US snipers baiting and killing Iraqis

[Fabula]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/wo...in&oref=slogin

Just read this. It seems US soldiers are deliberately leaving weapons and similar lying around, and shooting anyone who picks one up to investigate.

Anyone think this is going too far? Or is this justified in war?

[No.72]

Meh they have done far far worse, plasma grenade experiment anyone?

[TheAnimus]

Shake n Bake!

Thing is its slightly better than killing people completely indescriminately.

[icanhazburger]

I speak on a regular basis with some soldiers in and around Bagdhad, a couple of UK pmc's, and an independant journo that is embedded with US forces, there general consensus is that the storys abit dodgy because of the soldiers that leaked it and that without knowing the exact circumstances and locations this happened its hard to comment.

But they mostly seemed pretty unanimous that if you take the article at face value then its murder.

Kind of related, but I know someone out there who says his interpreter swears blind he saw US soldiers planting an IED once.

[Fraz]

Originally Posted by icanhazburger

Kind of related, but I know someone out there who says his interpreter swears blind he saw US soldiers planting an IED once.

They probably knew some British soldiers were coming...

[icanhazburger]

Well they are the main culprits of friendly fire, but it still happens with British soldiers,the amount of friendly fire may have dropped in recent years though I'm not sure, in recent conflicts theres been much less casualty's to enemy fire so it maybe more noticeable when theres friendly fire incidents.

[UltraMagnus]

Ied?

[icanhazburger]

Improvised Explosive Device.

Road side bomb usually.

[MadduckUK]

i dont believe it myself, if the yanks were to try it they would end up putting all there weapons in a pile, hiding then realising they had nothing to shoot the people looking at them with.

[[GSV]Trig]

Suprised there not putting WMD's in piles in the streets of Iran and using that as an excuse to go in and spread there war there..

[icanhazburger]

Originally Posted by [GSV]Trig

Suprised there not putting WMD's in piles in the streets of Iran and using that as an excuse to go in and spread there war there..

So many American newspaper reports now mention Iran, its just to obvious why, I read an interview with an insurgent the other day, and he mentioned Iran in about every sentence, was at best very biased reporting, but I think it was a complete fabrication as I've only ever heard of one or two reporters getting to directly interview insurgents.

[Lucio]

It has to be said that if they are really trying to bait people, then it's pretty thin ice to be skating on. They're making an assumpion that a person who picks it up is an enemy, rather than someone who thinks "cool, I can sell this to feed my family tonight" or "wow, can't wait to show the kids what I've found". After all, it's an all too human trait to investigate curious out of place objects that are lying around.

That said, if this is true, does it excuse the killing of the Iraq's? I know the defence team for those Rangers would dearly love to point and say "they're only following orders" but isn't it part of a solider's oath of duty to only follow lawfully given orders?

Ultimately people were shot whose guilt or involvement in attacks on soliders were unproven and I think that makes it an unlawful killing.