"Friendly Fire"

[jkirk]

where is the "shakes my head in disbelief" smiley?
or not so smiley

holy crap!!

time for a retraining exercise. telescopic cameras would be useful in situations like this. along with a friend or foe detection system.

it is also on cnn.com

[jkirk]

Karlos wrote:

This, being a high profile case means we have ultimately gotten a bit of insight into "operational procedure" there.


Call me cynical...

cynical :-)

actually i don't think we have seen any insight to operational procedure. what we have seen is a total lack of it in this case. the problem with general statements such as this is you will only see and hear about the mistakes. you will never hear about successes or when the procedures were followed to the letter. most of the time you won't even hear about near-misses except the most extreme cases. so making a general statement such as this makes no sense.

this is a sad event one that needs full investigation and corrective actions implemented. meaning the pilots/controllers/anyone involved need retraining or punishment for neglecting the procedures and for not being sure of their target.

my heart goes out to the family of the killed soldier and hope his death was not in vain. :-(

[jkirk]

Ah, but you are seemingly missing the depth of cynicism here. I'm suggesting that in light of this it's conceivable that some of these "successes" that have been reported, such as the "elimination" of "groups of insurgents" etc. were in fact just similar blunders made against ordinary Iraqis.

i am not debating this is a possibility since there is a damn good possibility that this is true. i am referring to all the minor operations that go off without a hitch by superior leaders. that nobody gets killed(including innocent iraqis). we will never hear about them since it is not newsworthy. in those cases the modus operandi works since it is implemented properly. now if there are no such cases this is very bad for the training of us combat troops. the training of support troops is minimal(i used to be one).
 

[jkirk]

adz wrote:

jkirk wrote:

my heart goes out to the family of the killed soldier and hope his death was not in vain. :-(

Of course his death was in vain, as are all the casualties in this damned war, if he wasn't there in the first place he would still be alive. Pretty simple concept, well to everybody outside the US it is...

if something positive comes out of this incident. attitudes changed, policy changed, or new training implemented to avoid this in the future he did not die in vain. there would be meaning to his death.

however if he was killed and no positive steps were taken to avoid a repeat of this, he did die in vain.

as long as this issue raises the ire of civilians on both sides there is a chance that something positive will come of this. this is probably why it was leaked in the first place. if this was written off as a fluke and hidden as it appears to have been the person that leaked it probably wanted to draw attention so his death would not be in vain.

these are my opinions of course.

[jkirk]

In their eyes the aftermath is always some one elses problem.

do you have proof of this or are you assuming all military members feel this way?

i don't believe this statement applies to the us military. this may apply to the leadership or some of the troops but throwing around generic statements assuming it is true is wrong.

USA military is a blunt instrument, who rely to heavily on technology to achieve its aims

very true statement

this leads to many civilian casualties and the occasional friendly fire incident.

wrong wrong wrong
human error leads to that or even human incompetance.

Did he die in vain? all of people who died fighting in iraq are died in vain, not to mention the people who dont even have blood on their hands i.e civilians.

i don't think so (at least not yet)i will withhold that judgement until this is over. but i accept you have your own opinions.

[jkirk]

"Never stand in front of a yank with a machine gun..."

i wouldn't stand in front of anybody with a machine gun. :lol:

 

Nothing has changed in American policy in over 50 years, what makes you think it will change in the future?

50 years is a relatively short time in the grand scheme of things. but what i am saying is not a policy change per se though i would like to see that modified or changed completely. what i am referring is tactics and engagement procedures. modifying so this incident won't be repeated this is what i hope will happen. a complete change is too much to hope for at this point.