts and destruction that UG so loves. Urbane Guerrilla says he completely agrees with Barnett. He has yet to represent what Barnett wrote. Apparently UG rewrote Barnett's book to fit his political agenda.
Still waiting for UG's publication of the Pentagon Papers. He did not read that either. Instead UG rewrote it.
Apparently UG is a prolific author who only needs a publisher.
is this thing on?
*taps microphone*
Yes but it's just you and me, man. Everybody else left, one in a huff, and one in a snit.... Oh, and one on a high horse.
What tw, pedlar of half truths, would like you not to know is Barnett isn't going to take military options off the table; international politics and relations simply aren't going to let you succeed if you do. Tw seems to believe I can't appreciate a comprehensive strategy of both war and peace -- well, it's typical of tw to believe what is wrong, as we all know with tw being the prominent exception.
Tw, you're going to have to read what I say, not what you see; your vision has been monstrously distorted as long as I've known you. The evil people are the ones to say the loudest that there are only "different perspectives." "Different perspectives" do occur, but so does good and evil. Yet tw, follower of wrongness that he is, will tell you otherwise to drag you down into his slough.
Tw seems to believe I can't appreciate a comprehensive strategy of both war and peace ...
Classic 'big dic' thinking cannot think strategically let alone peace - or even the purpose of war.
Personally, I can't get enough war against fascisms and autocracies: ... I'd rather have a desert than a dictatorship.
Barnett's fundamental concepts are about building a world without all that combat. Completely contradictory to the Urbane Guerrilla's political agenda. UG perfers deserts to dictatorships. War solves everything. Ironically, UG's solution is to become a dictatorship as Cheney also advocates.
Barnett is about gloabalization without making deserts. If UG read for facts rather than for a political agenda, then he might understand Barnett.
UG and Cheney sound so much alike. We should be preparing for WWIII. Not because we have enemies. Because people like Urbane Guerrilla and Cheney will do what is necessary to create those enemies. How many nations will be added to the axis of evil? Concepts that morphed into 'Project for a New American Century' would add Germany, Russia, and India to that list.
Urbane Guerrilla is a perfect example of ‘big dic’ thinking that would also rewrite Thomas Barnett’s book. It is called propaganda. Those who most love dictatorships also use propaganda liberally. Another ironic twist. UG uses something 'liberally'?
I'd rather have a desert than a dictatorship.
echo "Give me liberty or give me death!" | sed "s|me|you|g"
Mama is still fighting Vietnam war IEDs. Today's IEDs use remote control radios, buried wires, infrared transceivers, and optical sensors. Trip wires were how another set of insurgents defeated the US Army by not confronting that Army in combat.
Please tell me that you are not a full time idiot. Your comments are naive and so out of date.
Classic 'big dic' thinking...
I am really beginning to think that you are obsessed with "Big Dicks".
Tw, your delusions about my thinking keep you stuck with the rancid integrity of a twat, etc. You are only mistaken, and determined to remain so to invite a good chewing-out.
I am interested in winning the wars, and you should know they will come whether I want them, or don't want them; my desires don't enter into it much. There will be fights in the Non-Integrating Gap.
So, now we are at war with the Iraqi people? I thought we we helping them? How does one win at helping?
Where are you getting that one, Rk?
Not an answer: once again, where on Earth are you getting that idea? For I am quite certain I didn't give it to you. Why ask
So, now we are at war with the Iraqi people?
How would it look like that when what we're doing is working at securing the Iraqi population from terr depradations -- basic counterinsurgency?
So we are going to "win" at securing something nebulous in a sovereign nation... they have their own government now.
Which I figure to be part of the winning.
What do you think?
Part?
That is it.
They have their nation back, we are out.
We should never have been there to begin with.
It is ok to leave now. They have their government now.
That we don't like it means nothing, not our place.
Hey, the last elected government we didn't like wasn't the Iraqi, but the Palestinian. But I can't buy the idea that we never should have been there to begin with, and you know full well why I can't buy it -- I've gone over it exhaustively in numerous other threads and have for more than a year.
I have always expected there to be loud debate over just when we depart, as we always expected to eventually do -- when, and by how much, some wrangling over how far, what the acceptable circumstances might be, and so on. Plenty of it going on right here, with a cacophony like dropping an armful of saucepans and lids on the kitchen floor.
Not from me... they don't want us there... let them have it as it is.
So here we are, after midnight in both our houses, engaged in Slow Chat. Hee!
I dunno: you've got plenty of opinion about it, and you set it forth. And probably the only thing that's going to shut either of us up is if one or both of us nod into the keyboard and xz;y;soeartuy;hgaeiortyawseasgfgh.
I am really beginning to think that you are obsessed with "Big Dicks".
Only when they get into positions of power or try to screw the world.
