RE: honourable actions

RE: honourable actions (Full Version)

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Bobkgin -> RE: honourable actions (8/25/2007 2:55:27 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy ..the thing is, the relatives of those killed in the first link were denied the truth of what happened by the US military.....only an assiduous coroner dragged the truth out of them. Now we have another incident along similar lines. What i'm curious about is to what extent such cover ups are seen as justified. In the first incident it wasn't the pilots friends who did the covering up, it was the pentagon. Let's reverse the situation......UK pilots acidently kill US soldiers on the ground, UK military chiefs attempt to cover up who was actually to blame for the incident. Would such a thing be acceptable to Americans? If not, then surely it is time for the US military to do the honourable thing and tell the whole truth........the alternative is to accept hypocrisy as a normal part of US military operations.......and that would, in the long term, not serve US interests. Almost a third of the British killed in Afghanistan were not killed by enemy fire. Want to tell the British that 1 in 3 will be killed by pilot error? Think that will keep them there when the British people learn of that? So they invent stories: drove off the road, accidental death, suicide. Like they're incompetent or something. There is that old saying: "The first casualty of war is the truth". And when we speak of a war started by America, the old saying should be The first casualty of war is the Truth Just look at what they did to Tillman.

NorthernGent -> RE: honourable actions (8/26/2007 2:28:39 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy ......a while ago this happened... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6449227.stm ......this morning this is reported..... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6962071.stm ....what are the odds that the US military will do the honourable thing this time and actually cooperate with the inevitable investigation, or will they lie again in an attempt to duck blame? The British government has a hand in this matter; it's not in their interests to advertise US soldiers as being trigger happy, and thus further the argument against setting up shop in a foreign land: the British government will want to sweep it under the carpet. With all due respect, do the actions of the US military really matter in the grand scheme of British government policy? Maybe to the families of the dead.

mnottertail -> RE: honourable actions (8/26/2007 4:21:09 AM)
Well, here is military technical advancement at its best, easiest to describe with a hill, the official battle plan: Pick out a pot like you might make stew in, tip it over take out a pencil and about 3/4 way up the side maybe 7/8s way, (metrics figure it out yourself) draw a line in pencil all the way around it (so your mom can wash it off with soap and water), we shall name this the crown the area above the line, the top(the flat bottom of the pan) we shall call the crest. maybe a couple handbreaths away set a soup can, we will call that the rallying point (on the way back) and the point of debarkation (on the way there) the troops march to and surround the kettle and as they touch it, from then on they are at the point of demarcation, and are liable to die. They wait around there a while, shitting thier pants, smoking cigarettes, thinking about their wasted life, as the artillery starts heaving shit at the crown and crest...........thunderous and deafing noise (if there is vegetation, there are big bags of jellied gasoline being glopped all over and exploded, this is napalm), sooner or later some dickweed says follow me, or move out or whatever, and you start running up that fuckin hill fast as you can, diving and juking and so on, and if you are still alive---you are headed straight for them fuckin artillery shells (some of which may short and take your ass out long before the crest) and at the same time the shiteaters on the crest are lobbing shit at you from there; this part can take hours or days, and finally you hit the crest, god willing and the creek don't rise, and the shelling hasn't let up one fuckin iota, and finally enough commanders and FOs (forward observers) call into the HQ (headquarters) which is safe and way the fuck back from the debarkation along the lines of you are killing more of ours than you are of theirs, and then our side stops shelling........ anyway, all said and done, nobody calls that 'friendly fire' except those guys up and down the side of the hill, and when they pick up the remains of your mangled leg (which is all that is left) nobody examines the stump and says, looks like this poor fuck took one from us. There you have a plainspoken lesson from the field manuals and War College. Ron there are no honorable actions

NorthernGent -> RE: honourable actions (8/26/2007 5:39:25 AM)
I don't see much value in dragging people through a court of law based on friendly fire incidents. I'd guess a war situation is chaotic at best, and when your life is flashing before your eyes, then cold, rational behaviour doesn't make a great deal of sense. British government policy is the issue here; if the government hadn't authorised sending the army to Afghanistan or Iraq, then we wouldn't be discussing friendly fire, and it's simply detracting from the real issue: the British government has no authority to impose in these countries thousands of miles away.

meatcleaver -> RE: honourable actions (8/26/2007 8:52:32 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: NorthernGent I don't see much value in dragging people through a court of law based on friendly fire incidents. I'd guess a war situation is chaotic at best, and when your life is flashing before your eyes, then cold, rational behaviour doesn't make a great deal of sense. Being a pilot is probably the safest place to be in Afghanistan and Iraq. How many fighter planes (not helicopters) have been shot down? Nil by my reckoning so they are hardly crapping their pants. The last friendly fire incident where the US airforce originally claimed their was no video and when it was leaked, claimed publicizing it would compromise security, showed no less than six pilot errors before firing the fatal missile. Of course, the efforts to cover up the nonsense going on in the cockpit was aided and abetted by the British government and no doubt for the reasons you have outlined.

LightHeartedMaam -> RE: honourable actions (8/27/2007 12:54:36 PM)
I am indeed sorry this happened to one of your countrymen. Will we do the right thing? If you refer to the case of one of our own, Pat Tillmam, that died because of friendly fire and was covered up, it will take a bit but eventually all will out itself.

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