Bag's Rants

The foot soldiers get let down again.

This article give a word by word account of the 'friendly fire' incident in which a British soldier was killed.

If what it says is true then the poor pilots in those planes have done little wrong. They identified friendly markings called them in and were told that there were no friendlies in the area. So they attacked our troops thinking they were enemies. Doesn't sound like it is their fault to me. Another management cockup and yet everybody talks about these guys are 'rogue' or 'independents' when it sounds they were just doing their jobs.

Is this another example of the foot soldiers being poorly managed and then picking up the blame for failures of others.

Personally, I think the US is too trigger happy at the best of times and this type of war is not one of the best times. They don't take the proper consideration of their allies and I would be leery of working in joint operations. However, in this case it looks like a clear communication problem between two forces. The same sort of problems identified after the last Iraqi war if I remember. Either we didn't pass the message on to the right people or it was not listened too. This needs to be resolved but you can bet the person who didn't do their bit right won't go to jail.

posted by Bag @ 10:55 am