Now what has motivated me to reactivate this Blog, you might ask? (is there anyone out there?)

It was this post:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2007/05/a_disaster_wait.html

Pat seems to be trying to assert that armored car bombs being used by the "Muj" (Mujahidin) is something new.

This is nonsense. Can we forget when insurgents drove a concrete truck full of high explosive into the courtyard of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, nearly succeeding in toppling the building?

It's also been a long-know tactic for insurgents to use dump-trucks as mobile mortar platforms.

And finally, I contend, it's not some "Haji" vehicle decked out with "hill-billy" armor we have to worry about. I would suspect that those can be identified from a considerable distance by sharp eyed snipers, long before they manage to receive a traffic control point (TCP). No, what we should worry about are the the equivalent of of our armored suburbans, vehicles specifically armord in such a manner as to preserve their stock, unmodified, appearance. These are the ones we need to worry about because they will look harmless enough to get close to the TCP, whereupon the driver would punch the gas and attempt to bust through immune to withering return fire, or even worse, catching the soldiers off-guard before they could react with anti-armor weaponry. That's what I worry about.

And lest someone believe that's unlikely, ask yourself who's driving the $185K white armored surbuban that formerly carried the Iraq Survey Group director, Charles Duelfer, between the BIAP and the Green Zone. It was stolen in 2005, while enroute on a car carrier to Kuwait for repairs that were not permitted to be conducted in Baghdad. So far as I know, it was never recovered. One can only hope it was sold on the black market to some wealthy Kuwaiti or Saudi.

Alrighty.. enough of the "sour grapes" over my encounter with Pat Lang (Pat.. if you find this blog, you'll always be be welcome to comment.. I promise I won't censor you, even if I disagree with you.).

The Scrutinizer