ADN

Canadian killed in 'friendly fire' incident

I'm really beginning to lose my faith in the American military... One dead, 30 wounded.

The total dead for Canada is now at 32.

What makes you so sure this was an accident? Hell, we shoot each other all the time.

The problem is we are sending young, inexperienced privates over there and they are trying to pop the first thing that moves.

I know even from paintballing but sometimes you get a jumpy finger when you know someone is around but don't know where. Then you see something move and you just react. It's sad that it's happening but it's part of war

I'm suprised ruff didn't bring this up, but I can tell you what happened easily.

Canada was responding to NATO, who are piss-poor at coordinating with the US military. What NATO does is tells some general who has never seen sand in the last decade what they are doing. he nodds, runs it DOWN the chain of command and it gets to the field too late, and still gets to field squadrons before it gets to the fly-boys... and the NATO movements were never integrated into the air strikes, and don't get integrated until the ops boss for the fly boys gets the word, which is about thirteen minutes after he has to figure out why there are friendly casualties on the news.

damn shame, but the inevitable cost of a push button support to a large scale ground effort working from two different informational structures from barely related departments. you take friendly casualties, and it sucks.

but there are alot less friendly causalties than there used to be, the difference is embedded reporters and speed of data stream...

not making excuses, just saying this is not the way the boots on the ground deserve to be treated...

32 lives since 2002...

In terms of war, I think that's a phenomenal number...I bet more people than that died in 5 minutes of Omaha beach action during WWII...The loss of life is never good, but you know when you sign up to be a soldier that is a possibility...This may not be the most efficient of wars, but it is certainly not the bloodiest...

Yes Raum... I was thinking it... but didn't want to say it.

NATO is the world†™‚¢‚¢¢¢¬…¡‚¬‚¢¢¢¬…¾

‚¢s most useless organization next to Iraqi Government! NATO doesn't tell us what they are doing, where they are doing it, and with how many they are doing it. I know this for a fact. Then, add in nervous privates and you have recipe for disaster. NATO thinks they are the governing body there for peace and that WE are there to help. When, in fact, the roles are totally reversed.

NATO puts more lives in danger than they protect with their "Do not fire until fired upon, and when fired upon ask for approval, and when given approval, verify approval with 2 people and make sure they have 2 photo ID's and a physical that was done in the last year by a licensed health care provider in the NATO network or HMO" policy. My scope saves a Canadian or 2 a few times.