AFGHANISTAN - Insurgent Mobsters

"For Insurgents, IEDS a 'Smart,' But Indiscriminate, Weapon" PBS Newshour Transcript 7/30/2010

Excerpt

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): For more on the IED challenges facing American troops in Afghanistan, we get the views of two veterans who have extensive experience dealing with them. Todd Bowers is a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserves. He served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan last year. He's the deputy executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. And retired Army Colonel Peter Mansoor was a brigade commander in Iraq and wrote a book about his experience, "Baghdad at Sunrise." He served as executive officer to General Petraeus during the surge in 2007 and '08. He now teaches military history at Ohio State University.

And, Peter Mansoor, in the recent news, you haven't heard much about pitched battles with individual fighters. Has the IED become the weapon of choice for the Afghan insurgency?

COL. PETER MANSOOR (RET.), U.S. Army: Well, it is. It's a smart weapon for the insurgents to use. They don't have to put their troops at risk.

But it is also a fairly indiscriminate weapon, killing civilians and military forces alike. So, the enemy clearly is willing to use those kind of weapons and take the fallout as it occurs.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, what makes it, as you say, smart? What makes it an attractive, useful weapon for them?

COL. PETER MANSOOR: Well, again, they don't have to put their troops at risk in using the devices. They don't have to get into pitched battles with U.S. forces, which tend to go against the Taliban whenever they try that tactic.

Instead, they can plant these devices, put a pressure plate switch on it, which will detonate whenever a vehicle rolls over it, and then they can disappear into the hills and the villages.

RAY SUAREZ: Todd Bowers, does that level the technological field, when -- when you are dealing with one of the best-equipped sets of armies in the world in NATO?

STAFF SGT. TODD BOWERS, U.S. Marine Corps Reserves: It does, but what it highlights as well is the importance of focus on the civilian populace.

These pressure plates have to be hooked up prior to driving over them, because the batteries don't last that long. So, it requires the civilians or someone in that village to be there to connect these IEDs up beforehand. So, it's not like a sort of set-it-and-forget-it mentality. It's one that has some involvement that really requires the U.S. military to focus on the civilians to make them not want to connect those wires.

RAY SUAREZ: So, you are not just fighting against a weapon; you're fighting against a whole system of relationships?

STAFF SGT. TODD BOWERS: You are.

And the other pieces that these IEDs, as was mentioned, are indiscriminate, killing many, many civilians. These are very good opportunities for us to be able to highlight how the Taliban is not focused on taking care of Afghanis, but more or less indiscriminately killing them, while targeting us.

While correct, the insurgents show their disregard for Afghans by using IEDS, but they know the mentality of Afghans. They know, for the most part, Afghans will blame American/NATO presents.

The insurgents are using typical Mobster tactics of intimidation, kill the "family" member to scare the "family" into compliance.