Man says he was paid $150 for each chip laid

September 14, 2004 10:30 AM

Man says he was paid $150 for each chip laid The airstrikes on residential areas in Iraq are designed to lower support for militants by civilians, and create factional in-fighting. This raises two questions for me. Who are these 'scouts', to be trusted to identify legitimate targets? No monetary, revenge, tribal motivation? What are the legal implications of 'collateral damage'. Are innocent victims eligible for compensation? Any lawyers out there? If moral questions are not allowed under the patriot act, what about legal ones?
posted by dreeed (8 comments total)

These chips, they vibrate?

Honestly, while RFID bombing raids sounds like a good idea, are we really doing this? This sounds like the "the marines are wearing air conditioning units to survive in the heat" kind of street gossip.

Added bonus: the guy who is "reveals" this is about to be beheaded.

Beheader: "Say you wear ladies underwear."
Beheadee: "I wear ladies underwear!"

etc
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:20 PM on September 14, 2004

Robert Olen Butler's book A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain has a wonderful story about an airstrike scout in Vietnam who always gave the Americans good data on where to find VC command centers and such. One day he finds out some guy is fucking his wife, and delivers the coordinates of that man's house with his next set of target listings.

Another hut is blown to shit. Some dead asians are found inside. The Americans are none the wiser and the scout goes back to scouting military targets with a satisfied grin.
posted by scarabic at 12:32 PM on September 14, 2004

scarabic, sounds like the guy got what he deserved, what's the problem? Just make sure, if you're banging some married woman, that her husband isn't a spy who can have a Tomahawk missile express delivered to your mail slot. Its an interesting sort of power he wielded.

and Ogre Lawless, I didn't see it on US soldiers but the Green Bay Packers have an on uniform cooling system in use now that circulates cold air (or warm because Lambeau gets a wee bit chilly later in the season) through the player's pads.

Nothing like making a man who's about to die confess to things he may or may not have done to justify murdering him. Wonder if that $150 per chip seemed a little low to him as they were chopping his head off?
posted by fenriq at 1:14 PM on September 14, 2004

Basically the article says that the US is caught in a trap largely because it thought that Iraq would be easy once the mission was "accomplished"... no news there.
posted by clevershark at 1:43 PM on September 14, 2004

posted by troutfishing at 7:17 PM on September 14, 2004

In another taped sequence available in the Falluja market, a mustached man identifying himself as an Egyptian is shown kneeling in a flowered shirt, confessing that he "worked as a spy for the Americans," planting electronic "chips" used for setting targets in American bombing raids. The man says he was paid $150 for each chip laid, then he, too, is tackled to the ground by masked guards while a third masked man, a burly figure who proclaims himself a dispenser of Islamic justice, pulls a 12-inch knife from a scabbard, grabs the Egyptian by the scalp, and severs his head.

You know that whole "context" thing? Yeah.

I'd be willing to be that our intel in these I'd be willing to be that our intel in these cities is actually pretty good.cities is actualy pretty good.
posted by delmoi at 8:50 PM on September 14, 2004

because [the US] thought that Iraq would be easy once the mission was "accomplished"

insurgency, a product of the 21st century, how could we have known? news at 11.
posted by Satapher at 1:12 AM on September 15, 2004

scarabic, that reminds me of some of the shenanigans associated with the Phoenix program in Vietnam. Don't like your villiage chief? Denounce him to the Phoenix guys as a VC.
posted by alumshubby at 8:43 AM on September 15, 2004