Don't pick up the trash!

U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With ‘Bait’

A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of “bait,” such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.
The classified program was described in investigative documents related to recently filed murder charges against three snipers who are accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed.
“Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy,” Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. “Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces.”
In documents obtained by The Washington Post from family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the U.S. military’s Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the “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.”
Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said such a baiting program should be examined “quite meticulously” because it raises troubling possibilities, such as what happens when civilians pick up the items.

Who is this Asymmetric Warfare Group?

The Army is creating an “Asymmetric Warfare Group” to assess new tactics adversaries may use to take advantage of U.S. military vulnerabilities, according to service officials and documents. The group is expected to train forces up and down the ranks in countering such threats, with the first priority being those troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials say.
The asymmetric warfare specialists—to number nearly 200 soldiers, civilians and contractors by next January—will operate much like the IED task force, but with a broadened mandate. The unit is expected to be capable of planning and training for emerging threats in both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. The AWG specialists will prepare to counter high- and low-technology weapons, to include even such futuristic concepts as “ray guns,” according to a task force contractor.

Civilians and contractors? Ray Guns? Baiting and killing those picking up the "bait"? We all know war is not pretty, but this is getting ridiculous. Let's outlaw war!