Best War Ever? Now With Improved Sniper Baiting

I REMEMBER many years ago talking to an Irish army ranger buddy who was about to sign up for his third tour in Lebanon. He had a wife, a young child and pretty decent family to support him back here, but each time the opportunity came, he went back into the mouth of hell for another tour of duty.

I knew that the pay was better, much better than simply serving here at home… but that wasn’t what drew him back each time. It was much more basic than that, but yet something I’d never actually considered until then.

What pulled him into harms way every time was the opportunity to do what he had been training to do all his career, but never really getting the opportunity to do it since Ireland is basically a neutral country. Basically he got to get his gun off, for want of a better way of putting it… and it became addictive. Where else was he going to try out all the new techniques and get to do some fun gun stuff?

Today, as I read that the latest tactic being put to use by some elements of the US forces in Iraq is what’s called “baiting”, I’m reminded of that conversation with the Irish ranger. Baiting involves essentially planting some potentially interesting items in the vicinity (detonation cords, weapons, expolsives, ammunition etc.) and then staking the area out from a distance with snipers. Any poor sods who happen to come along and pick something up are then classed as an enemy and promptly shot if they try to walk away with the item in question.

In other words, target practice for the lads… fun gun stuff out where the rules don’t apply any more.

When I read about this today I just thought to myself… here we go again. In the middle of a war zone the rules tend to go out the window when it suits, and right now what better way to get some real honest-to-gawd sniping practice in than to basically bait some traps around the place and wait for the perfect shot. Where else are these lads going to get that sort of practice? As the t-shirts over at Tshirtinsurgency.com say, could this be the Best War Ever?

Well, at least someone is enjoying the experience, ‘cause I’m damn sure the Iraqis aren’t.

Right now it’s unclear how widespread this practice is within the US military in Iraq, but an investigation is underway to try to uncover exactly what has been authorised and by whom. In a sworn statement published by the Washington Post, the leader of an elite US Army Ranger sniper scout platoon, Capt Matthew Didier, described baiting as “putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy”.

He then went on to say that members of the US military’s Asymmetric Warfare Group had visited his unit in January and given them “drop items” to be used “to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight”.

Apparently the only guidence given to the snipers was that when someone picked up the ‘bait’… if they put it back down again they were ‘ok’, but if they tried to walk away with it they were to be ‘dealt with’.

Now imagine you are walking down the street and find something like that on the road. Yes - you might potentially be a bad guy and try to take it for some nefarious future deed, but you might also be picking it up off the street to hand in to the relevant authorities… but instead all you get for your community oriented good deed is a bullet in the back of your head.

How fucked up is that?

Worse still, within months of the “baiting” programme being introduced, three snipers from Capt Didier’s platoon, which was attached 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, were charged with premeditated murder after using “drop items” to make shootings appear legitimate. Yeah right! Who’d have thunk it?

Best war ever indeed.