Note that Eugene Fidell has spent the past three years of his life trying to get the uncharged foreign nationals released from thier illegal incarceration/torture at Guantanemo Bay.
Posted on 09/24/2007 6:39:11 AM PDT by presidio9
At the urging of Pentagon experts in special operations, US military snipers operating in Iraq are "baiting" Iraqis by scattering items like detonation cord, plastic explosives and ammunition and then ambushing and killing those who pick them up, The Washington Post reported Monday.
The newspaper said the classified program was described in investigative documents related to recently filed murder charges against three snipers who are accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed.
"Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy," Captain Matthew Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon is quoted as saying in a sworn statement.
"Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it," Didier continued. "If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against US forces."
In documents obtained by The Post from family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the Pentagon's Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the "drop items" to be used to disrupt ... attempts at harming Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight."
Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said such a baiting program should be examined "quite meticulously" because it raises troubling possibilities, such as what happens when civilians pick up the items, the paper said.
"In a country that is awash in armaments and magazines and implements of war, if every time somebody picked up something that was potentially useful as a weapon, you might as well ask every Iraqi to walk around with a target on his back," Fidell is quoted in the article as saying.
Soldiers said that about a dozen platoon members were aware of the program, and that numerous others knew about the "drop items" but did not know their purpose, The Post reported.
Two soldiers, who had not been officially informed about the program, came forward with allegations of wrongdoing after they learned they were going to be punished for falling asleep on a sniper mission, the paper said.
Army officials declined to discuss the classified program, according to the report.
GRRRRRRR....NOT AGAIN!!!!!
How many times are We the People gonna let the MSM slide by with another "Drive-By" betrayal of our Troops war-fighting capabilities !?!?!
Anybody that picks up a weapon is no longer a “civilian.”
It’s AFP looking for the next Abu Ghraib scandal.
Great idea and the program is working just fine. Hopefully they will keep it up!
In the words of my perfect President .... Dick Cheney
....”The terrorists have been at war with the United States for a long time,” Cheney said in Florida and Michigan. “And after 9/11 this nation made a decision: We’re at war with them.”
Note that Eugene Fidell has spent the past three years of his life trying to get the uncharged foreign nationals released from thier illegal incarceration/torture at Guantanemo Bay.
You may want to ping somebody with a little more extensive (and recent) military experience than me, but Captain isn’t the usual rank of a platoon leader and while the USMC has a designation of “scout sniper”, I don’t think the Army has one of “sniper scout”.
Who are theses clowns...Outside of their Flowery Bravo Sierra on their website. They smell...
But I'm not the poster who mentioned "Captain"
I was just venting my rage at another Openly-betrayed method of Terrorist extermination.
IOW, now the terrorist who read nespapers/online editorials can find out how our troops are fighting them.
This was front-page stuff this morning in the local rag (Raleigh News and Observer, a McClatchey paper). Personally, it makes perfect sense...Ahmed isn’t going to look down and say, “Oh, look, det cord! I can use this to tie up my submissive second and third wives, inshallah!”
}:-)4
EXACTLY —what both of you said!
Did Mary Mapes write this article?
Here are some more words from Cheney...my tagline...his words on terrorism. Love him!
Don’t tell the Game Warden. They don’t like people hunting baited fields.
hit piece
This isn't like operating in a war zone where a uniformed enemy would pick it up and you could distinguish him/her from a civilian, there is a very good chance we could inflame the people by killing some known do-gooder for trying keep the enemy from obtaining it also.
Rules and wars don’t mix.
ROCK-ON TEAM INFIDEL!
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