Time magazine’s interview with Saif Abdallah – an IED builder for the Sunni insurgency – provides us both insight into the mind and skill of the adversary, as well as a statement on the value of ingenuity.

Abdallah’s tools are primitive when compared to the technology arrayed against him by US forces, yet with a little outside help and a lot of native intelligence he manages to produce improvised weapons that wreak havoc on both man and machine. When asked about US efforts like the Joint IED Defeat Organization, Abdallah displays no apparent concern:

“They are not going to defeat me with technology,” he says. “If they want to get rid of IEDs, they have to kill me and everyone like me.”

Army Vice Chief-of-Staff Cody concurred in testimony to Congress earlier this year:

“We have to go and find the guys making them and kill them. We have to find the guys who are getting ready to place them and kill them. That’s how you defeat IEDs.”