Army to start using mobile labs in Iraq to decide whether to killsomeone or let him go -- of course,

"A war fighter needs to know one of three things: Do I let him go?

Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot?" Pentagon weapons designer Anh

Duong told the Washington Post for a feature on how this 47-year-old

former Vietnamese refugee and mother of four rose to become a top U.S.

bomb-maker.

Though Duong is best known for designing high-explosives used to

destroy hardened targets, she also supervised the Joint Expeditionary

Forensics Facilities project, known as a "lab in a box" for analyzing

biometric data, such as iris scans and fingerprints, that have been

collected on more than one million Iraqis.

The labs - collapsible, 20-by-20-foot units each with a generator and

a satellite link to a biometric data base in West Virginia - will let

U.S. forces cross-check data in the field against information

collected previously that can be used to identify insurgents. These

labs are expected to be deployed across Iraq in early 2008.

Duong said the next step will be to shrink the lab to the size of a

"backpack" so soldiers who encounter a suspect "could find out within

minutes" if he's on a terrorist watch list and should be killed.

Duong justified this biometric-data program as a humanitarian way of

singling out "bad guys" for elimination while sparing innocent

civilians.

"I don't want My Lai in Iraq," Duong said. "The biggest difficulty in

the global war on terror - just like in Vietnam - is to know who the

bad guys are. How do we make sure we don't kill innocents?"

In Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military units already are operating

under loose rules of engagement that allow them to kill individuals

who are identified as suspected terrorists or who show the slightest

evidence of being insurgents. American forces also have rounded up

tens of thousands of Iraqi military-age males, or MAMs, for detention.

During a summer 2007 trip to Iraq, Anthony Cordesman, a military

analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was

briefed on U.S. plans to expand the number of Iraqis in American

detention by the end of 2008.

"The detainees have risen to over 18,000 and are projected to hit

30,000 (by the U.S. command) by the end of the year and 50,000 by the

end of 2008," Cordesman wrote in his trip report.

The sweeps have enabled the U.S. military to collect biometric data

for future use if and when the Iraqis are released back into the

general population.

Test Tube

In effect, the Bush administration is transforming Iraq into a test

tube for modern techniques of repression, which already include use of

night-vision optics on drone aircraft, heat resonance imaging, and

firepower that is both deadly and precise.

The new techniques represent a modernization of tactics used in other

counterinsurgencies, such as in Vietnam in the 1960s and in Central

America in the 1980s.

In Vietnam, U.S. forces planted sensors along infiltration routes for

targeting bombing runs against North Vietnamese troops. In Guatemala,

security forces were equipped with early laptop computers for use in

identifying suspected subversives who would be dragged off buses and

summarily executed.

Now, modern technologies are updating these strategies for the 21st

century's "war on terror."

The U.S. news media mostly has reacted to these developments with gee-

whiz enthusiasm, like the Post story about Duong, which breezily

depicts her complicated life as a devoted mom whose personal history

as a Vietnamese refugee led her to a career developing sophisticated

weapons for the U.S. government.

The Post feature article expressed no alarm and no criticism of

Duong's comment about shooting Iraqi suspects "on the

spot." [Washington Post, Dec. 1, 2007]

Similarly, U.S. newspapers have consigned stories about U.S. troops

engaging in extrajudicial killings of suspects mostly to pages deep

inside the newspapers or have covered the news sympathetically. While

some harsh criticism has fallen on trigger-happy Blackwater "security

contractors," U.S. troops have been given largely a free pass.

For instance, no furor arose this fall when the U.S. military, in

effect, endorsed claims by members of elite Army sniper units that

they have been granted broad discretion in killing any Iraqi who

crosses the path of their rifle scopes.

On Nov. 8, a U.S. military jury at Camp Liberty in Iraq acquitted the

leader of an Army sniper team in the killings of three Iraqi men south

of Baghdad during the early days of the troop "surge" this year.

Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley was found not guilty of murder, though he

was convicted of lesser charges that he had planted an AK-47 rifle on

one of the dead men and had shown disrespect to a superior officer.

In an e-mail interview with the New York Times, Hensley complained

that he should not have even faced a court martial because he was

following guidance from two superior officers who wanted him to boost

the unit's kill count.

"Every last man we killed was a confirmed terrorist," Hensley wrote.

"We were praised when bad guys died. We were upbraided when bad guys

did not die." [NYT, Nov. 9, 2007]

Asymmetric Warfare

The case of Army sniper Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., who served under

Hensley, also revealed a classified program in which the Pentagon's

Asymmetric Warfare Group encouraged U.S. military snipers in Iraq to

drop "bait" - such as electrical cords and ammunition - and then shoot

Iraqis who pick up the items, according to evidence in the Sandoval

case. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2007]

(Like Hensley, Sandoval was acquitted of murder but convicted of a

lesser charge, the planting of copper wire on one of the slain Iraqis

to make it look as if the dead man were involved in making explosive

devices.)

Another case of a targeted killing of a suspected insurgent surfaced

at a military court hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in mid-

September. Two U.S. Special Forces soldiers took part in the execution

of an Afghani who was suspected of heading an insurgent group.

As described at the hearing, Staffel and Anderson were leading a team

of Afghan soldiers when an informant told them where a suspected

insurgent leader was hiding. The U.S.-led contingent found a man

believed to be Nawab Buntangyar walking outside his compound near the

village of Hasan Kheyl.

While the Americans kept their distance out of fear the suspect might

be wearing a suicide vest, the man was questioned about his name and

the Americans checked his description against a list from the Combined

Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan, known as "the kill-or-

capture list."

Concluding that the man was insurgent leader Nawab Buntangyar, Staffel

gave the order to shoot, and Anderson - from a distance of about 100

yards away - fired a bullet through the man's head, killing him

instantly.

The soldiers viewed the killing as "a textbook example of a classified

mission completed in accordance with the American rules of

engagement," the International Herald Tribune reported. "The men said

such rules allowed them to kill Buntangyar, whom the American military

had designated a terrorist cell leader, once they positively

identified him." [iHT, Sept. 17, 2007]

According to evidence at the Fort Bragg proceedings, an earlier Army

investigation had cleared the two soldiers because they had been

operating under "rules of engagement" that empowered them to kill

individuals who have been designated "enemy combatants," even if the

targets were unarmed and presented no visible threat.

In effect, Duong's mobile labs would streamline the process for

identifying suspected insurgents like Buntangyar.

Rather than relying on physical descriptions, U.S. forces could scan a

suspect's eyes or check his fingerprints -- and instantaneously cross-

check it with data stored in West Virginia -- before deciding, in

Duong's words, "Do I let him go? Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot?"

WOW!

Jeeeez that's scary stuff.

We know bu$h/cheney has already used pocket nukes and secret mind

control psyops satellites against on the innocent civilians (was

censored out of amerikkka news). I never thought it could get worse

than that. Guess I was wrong.

only a matter of time until bu$h will declare martial law and start

bussing people to the prison camps.

"Lickin' Ass and Takin' Names" <PopUlist349@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:149016d9-8af2-4861-ab4b-476b2beddb68@t1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...

> "A war fighter needs to know one of three things: Do I let him go?

> Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot?" Pentagon weapons designer Anh

> Duong told the Washington Post for a feature on how this 47-year-old

> former Vietnamese refugee and mother of four rose to become a top U.S.

> bomb-maker.

PG will now save America taxpayers a boatload of money.

Question: "Do I let him go? Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot?"

Answer: Shoot him on the spot.

Next question.