IEDs not new

The Lex family is on tour in Europe so The Griffin will contribute today’s article for your consideration.

Confederate Brigadier General Gabriel Rains was a pioneer in the development of the land mine. In the 1860’s they were called torpedoes. After General Sherman burned Atlanta in October of 1864 and moved towards Fort McAllister and Savannah, the Union troops soon discovered Rains’ torpedoes in the roads and causeways. Federal General William Hazen reported that many of his men were “blown to atoms”. General Sherman ordered that if a union officer suspected torpedoes in the road “that a wagon load of prisoners, or citizens implicated, be drawn by a long rope” across the ground to be tested.

Rains’ devices utilized a friction primer that was set off by a trip wire or was detonated by a pressure sensitive fuse. The device used an inline series of crushable copper lids on top of a fuse plug and the detonator was held in place by a locking nut. After installation the black powder was inserted via a side access hole then plugged. Simple but effective technology. Captured confederates were actually used to deactivate these mines. Sherman said that he” did not care one bit if they were blown up”.

Today in Iraq, Improvised Explosive Devices (IED’s) kill and maim Americans, Iraqis, Brits, UN workers, journalists, men, women, and children. In 1864 the confederates were desperate to stop Sherman. The confederates were using a new tool of war against uniformed soldiers in their homeland. Terrorists, insurgents, radical Muslims, and other nut cases today in Iraq, are daily murdering indiscriminately across Iraq. Estimates set the number of these mentally unbalanced mass murderers at around 1000.

Today the technology exists such that relatively small physical devices can kill thousands. Over 140 years ago this new torpedo technology was described by a Federal engineer as working “as much by its’ effect on moral as by its’ actual destruction”. Today IED’s are having the same effect in some circles. Could these people ever operate effectively in the U.S.? Only if we let them. Their strategy includes bringing this chaos to the U.S. We were caught napping on 9-11 as we thought it impossible. Today we have to consider previously unlikely scenarios as likely. We have to assume that new serious technologies will migrate to the bad guys. We have to keep the pressure on finding them and killing or capturing them.

Sherman had 62,000 of the best federal troops in the Union moving in mass from Atlanta to Savannah in 6 weeks. Rains’ torpedoes could not stop Sherman. IED’s are the result of a desperate group lashing out. I do not know how the U.S. and its’ true allies can possibly allow our effort to find and kill terrorists to subside. Our success cannot breed a lax attitude. We cannot allow any erosion in our offensive momentum. Rains’ torpedoes have migrated to cell phone activated IED’s. What will those devices migrate to become?