Mitchy260

Yanks at it again .....3 more UK troops

BBC NEWS | UK | 'Friendly fire' kills UK soldiers

Fair enough being killed in action by the enemy but not by your allies

mrtheedge2u2

I swear to you, when I read stuff like this it makes me want to pick up a gun and kill a whole bunch of US soldiers.......... absolute bunch of ****** clowns

wayne9t9

Not just us, they kill Canadians too..
"U.S. fire has mistakenly killed five Canadian soldiers — one last September during intense airstrikes on Taliban strongholds near Kandahar, and four in April 2002 when an American pilot dropped a 500-pound bomb near where the troops were apparently conducting a live-fire exercise." c/p from yahoo news...

Drunken Bungle Whore

Who came up with the term "Friendly Fire" anyway! FFS - it's all part of media brainwashing.

Shark Man

Hactually, I was listening to the news on the radio, and the newsreader(ess) said "so called friendly fire".

I think the "so called" bit was an apt slur on the situation

Hoppy

Nobody can condone such an appalling incident, but look at it another way (as has been reported).

British forces are being overrun by the Taliban, for whatever reason (ill prepared, ill-equipped, caught napping, who knows) but they are in the **** and call for US air support.

By definition British and Taliban forces are going to be in close proximity, with the situation changing by the minute. Hardly surprising that there is collateral damage to Brit soldiers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's a ****-up. It's war. **** happens.

I don't like it any more than anybody else, including the Yanks, but it's easy to see how these things happen in the heat of the moment.

Richard

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

nicely put...I honestly do not think there are US soldiers out there that think lets just kill a few of our allies for fun. If we don't like their airstrikes, then we should have the kit out there to not need theirs....

Nido

Agree with the sentiment, but for some reason it seems to "happen in the heat of the moment" a lot more for the Americans than it does to anybody else.

Let's not forget during Gulf war 1 more British were killed by Americans than by Iraqis. That's a pretty damning statistic whichever you look at it.

I have had experience of the "gung-ho" trigger happy American attitude and it's just incredible - that's what kills people

andythejock01wrx

There are more USAF(etc) friendly fire incidents because they have more planes in the theatre - a lot more ! According to the Beeb news tonight, we have only 12 aircraft suitable for the ground support role in Afghanistan, so 90% of air support comes from the Americans !

As above, it's worth remembering that US air strikes have saved many a British squaddie, and with them being used as "heavy artillery" when the Taleban are within a ball-hair's width away, sadly, it's gonna happen.

Andy Mc

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

I've had to "correct" people on this a few times yesterday, no doubt I'll be doing it again as well.

This is, in all likelyhood (not knowing all the facts because I'm not in work!), was a simple case of the close air support being a little too close and nothing else, as a few others here have said. Its unlikely to be like the cases where ANG pilots shoot up Scimitars and the like because they don't know what Iraqi tanks look like

You call CAS because you really need it.. not because your getting bored of firing bullets at them Theres always the risk of it landing a bit close because thats the nature of what your asking the pilot to do.

Frankly, seeing as British troops are calling in Close Air Support missions every single day (it is a proper war and everything.. not that anyone else seems to notice), I'm surprised it hasn't happened before.

Jaybird-UK

What a stupid thing to say.

mrtheedge2u2

Not stupid at all, just sick of cowboys killing our own soldiers and then returning home to collect medals of honour and purple hearts etc etc

Jaybird-UK

So you think its OK to go kill a 'bunch' of soldiers at random because of an accident of war?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Come on people let's not let common sense and simple facts get in the way of another great anti-American post

Luan Pra bang

Why can't the combined might of the British and American armies with their excellent trained soldiers and first class equipment beat a handful of cave dwelling former sheep herders with an AK-47 to share and 2 bullets each. You would think that the Air support would not be necesary.

WRX_Dazza

Iwan

It cracks me up that people think we can even win in Afghanistan, does nobody even remember the way the USSR tried and failed. Its history repeating itsself, Afghans don't like each other, and they like foreigners even less.

Nice comment above about wanting to get revenge by killing some random americans, sounds like you'd be a perfect recruit for some fundamentalist islamic group!

turboman786

And the answer to the question is?

mrtheedge2u2

Ok, ok..... not random soldiers..... just the flying donkeys who drop the bombs etc on our soldiers........... I wouldnt give 1 of our boys for 50 US donkey soldiers......

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Afghanistan.....lets think about this one.

It has a whole load of dead beats as a population. Eliminating the population with our high tech kit would be easy. However, trying to fight an enemy which refuses to wear a uniform is hard. Made even harder as many of the "good guys" don't wear a uniform either.

You see a high tech well equipped patrol approach that you cannot beat, all you do is drop your weapons and walk around. The British and Yanks drive past knowing no different. You see a patrol you think you can take on, then you pick up weapons and shoot.

Its just so impossibly hard working out who to shoot at. Not to mention that these people have few loyalties, and will change sides for just a little payment. Add to that their stable income is growing heroin poppies, which we won't allow, but that Taliban will and you can start to see what a mess it is.

I am just dumbfounded at how well we are actually doing. Can we win? If we do its going to be hard. We have to give them an economy, as their current economy is one based on drugs which is clearly incompatible with us!

Leslie

I don't think it should be so much anti American as anti having our men killed by their allies!

Les

andythejock01wrx

Quite !

andythejock01wrx

Good post, bright one.

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

We can "win" afghanistan if we drop this stupid idea of thrusting "democracy" on them, and allow them to return to their pre-soviet era (i.e. post-soviet encourage ousting of the Afghan King, not the Soviet "military intervention") form of governance which comprised of locally formed jurgas.

I could go into a very long and probably dull post regarding the problems, both political and military that we are facing with Afghanistan; but I won't bore you all with it!

Whilst some of the problems we face in Afghanistan are mirrored by those that were faced by the Soviets (and for that matter, by us the first time we "did" Afghanistan), the enemy we are facing is not the same.

Must recommend "The Bear went over the mountain" to anyone who has any interest in the problems associated with military operations in Afghanistan. Certainly should be essential reading for any NCO/Officer who deploys there - would be nice if someone in PJHQ/MOD read it though...

andythejock01wrx

Sounds worth a read Prasius. Available in all good book stores ?

AndytJ

Leslie

I certainly agree with that. The present day excuse since, the original reason was proved to be a bunch of lies, for arracking Iraq was to get rid of SH and force them into democratic government which they do not understand and is not part of their tradition anyway. They are used to feudal style government and thar was the only was to control the three tribes in Iraq anyway.

I think Prasius's point about Afghanistan is just the same and is a correct assessment of the situation. However they want to run their country, it will not work to try to force a style of government on them that they do not naturally want. Why can't they learn from the experiences of the Russians who had to throw the towel in anyway.

Who would really want our present so called democracy anyway as promoted by our present authorities who do not take a blind bit of notice of what the electorate really want and effectively ignore the House, but only to attain absolute control of us all, and the Eu is at least as bad in that respect.

Les

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

It was originally published by the Soviet version of Sandhurst back in the early 1990's, and was republished by the USMC Officer training place (can't remember the name of it!) in the mid-90's with a companion book called "The other side of the mountain" which approached the issues the Mujahadin faced in a similar way (but not as good, nor as relevant, as the Soviet original).

You can order it on Amazon if you want a hardcopy, although there are plenty of copies floating around on P2P and torrent.

Only thing I'll suggest is try and get your head around Soviet map marking before/while your reading it, as the maps are essential for understanding and they're obviously very different from the NATO standards.

The most frustrating thing you'll find when reading it, the conclusions especially, is that the planners, or those civil servants who decide these things, have learnt nothing from the Soviet experience.

The Snug Rhino

typical UK soilder has been fighting for a few years and was doing his GCSE's (which he probably failed) before that - typical Afgan soilder was using an AK47 at 5 years old. did no one watch rambo 3? they beat the Russians with horses and catapults!

spireite

better still why dont we pull out all and let the yanks "friendly fire their own "

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

I could suggest the typical UK Civillian is a spineless coward.... but hardly fair, or correct.