I see the (same old) New Canadian Governments spin machine is well at work in the MSM. The media today is reporting on the latest Canadian soldiers death in Kandahar to be the work of a so called "roadside bomb".
In other words not an IED which is a car bomb by any other name, which the military and their embedded media would have called it had it been the agent of our soldiers death.
Rather the military and MSM spin doctors are using the generic term roadside bomb. A land mine by any other name.
And who provided the land mines years ago to the Taliban in their war against the Soviet Union? Made in the USA.
To call it a land mine would be to identify it not as an insurgent or Taliban weapon but a left over from the cold war.
To correct the misleading headline from the Military and MSM here is one that they won't use, but should:
Canadian Soldier Victim of Cold War.
As usual the majority of deaths of Canadian soldiers in Kandahar have been from friendly fire or accidents and land mines
Quebec's Royal 22nd Regiment, the Van Doos, suffered its first death in Afghanistan early Sunday when a young soldier died in a roadside bombing.No other soldiers travelling in the vehicle were injured.
Sunday's incident happened on the same road where a Canadian RG-31 Nyala hit a roadside bomb. That Aug. 12 incident left five soldiers slightly injured.
Two days ago, a LAV-III in another Canadian convoy struck a roadside bomb, leaving two soldiers injured.
There had been no Canadian deaths since July 4, when six Canadian soldiers and their Afghan interpreter died when their RG-31 struck a roadside bomb.
Harpers WarBody Count:
52
SEE:
Kandahar
Afghanistan
War
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2 comments:
You're correct that "IED" was invented so the Pentagon's nomenklatura didn't need to explain why they weren't prepared for something that had been a staple of war for 600 years.
You're dead wrong in terms of land mine origins in Afghanistan. The overwhelming majority are Soviet in origin - and even during the Soviet occupation, most land mines used by their Afghan enemies were of Soviet origin. Just take unexploded bombs, shells, and rockets, and wire them into detonation devices. Or, bribe local Afghan Army personnel to turn over perfectly good Soviet equipment. There's no point in supplying that from outside when so many local sources exist, unless you're trying to achieve specialized effects. Ever try to CARRY a land mine? Obviously not.
Many of the base materials one would use for land mines are still stowed/ hidden around Afghanistan, of course.
The Soviets, meanwhile, dropped land mines by the millions all over the country. Indeed, there are still hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of unexploded Soviet land mines in Afghanistan.
They remain a hazard to Afghans, the Taliban, and NATO troops alike, independent of the organized explosive devices being planted by the Taliban/ al-Qaeda.
Thanks Joe for the comment, and while I agree with your premise, you overlooked the fact that the CIA provided the Mujahadin with land mines as well as stinger missiles. However that being said I maintain that many of these so called IED or road side bombings, are the result of land mines not cleared out of Afghanistan.
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