WTF yourself. Were you trying to quote me? Because I didn't use that phrase in that post.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about a post I just read. If you'd like to form whole sentences containing rational thought on the current topic, I'd be happy to reply.

Actually, this is one small part of what we do in JIEDDO. My part is more Attack the Network (AtN). I go after the people involved in building and emplacing IEDs. Ohers are invovled in Counter Threat Finance (CTF), tracing and stopping the money. Still others are involved in going after the criminal networks helping to facilitate materials, and so on. This is a multifaceted front; I was just talking about one component and one method of mitigation.

We have in fact saved many lives and thwarted many attacks. You're welcome.

Yeah thanks Capt Obvious. I'm quite familiar with the psychology of terrorism, probably far more familiar with it than you are since, you know, it's my JOB and everything. But the discussion was about fertilizer and IEDs, not every goddamn factor involved in terrorism. This is a war that is being waged on multiple fronts in multiple ways at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. There are efforts in diplomacy and information operations regarding your concerns. I don't agree with everything our govt is doing or has done, but I'm not exactly in a position to go back in time and stop us from invading countries. Now if you're done being stupid, how about you tell me what you do for a living so I can give you my uninformed opinions about it.

Not really my call, is it? I don't think we should still be there at all, but we are and my job is to track down people who are using IEDs.

Ammonium Nitrate is illegal in Afghanistan, the only place I've been talking about. It's free and cheap in the U.S. where there are "only" a few hundred IED events a year. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, thousands a year and many of them are huge, and quite deadly. The steps taken in Afghanistan to reduce the number and lethality of IEDs is not security theater; it's been highly effective at saving lives.

That might work if we were fighting soldiers. But we're not. We're fighting people we who don't wear uniforms, who blow up civilian as well as military targets, and who don't follow the Geneva Conventions. What worked in previous wars was not working in Afghanistan.

That's true, but it adds several steps and makes it harder for them. That's why they're trying to replace both AN and CAN with a fertilizer that can't be turned into an explosive.

That's the idea. Calcium Ammonium Nitrate is a cheap decent alternative fertilizer, though it can still be used in IEDs, albeit with a whole lot more work involved. If they could both be replaced by a decent cheap fertilizer that has even less (or no) capability to be used in explosives, that would be even better.

Newsflash, AN is illegal in Afghanistan in any shape or form, for fertilizer, explosive, or otherwise. So the fertilizer firms have quite a bit of incentive to make a kind of fertilizer that can't be used in explosives (something they're actively doing if you haven't been paying attention, despite your claims that it doesn't make sense to do so), so they can legally do business in Afghanistan, price be damned. I'm not referring to the whole rest of the world where IEDs aren't a problem.

I'm not talking about U.S. society. If someone makes a (like, one) flour+air IED in the U.S., then charge them and prosecute in a court of law. I was referring to Afghanistan, in a combat zone, and if it became a huge problem (I'm imagining hundreds or thousands per year; THAT's a problem to me). In that highly hypothetical case, I imagine something would be done to mitigate the threat. Perhaps some sort of overhead sensor looking for stockpiles of flour it places in doesn't belong. I imagine there's little reason for 20,000 lbs of flour to be sitting in stockpiles near one of our bases in a small village. Mind you, it's a separate argument for our being there at all; that's not my decision. My job is to track down networks employing IEDs. Actually, my current job is training others how to do that.

We can try to limit the size and scale of the IED problem. Our vehicles are getting hit with 700lbs+ IEDs. That's not something you whip up with stuff sitting around the basement. There's a huge supply chain of materials streaming into Afghanistan, and we're trying to limit their ability to employ IEDs not only against us but against local nationals, Afghan police, and Afghan military.

AN is illegal in Afghanistan. Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) is legal and plentiful. Yes, there was a decrease. There were also many other measures taken to reduce the effectiveness of IEDs, like better armored vehicles, better detection capabilities, et al.

None of those are really a concern in Afghanistan. There are some left over mines from the Soviet Union, but they don't account for much of the IEDs found.

I didn't say to ban it, I said limit its use in IEDs. For instance, we can ask flour manufactures to increase security, add serial numbers to bags so we can better track them and reduce siphoning off. We could try to encourage the use of less explosive alternatives, perhaps other grains. Basically, what we've done with ammonium nitrate.

We haven't seen any flour+air IEDs yet so far as I know, so I'm thinking that its use on a large scale is not feasible. If it becomes a problem, we can find ways to limit its use in IEDs in various ways.

As for conventional weapons caches in Afghanistan, they haven't really been a problem there. Nor are there any fertilizer plants in Afghanistan.

There are other fertilizers available, like calcium ammonium nitrate.