Big news here. An Idaho boy who was part of a Sniper team in Iraq stands accused of murder.

In short, several sniper teams were provided with explosives and fire arms. These would be cached . The sniper teams would watch the cache and see who came and found them. Many citizens would actually report them to authority's, and leave them alone. Others would sneak in and attempt to haul the explosives away , and were shot in the head from 600 yards for their efforts.

According to the Idaho boy and two other sniper teams, these were orders. They were provided the bait by higher ups to set these traps. They were placed in areas that had high concentrations of insurgents. Now that the cats out of the bag, the military is dumping on these guys to take the fall.

Kinda sad the levels this cluster Phuc has lowered itself too..

http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-sep2507-evan_vela.10d0bc03a.html

I wish they'd try that on the tweekers around here.

It's what snipers do. Not much different than deliberately wounding a guy so you can pick off his comrads who try to rescue him.

Par for this Admin to issue orders, get caught, then scape goat the guy who carried them out.

Yeah, and then deny "war benefits" to the veterans...

According to the kid in question, they were told. " every one of the bastards you pick off that try and haul off those explosives, is 10 American troops that don't get wasted by a road side bomb ".

Kinda sucks a kid has to make choices like that. Deciding if he should do what he's told, or what is right, or if they are even the same.

Seems like a government thing rather than an administration thing. Don't they always have a fall-guy. The CIA,FBI, [censored] all those agencies with three letters.
Seems like they they send the guys out and then deny everything.
Maybe it started with Nixon.

It's a conundrum of serving in the military. You're not supposed to obey an illegal order. However, every order is legal until AFTER whoever gave it is prosecuted and convicted. The enlisted man and lower line officers are between a rock and a hard place.

The US are one of only few who worry about rules during war.

Eisenhower warned us this schidt was going to happen.

The need to rename the Iraq Wars "The Bush Wars"

Irie. in case you didn't know 75% of the senate voted for the war?? Every intellegence agency in the world said the same thing about weapons of mass destruction, hell they even used them against the Kurds.... Sadaam and his two sons were weapons of mass destruction and there no longer here :>)

But it's Bush's war??? Get a grip dude! I'm not saying you have to support the war, but calling it that is IMHO is being misinformed or blantly biased.

Sol Duc,

Sorry to disagree with you, but not every intelligence agency thought that Saddam had a viable WMD program. And the UN chief inspector and his team were telling the world the same thing as well. The intel we did get was from very unreliable sources, and we were forewarned by regional authorities (such as the Jordanians) that our sources were FOS.

From what Bush's former cabinet members say, the guy was fixated on Iraq and was looking for an excuse to go in.

I am biased. I thought it was an impulsive decision made by a stubborn man in an ivory castle. It's cost American lives, worn the military into the ground, and is going to cost $400 billion. That's enough money to make every soldier who's done a tour a millionare.

Remember the pundits who accused Clinton of weakening our military? There's no joy in pointing out our tanks are piling up at the wrecking yard, our armored vehicles wearing under the constant exposure to sand, heat, and fire. Even worn out and used up, our armies still have no equal, no one even close. But George Bush jr, what have you done to us? You giant ass.

There are so many other costs associated with this misadventure that I don't think were ever really considered. Including the mental health issues arising from putting 20 year old kids into situations where in the blink of an eye they need to decide who lives, and who dies. And mistakes will be made both ways.

Good on those who put on the uniform when we asked them, and for making the best of the situation. But I have no shortage of contempt for the civilian leadership that so casually asked them to put their lives in danger, and who ask them to make impossible choices under fire.

I sure like this comment,for shiit sake the people in armed forces CHOOSE to be in the armed forces there not drafted anymore! Being in the military there IS a posibility we will go to war period..

What do you call vietnam? our men in uniform were spit on by american that were OFFENDED by it..This has happened for decades its nothing new to say that most americans dont like war!

This is a very sore subject for many people. As for the snipers they where doing the right thing following orders and in my opinion they where good orders. Why wait till they are shooting back if we can go on the offensive we just might win this war. I am a supporter of our troops and this war there where some truley horrible thing going on in iraq and they very well could of had the WMD. Where are they now, maybe they where shipped off with all of their other valuable military items like their airforce. If we can bring democracy to iraq it would be a huge blow to terrerists and help to begin the stabalazation of the middle east. I understand why alot of people hate the war Americans are dieing and it's truly a horrible thing but IMO a necissery one. I know quite a few people that have been to iraq some that are there now. They have mixed feelings but all of them refuse to watch the news now after seeing how they misrepresent the war. A few of these friends hate the war and belive it's not worth the effort. Most of the rest take great pride in what they are doing LIBERATING A NATION.. A nation that has been murdered by it's leaders for speaking thier minds or just to test a new weapon out. Sadaam was no diffrent then hitler he just didn't have the ability to lead that hitler had. We are better off now that he is gone. I know not all of you will agree with me but thats what makes this nation so great a can sit here and say i like what President Bush has done and voted for him twice and would do so again if it where possible wile some hate him and wouldn't spit on him if he where on fire.

No matter what the war most soldiers families and some of the soldiers would be saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH...

If you still think this war is about bringing democracy to Iraq, stopping a nuke-weilding madman, liberation, etc, etc etc, you must still be one of the 11% that is still dumb enough to believe The Bush Admin is doing a good job, either that you are among the 1% he has been working for the entire time. The people who have been making 100's of billions off our soldiers dying by the handful everyday. Damn! Were getting upwards around 4,000 now.


Thats alot of sons & husbands.

So Marsha tell me who we were defending?!?! Its the same ol shiit different day we stuck our nose in where it didnt belong..

Vince, after 17 resolutions and defing the UN for years I would hardly call the decision impulsive!



Are you saying Iraq never had WMD'S?

My theory? the fact is ww2 was brought on because of the murdering of millions of people known as the Holocaust what makes that any different from this? Saddam was doing the same...

At least this time we can take oil for payback j/k

We were attacked on 9/11 and yes Saddam is a terrorist thats undeniable!! Anyone that thinks he isnt is nuts or should I be a rude asss like irie and say DUMB!!

Nice try Aunty

[quote=AuntyM]We ignored what was happening in Europe for YEARS until we got attacked.


Perhaps we should have done the same here. If sadaam had a way to attack us he would have.

Are you kidding? He wanted all he could get out of the US kinda like the smile to your face while inserting a knife in your back approach....
Know you say we need to attack Iran?

Shame on you Marsha!!

Your so sure everyone elses information is wrong how do you know yours is factual???? You didn't get then from Mister MOORE did you. You don't think the terrerists that attacked us got financial backing from iraq. Why do you think he had so much cash lying around can you say UNTRACEABLE (even though i can't spell it)

...

Maybe it's just me, but common sense kinda tells me that it is *NOT* ok use bait for civilians - or even insurgents.

We technically are not in a war in Iraq. We are not fighting the Iraq Army. We are there to keep the peace and to defend US interests.

Even a grunt on the ground should have figured out that if you kill a civilian, your gonna be in deep doo doo.

OTOH, the kid was probably just following bogus orders. I highly doubt the real truth as to who really gave that order will ever come to light.

Always easier to just toss the grunt in jail and toss the key than to implicate and put on trial higher authorities.

WE do it for fish

Why don't you guys learn to think for yourselves






Looks to me like I amthe one thinking for myself and you are the one agreeing with what the media feeds us. I agree the we should do things diffrently in iraq but a also agree we should be doing something in iraq not talking about withdrawls.

Like what Theywent? What could we do that we haven't already done in the last 4 years that would preclude a troop withdrawl and finally WIN this war for us?

If you really DO have a logical answer... might I suggest e-mailing it to the White House... they don't seem to have it figured out yet?

Someone has spent too much time in Margaritaville. We are fighting a war against a largely invisible enemy. I have no problem with troops "baiting the enemy". I think my four son inlaws and my son all currently on active duty with second tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan would take exception to this not being called a war
Personally i believe our efforts should have been focused in Afghanistan, but we as a nation have stepped in it in Iraq. The Iraqi government needs to be held accountable to some benchmarks for asserting control and making measurable progress on a time line in order to have our continued assitance.

We've tried giving them control. Supposedly when we "can" give them all control and don't need our help, we are going to pull out.. They are a mess and can't take the responsibility of governing their nation after what's happened in the past few decades.

A decent house, a couple of gas guzzlers, boats, campers, thousands in tackle, thousands in hunting gear, thousands and thousands in dept, only have to work 55 to 60 hrs a week for myself and have the right to bitch about the idiot the majority elected to run the country. All the while we get buy with the help of the 400 billion being dumped into the economy on a war we may need but don't need to win. A lot of people have died so we can live this way and a lot more will so we can continue to live this way. Do you think the rest of the world will ever think it's fare. I Don't. DO YOU THINK IT IS FARE ? I DON"T. Do you think it will last forever. I don't. Am I willing to give it up. Fu*% NO. Show me another country that lives with an average lifestyle like ours. All the million dollar homes near major cities with pro sports teams and every luxury under the sun in one direction and beautiful rivers and forest in the other direction where we go for fun and entertainment. Were so god damm spoiled we have forgotten the cost of what it takes to maintain this economy. We don't have enough, lets go on strike, its not fare, Why don't we get free helth care like Canada. I know lets sell our military and buy free helth care. We can just go to the UN and ask everyone not to take advantage of us and please don't be jealous of our perfect world. What we have is ugly folks and the reality of what it takes to keep it unfortunatly is ugly too. Your only hope is that someday some nice people like Lenin and Stallen get control of the world and make everything fare. Good Luck
Might IS Right. It sucks but its the only thing working. You get the whole world in on your fantasy and I'm in. If I was young enough to join the military I would gladly kill to protect OUR way of life while I tried hard not to die for my country. Yea maybe a bit extream but can WE really handle the real truth or even want to know it. It must be easyer to know all the right answers while we sit at our computers than it is when you are paid to be in DC.

No I am not sure I know what I am talkin about just the way I think it is...Peace or maybe not...I'll think about it on the river

That's super, but back to the original topic - I'd be shocked as shiat if baiting the public was an acceptable form of warfare for the US. I'm pretty sure you can't put a pile of weapons in the town square, wait until someone picks one up, and shoot them in the head from 600 meters away....as is what happened in this case.

Seeing how the guy is on trial, I'm guessing that it is not OK to do that. Maybe I am wrong on this one?

My point was that the grunt should have known better. Unfortunately, the US Armed Forces trains the basic foot soldier not to think for themselves and to implicitly follow the "chain of command".

What I'm saying is that Saddam did not have a WMD program that was a threat to the US after the first Gulf War. The guys in charge of finding those WMD's came to the same conclusion before the shooting started.

And I'll call it an impulsive action because that's what it was. He made a decision he was going after Saddam, and then went looking for excuses to do so. Did we invade because of the WMD's? If we did then we started a war on an untrue premise.

Did we invade Iraq because of UN resolutions being defied? Which particular resolution was worth this war? Which UN resolution that was defied made you stand up and say "That's an act of War!"

I doubt whatever comes to light during this soldiers trial, we'll probably never know the whole truth. A tragedy all around.

Just one of many reasons why we should all be proud of our nation.

Amen... Dave!

Well said Dave. I think Mcain said the same thing, and that he was proud of his country for it.