Andrew Green said:
Yes, the people over there believe it is one really good guy, but we intenet jockies, we know better....
Well, considering that the only thing we have to go on is an article circulated among a bunch of leftist, America hating sites, and a quote from a specialist, it's really not like the evidence is exactly stacking up. It's not extremely hard to apply Occam's Razor to these type of situations.
You can couple that with the inaccurate and obviously skewed statements about this "snipers" abilities, i.e. shots from 200 meters (nothing impressive) his low body count (lots of wounded for a skilled sniper shooting at 200 meters), and lack of real or anecdotal evidence (a couple quotes from a few low rank soldiers assumed to be real and reliable), I would have to dismiss this guy as an urban legend fueled by a few, otherwise, unrelated sniper incidents.
There's no evidence it's one guy, there's less evidence he has any real skill. I have no real skill, but I can take a Remington 700 bolt action rifle with a decent scope (Say, Leupold Vari-X III) and consistently put every round within a 2.5 to 3 inch circle at 200 meters. That's not even the precision of the rifle (i'm not good enough to take a precision rifle like that and shoot to it's limits). Still. 2.5 to 3 inches is plenty to take consistent, high probability of death, headshots, even on a helmeted target. I wouldn't be wounding half of them or more. Today's marine snipers can put shots consistently in side a quarter out to 200 plus meters.
As for the 4 man sniper team, and I listed already, that story sounds suspiciously like a 6 man sniper team ambushed by a group of armed Iraqis in their hide, hardly the same as one guy taking them out at range. I think this is just a hodge-podge of jumbled stories cobbled together to give the anti-American left someone to cheer for.
Kind of sad when certain US citizens get their kicks fantasizing about an Iraqi sniper shooting American kids. I guess those guys have to get their joy however they can. What's next, "baby killer" chants and spitting on returning soldiers?
That having been said, there are a lot of insurgents who are extremely skilled fighters. As we have been sending our best and brightest young men to try and put Iraq back together, muslims from all over the Islamic world have been sending their best and brightests to tear it apart again. It isn't the Iraqis themselves that we are facing such opposition from, it's the young Syrians, Iranians, Saudis, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Yemenis, etc, etc, etc, who decided they wanted to be part of the party.
They're flocking from all over the Islamic world to fight America. Iraq has turned in to one, big, gigantic terrorist roach motel.
Iraq may have had nothing to do with 9/11, but the very people who perpetrated 9/11 and the ones who would do it again are there right now in mortal combat with our soldiers. We might as well kill and capture them now, while we have them all in one place.
