US soldiers that bombed Canadians honored as heroes

[H Tower]

Originally posted by notyoueither
They were there because your government asked for them, and Canada honoured its commitment under NATO.

NATO has nothing to do with this. Afghanistan is not within the specified area of concern for NATO

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Lonestar
You think they thought the hinese Embassy in Belgrade was a Serb target?

No I think it was like the French embassy in Libya, a tragic mistake

[Venom]

I trust they're being honored for their aim and not wasting any bombs.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by H Tower


NATO has nothing to do with this. Afghanistan is not within the specified area of concern for NATO

Oh contraire. A NATO member was attacked.

There was very little debate here about sending troops because the government cited the NATO treaty.

I believe similar things happened in some European countries.

[notyoueither]

http://www.patriotresource.com/wtc/intl/0913/nato.html

NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council at Ambassadorial Level
Statement on the Terrorist Attacks
September 13, 2001

The NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, meeting in extraordinary session at Ambassadorial level on 13 September 2001, expressed its anger and indignation at the barbaric acts committed against the people of the United States of America. The deepest sympathies of Allies and Russia lie with the victims and their families. While Allies and Russia have suffered from terrorist attacks against civilians, the horrific scale of the attacks of 11 September is without precedent in modern history. NATO and Russia are united in their resolve not to let those responsible for such an inhuman act to go unpunished. NATO and Russia call on the entire international community to unite in the struggle against terrorism.

NATO and Russia will intensify their cooperation under the Founding Act to defeat this scourge.

END

Well one thing is for sure, not a single one of us, was at the site when this accident happen. So until we find out all the facts, repeat all the facts you should keep cool heads.
And for all of you non-veteran keep a lid on it. You have zero ideal what goes on in the military and yet a war zone flying at night and seeing tracer jumping all over the place.

[Asher]

joseph1944: Two inquiries have concluded with the same result -- what are you talking about waiting for the facts?

It's impossible for us to be there, but both the Americans and Canadians have investigated and came to the same conclusion...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Lonestar
As my Instructor would say, "Pilots shoot at anything that's shiny. You think they thought the hinese Embassy in Belgrade was a Serb target? No, they saw a Satillite dish."

Your instructor was wrong. They were ordered to hit that target, and the people who ordered them knew it was the Chinese embassy. The embassy was using its radio station to rebroadcast Serbian military radio. While it was a deliberate act of war against China, it was also a legitimate target.

[Venom]

Yeah! We legally bombed the Chinese!

Originally posted by Asher
joseph1944: Two inquiries have concluded with the same result -- what are you talking about waiting for the facts?

It's impossible for us to be there, but both the Americans and Canadians have investigated and came to the same conclusion...

Did they release every thing to the public? If they did I would be real surprised. The Military never releases every thing to the public. Remember I was in and worked for the US Navy for 33 + years and they never admitted to anything with 100% of the trued.

[Seeker]

I can't believe people are actually rallying around these jerks!

They should get nailed right to the wall, I don't care if they were totally green and panicked, they put on the unifrom, they gave up their rights.

right to the ****ing wall.

Originally posted by Venom
Yeah! We legally bombed the Chinese!

What we told them was to keep their nose out of our business.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Seeker
I can't believe people are actually rallying around these jerks!

They should get nailed right to the wall, I don't care if they were totally green and panicked, they put on the unifrom, they gave up their rights.

right to the ****ing wall.

The above is the reason why people are lining up to defend them. If it turns out to be the case that they screwed up, then yes, they should be punished appropriately. And frankly, friendly fire is something that happens in war, get over it. If the case is, as the pilots allege, they weren't properly briefed, then they shouldn't be punished at all.

I think y'all should wait to hear the evidence before convicting these men.

[MOBIUS]

No, that's not what I said. I'm saying that My Lai was unquestioningly worse - this friendly fire incident was an accident, while My Lai was on purpose. It makes no sense to punish an accident greater than an intentional slaughter, wouldn't you agree?

Sarcasm old boy… The point is that it is unfortunately impractical to bring up the past and punish the perps of My Lai, what we can do however is prosecute new cases to the fullest of our ability – if only to show the military of today that it cannot get away with the excesses (My Lai) of the past…

And I'm sure I can dig up instances in history where British friendly fire killed American soldiers.

I’m sure you can, but I have to say that the Germans killed an awful lot more US soldiers in WWII than the British did…

Look, I'm not saying these guys should get off scot free - I'm simply saying that these guys are people too, and made a mistake. Kick them out of the military, give them a dishonorable discharge, even, but don't ruin their lives by locking them up for the rest of their lives.

That they are – in which case there are far too many ‘people’ in the US military and not enough soldiers…

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Mostly because our troops are the ones who actually fight. Of course, we know what you're really mad about. It ain't our fault if your guys can't properly call in a target, identify themselves, and then stay out of the target zone.

Which is precisely why I don’t understand how you can kill so many British and Canadian troops – there are so few of us around!

The war of independence finished hundreds of years ago, OK! You won, so please stop killing us!

Let's see what you do under fire.

I don’t have to, I get some poor grunt to do it for me – preferably from another country.

I am ‘cool under fire’ in an office situation…

Well, if you'd agressively engaged the goddamned Iraqis, maybe they would have had more chances to shoot your troops asses off. Did you ever stop to think for a minute how maybe the reason the Iraqis were so generally ineffective at inflicting casualties was due in large measure to the overwhelming number of close support sorties that were effectively on target?

Uh, riiiiight – so your logic is that because we’re not at the front fighting the Iraqis, we can’t be killed by them. OK, makes sense – so how come British troops got killed by the US, if they were obviously so far away from the fighting?
Yes, you’re right about the sorties that were so effectively on target – they did a good job annihilating a routed Iraqi army on Highway of Death. Bravo!

At least ours fight.

Well ours don’t get the chance because apparently as you would have us believe they’re killed behind the lines or on exercise – they would but they keep getting killed…

I notice you can’t even argue against the fact that they are too trigger happy.

I’d check the US casualty list in Afghanistan if I were you – at one point something approaching 50% of US casualties KIA or wounded were are a result of US fire…

Not to mention the Canadian friendly fire/hostile fire ratio.

You even almost killed Hamed Karzai before he came to power – imagine what a colossal f*ck up that would have been!

There was that artillery incident about a year ago in Saudi or Kuwait that plastered those poor hapless Kiwis, hell the US has even shot down at least one airliner – not to mention all the many ‘000’s of civilians in Afghanistan, Somalia, Panama, Iraq, Serbia…

Face it – the US army is hooked on blowing innocent people away, something needs to be changed to prevent this from happening as often as it does!

[Rogan Josh]

I think the two pilots should be disciplined, but I also think there should be some attempt to tackle the root problem. It looks very much like they were not adequately trained for the mission - they did not follow procedures and were not properly briefed.

I hope that some heads roll (metaphorically of course) in the command hierarchy too. To say that this was entirely the two pilots' fault in making them scapegoats I think.

[SpencerH]

If you have a link to the preceedings of an enquiry please post it. Otherwise, you're just flappin your lips over something most of you know nothing about.

EDIT This isnt directed and any individual

[Tingkai]

A lot of issues here.

The pilot was told to wait, but he didn't. He violated standing orders that were designed to prevent these accidents. Based on the information that has been released, he didn't have any need to break the orders.

However, according to a leak transcript of the radio transmission, he was cleared to bomb moments after he pulled the trigger.

So, if he hadn't been so trigger happy, he wouldn't be in so much sh!t.

There have been two investigations, but most of the facts have not been released. We don't know why the AWAC cleared the pilot to bomb. The AWAC should have been told about the training exercise.

The investigating officers said the pilots should have known about the training exercise, but it was never said whether the pilots did know about it.

This looks like the pilots are being set up as scapegoats.

However, the pilot dropped a bomb. The pilot is ultimately responsible for ensuring that he gets all the information that he requires before a flight. It may not be fair that he gets screwed because someone didn't tell him about the exercise, but that's the life of a pilot.

What bothers me is there is no indication that the American or Canadian military have tried to learn from this accident.

As for the Governor, he's being a complete idiot. Sure, he has to stay loyal to his men, but as the commander-in-chief of the Illinois National Guard he also has to show loyalty to the military investigators and uphold the legal system.

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by SpencerH
If you have a link to the preceedings of an enquiry please post it. Otherwise, you're just flappin your lips over something most of you know nothing about.

EDIT This isnt directed and any individual

The life of a poly poster is to make as many uninformed comments as possible, it wouldn't be much fun if we knew what we were talking about

[MikeH]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat Mostly because our troops are the ones who actually fight.

Oh come on, you know better than that. Apart from all our special force involvement our Tornadoes took on the most dangerous ground attack missions on the runways and our armoured units attacked into Iraq the same as yours did.

Don't change the facts just to respond to troll with troll. If there's any nation the US can't criticise for not fighting it's the UK, mores the pity.

[SpencerH]

EDIT

The life of a poly poster is to make as many uninformed comments as possible, it wouldn't be much fun if we knew what we were talking about

[MikeH]

Yeah, HARR HARR HARR. We are your cannon fodder *****.

[MOBIUS]

Actually Mike, I happen to feel very strongly about this - even in peacetime the American military is blowing significant numbers of allied soldiers and civilians away on a regular basis...

What happened to the pilots of that jet that sent those civilians plunging to their deaths in a cable car in Italy?

Perhaps some of that huge defence budget of theirs could be spent to set up some kind of 'Armaments Anonymous' for trigger-happy servicemen before they actually kill people?

C'mon MtG - I'm still waiting for your smart arsed replies to what is a serious subject. It's not going to go away despite how hard to try to insult America's allies for their aid...

[Asher]

Regular basis? You're not very regular, are you?

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Asher
Regular basis? You're not very regular, are you?

Well the Artillery and cable car incidents are from the last year or so for a start...

Also incidents such as the Canadian exercise deaths and Afghan Marriage Massacre occurred after general hostilities had ceased - although in an albeit still hostile territory...

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by H Tower


NATO has nothing to do with this. Afghanistan is not within the specified area of concern for NATO

I refer you to the North Atlantic treaty, where it specifies an attack on a NATO nation in "North America, Western Europe, and Algeria"(which, once upon a time, was part of France)

[Asher]

The cable car thing was way more than a year ago, I think it's more like five years.

And the Wedding thing and the Canadian one aren't "peacetime".

Sorry, I don't think "regular" cuts it.

[Frankychan]

you know, these pilots that were PROVEN to be guilty of dereliction of duty SHOULD be punished. The governor of Illinois can KMA (you can tell him that).

So you know these guys, so what? Ok, what if your friend hit someone with his car while drunk and the person died? Is that not manslaughter either? F*** you man! These pilots are guilty of their bombing of Canadian armed forces members (our allies, mind you) and just because their OUR pilots doesn't give them a "Do Anything You Want" pass.

They gotta answer to their "mistakes" and pay the piper. Go Canada.....one American is supporting you guys!

[Lonestar]

Hey Franky, I agree with ya. Simmer down.

[Frankychan]

Hey Lonestar, howya doing?

My bad if I sound like I'm ranting! Just letting some steam off....

[- Groucho -]

The thing I don't get is that both the pilot and the AWAC seem to have decided (if the leaked transcript is correct) on the basis of unidentified ground fire to just bomb something. How did they know those weren't American special forces down there? It was ground fire, not directed at the plane, so how could they not think that SOMEBODY on their side was likely down there fighting?

It just seems insane to drop a bomb on a firefight that doesn't threaten you when your own guys could be involved.