HVEs Target Veteran's Memorial In Coos Bay Oregon with IEDs (news/vanity)

Examiner.com ^ | 9/21/2013 | Jim Kouri

[logi_cal869]

I've embedded a bit of my own analysis in the comment below. Excerpt:

In a statement released on Friday by local police officials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is offering a reward for information regarding one bombing and one attempted bombing in Coos Bay, Oregon, by a person or persons unknown and unidentified by investigators. (snip)

On the evening of August 22, an IED detonated at the base of the Mingus Park Vietnam War Memorial. While the memorial was damaged from the blast, there were no casualties attributed to the bombing.

On September 3, an unsub placed an IED inside the Prayer Chapel at Second Street and Commercial Avenue in Coos Bay.

The FBI will pay up to $10,000 for information leading to the identification, arrest, and conviction of the person or persons responsible for two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) left at a Coos Bay outdoor recreation area and at the Prayer Chapel in Coos Bay, Oregon.

[logi_cal869]

I'm going to decline to comment why the author misquotes the reckless FBI description of the War Memorial as 'recreation area; letters have been delivered to the City of Coos Bay directly threatening the Vietnam War Memorial at that park.

I digress. My issue here is the newfound overuse of the term 'IED'.

Nothing in reports on the latest incident at Coos Bay suggest why the description "IED" is being used. While I understand the threat any explosive device presents to the general public, nothing released by authorities suggest that either was intended to kill or injure visitors to the memorial or the chapel. Even the letters are said to only threaten 'objects', not people.

You'll note here http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/ied.htm that they separate IED incidents into 2 different categories in regards to combat theater: IED-incident & non-IED-incident. If  either or both of the 2 bombs in Coos Bay were designed without anti-personnel fragmentation components (bolts, screws, nails etc.) then they were intended to damage the memorial & chapel. If neither had tamper devices/booby traps to prevent disarming or moving, and neither were they designed to target police or unsuspecting people disturbing the 'packages', then they were simple 'bombs' making them "non-IED events". Whatever criteria they have for classifying this event as an "IED-event" they haven't yet released.

 

For example, this case from less than a year ago http://www.azfamily.com/home/Man-charged-in-Arizona-Social-Security-explosion-181926581.html does not use the identifier "IED" at all when describing the explosive device. Neither did ANY initial reports by media or FBI on the Boston Terror Bombing this year.

I don't know what policy change occurred between April & September of this year, but the use of the term "IED" to describe any homemade bomb is factually inaccurate based on anything and everything I can find.

 

Better, this article I just aptly elaborates my concern. I quote:

"But it's scary to the uninformed, and thus exploitable in the insatiable demand for more federal law enforcement resources and controls."

The link embedded in the article goes here http://www.scribd.com/doc/129120155/FBI-Exploding-Targets to the file containing screenshots of the FBI bulletin.

 

Frankly, I believe it was the wake of the Boston Bombing that created the IED hype, along with it the newly-used/created acronym, HVE (Homegrown Violent Extremists, though Boston obviously had nothing to do with HVEs). Only post-Boston it seems it's the new-norm to use IED to describe any homemade 'device' without regard to the intent. Hence this consequent article to state, "In fact, in the last six months, there have been 172 IEDs reported in the United States, according to a government count that an official revealed Tuesday in answer to questions about U.S. preparedness. The official shared the figures, which were gathered before Monday’s explosion, only on the condition that neither the official nor the official’s office be identified.

The official shared information in an email that indicated most American IED attacks were small: “Homemade fireworks, childish pranks and other such non-terror related activities.”

The article goes on to state that half of those were simple 'incendiary devices'.

To the public, the term "IED" connotes visions of terror; I think that is the intent. The latter article also contains this quote from a White House report released in February: "“To better meet the IED threat at home, we will seek to incorporate lessons learned abroad,”.  I, for one, would like to know what lessons on military COIN interdiction are to be incorporated here at home, as the FBI already has it's IED Megalab, the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) at Quantico, Va.. Combine that with HSA, NSA...well, you get the point.

It seems that ANY 'device', incendiary, explosive or otherwise, is now considered an "IED-incident" domestically.

In my humble opinion, the media are being used to fuel public fear of what has always been a facet of our free society for reasons on which we can speculate at length, but seems aimed within. 

(maybe I'm in left field; that's the news and that's my rant for the night)

[tumblindice]

A beumb?

[Domangart]

Well the do have a pool. baseball park and a duck pond with a trail . Whose name is on that memorial?

[tcrlaf]

Attacks like this are becoming more and more common, induced by liberal media hate.

But, you aren’t allowed to say that. Only Tea partiers and Christians are capable of such violence, according to that same media.

[Little Pig]

IED just means “improved explosive device” as opposed to a manufactured device such as a mine. IEDs can even be manufactured devices used in unorthodox ways, such as using a cannon shell warhead in a fixed emplacement. So, unless the bomber was specifically using, say, demolition charges and was trying to demolish the memorial, or was using a claymore to try to kill folks, then he used an IED.

You’re probably right, though, that the article uses IED specifically to raise the spectre of terrorism.

[Dapper 26]

I remember the days when a person even thinking about doing such a thing in Coos Bay would be on crutches the next day, walking on them in a week.

[Hardraade]

Infernal Explosive Democrat

[Airwinger]

Actually it means Improvised Explosive Device,, as in homemade.

[Little Pig]

sorry, that was an autocorrect failure. I did mean “improvised”.

[Bulwyf]

Improvised explosive device.

[Bulwyf]

I should of scrolled down before I posted, sorry heh. I got a laugh because I had a mental image of some moslem idiots trying to improve an explosive device.

[Tainan]

Does your deug bite?

[Cindy]

www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/unknown-suspect-13/view

FBI.gov: “SEEKING INFORMATION” (SNIPPET: “On August 23, 2013, an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated at the base of the Mingus Park Vietnam War Memorial in Coos Bay,Oregon. On September 3, 2013, a second IED was left at The Prayer Chapel in Coos Bay, Oregon.

This device was disrupted before it detonated. Although it is not known at this time whether or not the same person or persons is responsible for both IEDs, the FBI is investigating these two incidents jointly with the Coos Bay Police Department and the Oregon State Police. The Coos Bay Police Department has released a sketch of a man who was seen in the area of The Prayer Chapel shortly before the second IED was found.”