Questions need to be asked.
Three British soldiers have been killed in an apparent friendly fire incident involving US aircraft in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said Friday.
Two other soldiers were injured in the incident, which occurred Thursday.
The patrol was attacked by Taliban insurgents and air support was summoned in the form of two US F15 aircraft. One bomb was dropped, apparently killing the three soldiers. They were declared dead at the scene.
Earlier this year Mr Browne said 12 British soldiers had died in friendly fire incidents involving US forces since 1990, but that no such incidents had taken place in Afghanistan.
We have been assured for decades that Pentagon magicians are supplying us with armaments that are guaranteed to kill the bad guys, never harm an innocent civilian, and especially – never, never will take out our Willing Allies in our Willing Coalition.
That’s a load of crap.
Why can’t we Get It Right? The generals will blame human error. Then, they bear no responsibility. Perish the thought they admit to reliance on lousy implementation of [maybe] overrated technology?
And, of course, the questions apply more often, much more seriously, to the civilians we kill.
Silly to post, or to think, that anyone ever said “never”—or to base any opinion on anyone that does say or think that way.
Otherwise==its always the wrong coordinates called in or transposed along the way.
Well, I’m British … and I have to say that in warfare, accidents happen. So does raping, pillaging and torture … to say otherwise would be like trying to say black was white.
The bigger question should be, is there a good enough reason to be at war in the first place?
bobbo- don’t waste time being sidereal. “Never” is what the media flacks for the Pentagon would have us believe. It is part of the equation.
And the real questions are broader and more numerous than your suggestion. One of my buds in military history and strategy discussions has done 2 tours over Afghanistan already. He would raise a dozen different questions – elsewhere – if he wasn’t off piloting for a living this weekend.
It is complex – and we have politicians whose usual responses are simplistic. I think that’s another part of the problem. The questions have to do with strategy within the difficult situation caused and defined by chickenhawk politicians.
Does anyone know if any of the attackers were hit or killed by the bomb? I’m wondering if it was a matter of close proximity, or wrong coordinates.
Last couple of news articles from the UK say it was a 500-lb bomb. It ain’t like horseshoes or hand grenades. You needn’t be on the crosshairs.
When did the Pentagon say that they had magic bullets? Are you really that stupid or that leftist Eideard? What do you smoke, they will never have a magic anything, accurate yes magic no, after all that’s what Nuclear weapons were, they were supposed to make conventional warfare obsolete. Do you think the Air Force of the United States of America had it out for these three individual British soldiers?
I really would like to see the post where the US Military said they had “armaments that are guaranteed to kill the bad guys, never harm an innocent civilian”, or are you just making that up like all leftist make up their supposed facts.
how many lives is getting Saddam out of power worth? not many
how many lives is the oil worth? plenty
-American oil machine
3–Moss, as with Eideard, WHAT are you actually going on about? Both of you are posting private demons as public facts?
I don’t believe ANYONE in the military ever said civilians or friendlies would never be killed. And even if anyone did, you’d have to be an idiot to believe it or to post about it. So, put it in any equation you like, but give it a value of Zero.
No, what #2 said is really the only relevant question, and it actually is relatively simple. Simple to ask, simple to answer. The fact that to accomplish simple goals innocent people, civilian and military, will die, doesn’t make the question complex, nor the answer sidereal.
Lets see now. Afghanistan? I think our military should be used “hammer style”==in and out. Let the politicians, religious mulla’s, war lords, dope dealers, and oil men play with the residue, always knowing the hammer is well equiped, rarely used, and ready to go.
None of these stories say how many allied lives were saved by American fighter bombers. I’d estimate lots and lots.
Perhaps I just haven’t heard about the incidents but it does seem rare American pilots drop 500 pound, laser-guided bombs on other Americans.
So far they’ve killed four Canadians and injured eight – on top of killing three Brits and at least seven Afghan police, not to mention a whole hell of a lot of Afghan civilians.
There has to be some sort of failure of communications between the various different forces. I think that’s what needs to be addressed.
This will always happen occasionally in close ground support. A battlefield is dynamic, communication error can happen, and even hardware failure. Whether this particular battle should be fought is another question. Tired and weary warriors and overused fatigued weapons will of course increase errors.
9–Cinaedh== you want the initial news sources to be spun with irrelevant BS? I’d hate to see the Washington Press Corp put out of business.
#11 – bobbo
Often I’m convinced I’m the one who’s crazy.
Obviously they’re all doing their jobs magnificently.
12—Cinaedh, nice try. How many irrelvancies can you loop together?
Contra–just recognize when you misapplied a concept and be happy you can still learn. Otherwise, yes, you will remain crazy.
Maybe someday those who find our armaments lacking will take the time to become experts in such technology so they can help build more effective killing machines.
(As if…)
RBG
2 Ian. “The bigger question should be, is there a good enough reason to be at war in the first place?”
Check out the 9-11incident.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/
Hope that helps.
RBG
Oh yeah – thx, RBG. Forgot all about those
SaudisIraqis who took out the WTC… We sure showed them what-for, didn’t we?War is rarely the best response==even to 911.
Bushco demonstrates this pretty conclusively. We are around one half trillion dollars spent now? Would be much cheaper just to let the terrorists blow up a building every 10 years or so.
course, we could also have spent a fraction of that money doing the “other” things that Bushco in fact is doing, only do them better–ie, economic sanctions, trade restraints, monetary restrictions, international intelligence gathering, working with our allies, and so forth.
Only an idiot glamorizes War–and usually for what it isn’t.
#8 – try to read something more complex than B.C. in the Sunday Comix. Here’s just a small example of the sort of crap the Pentagon spews out on a regular basis – on the “signature weapon of modern warfare” – repeated and reiterated by mass media “analysts” in print and on the air.
http://tinyurl.com/2bbf5a
The Shock and Awe bubbas owned the invasion coverage and have repeated it whenever called upon. I don’t know what compounds your ignorance; but, if seeing it in print from the not-so-loyal opposition is a problem, it’s your problem, not mine.
So far, no one is saying anything about what ordnance was used in this particular attack – and that’s one of the questions that should be asked. Now, you may return to Duck and Cover.
I guess the Web not only needs html for “sarcasm” but “irony” as well. Though that might take away the last vestige of justification for politically dull-witted neocons to Comment.
18–Moss, can you seperate a fluff piece from reality? Your provided website looked 100% accurate to me–ie JDAMS are extremely accurate. I believe it, don’t you?
Now, what kind of “defective thinking” or “biased interpretation” or “intentional misdirection” takes you from being extremely accurate to never missing a target and that target never being wrongly selected?
go ahead, dig that whole of yours a little deeper. Cinaedh atleast learned to be closer to reality when not talking to a close cabal, or s/he is still totally pissed or confused. Can you see the complete idiocy of your position and how your proof doesn’t match at all what you try to prove?
Further, I think Shock and Awe is a pretty good representation of the Iraq War invasion and military victory. Says nothing at all about the completely vacant political process that needed to clean it up.
In practice, JDAM’s, etc. had a much lower rate of accuracy than the Rummie PR dept blathered through tame embeds. Debates among military strategists center on “acceptable” failure rates ranging from 5-20%. Obviously, some folks still believe the hacks – even when, in your case, some small perception of the difference between Shock and Awe invasions still leaves the grunt work to be performed – abysmally – after the blitzkrieg.
You’re making my point. It’s tough in a geek crowd to understand how reliance on tech – as a policy – rolls into a belief system that acts like hardware can cure any problem. Rummie is gone. The mid-level and higher officer cadre that was central to his Mission Accomplished ideology is still in place. They’re still making tactical decisions that follow the original strategy. The grunts on the ground have no say at all.
21–Moss, with your unacknowledged adroit abandonment of your original rant, we have almost reached agreement.
Its good the mid-level officer cadre remains fixated on technology==that is how a slim and trim force can bring Shock and Awe. Now all the mid level cadre and the grunts need is a Senior General Whore Rank that does not sell them down the river as a peace keeping service.
GOUSA grunts have more autonomy than any other army I know of. I’m sure they can screw things up just as much as the officers if they were given the wrong mission and minimal support. Or do you have anything specific in mind other than another unsupportable rant point?
I see you’re finally ready to join up. After all, the fools in charge – think they’re playing a computer game. And gamers – think they’re in a real war.
And you really don’t give a damn about the grunts, anyway.
24–Moss, how would you characterize the appropriate “caring” for our troops? Care to provide a few do’s and don’ts? I’ll bet most people, even on this blog, want the very best for our troops and don’t want to see them abused==and that still leaves room for me not go give a damn for the grunts anyway. Hard to care in any meaningful sense for total strangers? But caring for the troops is in my own best interest.
Now, giving the confrontational nature of my posts, I’d think you’d go after something I’ve actually said or hinted at, rather than make up a chimera all of your own that is totally debatable to begin with?
Kinda like masturbation on your part.
24–line 6 is confusing in use of “caring”. Should be “providing for”, or “supporting” given the prior use of the word/concept caring.
Notwithstanding the arrogance an incompetence of the US effort in this war, could you at least post a photo of the correct Eagle. You posted a photo of a C-model. C-models shoot other planes. E-models drop bombs.
No one is making the argument that JDAMS are 100% accurate and fool proof Moss, and top military officials know this (or should know) as they all know that a JDAM round almost killed Hamid Karzai during the first months of the NA assault on the Taliban. However, when taken into a historical perspective the modern forms of indirect fire are worthy of high praise, and actually top military planners are taking notice of what the troops are saying. Brace yourself for a smart 60mm mortar round by 2010. The increased effectiveness of the Excalibur rounds in Iraq & Afghanistan have largely been supported by the Marines and Soldiers who benefit from not having to breach and clear a building because the arty round can accomplish the same task. Yet even then the projected average for the smart round is a five meter radius, which is far from 100%, and that statistical estimate is probably based upon a 95% confidence level. Compound onto that a margin of error from the human factor and unfortunate events, such as fratricide, can and do occur. The rest of your points are not even germane to the news coverage of a developing friendly fire incident.
16. LtG. I think the subject is Afghanistan… You know, the place where they used to let just anyone train as a terrorist and then not give them up when asked very politely.
RBG
I’m not sure that economic sanctions, and international intelligence gathering would be enough to fight AlQaeda. Sudan had economic sanctions, and offered to hand over Bin Laden to get on our good side, but we didn’t take him because the intelligence wasn’t sufficient to bring an indictment(it could be that he wasn’t involved in the prior acts).
17 bobbo. “Would be much cheaper just to let the terrorists blow up a building every 10 years or so.”
Uh-huh…
Who knew that suicidal fanatics determined to wipe out the Great Satan might be so responsive to economic sanctions?
Using the same Polly Anna logic and approach, why don’t we just conduct a war at a fraction of the cost and time – only do it better?
In fact, cheaper yet, why doesn’t each side simply explain their objections and then come to some mutual understanding.
RBG