US F-16 Kills 4 Canadians, Wounds 8

[Asher]

Maybe Russia still wants it.

[KrazyHorse]

CBC report back to saying F-16, asher. CNN too.

[Asher]

Typical CBC can't keep its facts straight.
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/04/17/cdndeaths020417 still says F-18 but the Government & CNN & MSNBC are all saying F-16.

[KrazyHorse]

That's sort of odd...

BTW, CBC was first to the story, asher.

[Asher]

I should hope they were, being a government-run company attending the government news conference announcing it.

[TCO]

Hey Krazy Horse. I just finished reading a book about a physicist. Gordon Gould inventor of the laser. He had a bitter patent fight...

[KrazyHorse]

Okay. Did that have anything to do with why it's called a LASER and not a LOSER like it was originally?

[TCO]

yeah...they talk about the name. Was a takeoff on Maser
.

[Tingkai]

This is a complete screw up. The Canadians are in a designated training area. The American pilot is not involved in the training. What the hell was he doing? Why the hell do the Americans send over their weekend warriors into a combat zone.

And all of this comes a few days after a bunch of Americans blew themselves up with rockets.

Are the Americans troops just incompetent or stupid.

Instead of spending money building bowling alleys, they should try to give their guys some basic training.

This just pisses me off to no end.

[KrazyHorse]

Are the Americans troops just incompetent or stupid.

Instead of spending money building bowling alleys, they should try to give their guys some basic training.

This just pisses me off to no end

Easy, Tingkai. I was a little bit pissed when I heard it too, but **** happens when they give thousands of people guns and bombs to tool around with. The Americans put their tender asses in the way of the bombs as much as our guys do, and it could just as easily have been four dead Yanks tonight. The investigation will be Canadian-led, and if Washington knows which end's up it'll receive more than full cooperation.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
**** happens when they give thousands of people guns and bombs to tool around with.

That's the type of attitude that contributes to this **** happening.

I can understand this happening in the heat of battle, but the enemy is supposedly on the run and the Allies are just mopping up scattered resistance.

The Canadians were doing training in a designated training area and they get bombed. That's a major screw up and indicates the Americans have not got their basic communications in order.

More Allies troops have died from "friendly fire" than have been killed by the Afghanis.

If the Americans are willing to put in poorly trained troops and risk having them kill each other then that is their choice.

I say pull out the Canadians.

[Asher]

I would be all for taking the current Canadian troops in Afghanistan and airlifting them to Ottawa to fight there.

Somebody needs to cleanup parliament, and it sure as hell won't be a politician.

[KrazyHorse]

Tingkai

I'm going to pull a typical attitude here and say "wait for the investigation". I'll admit it doesn't look very good for that pilot, though. If they find out that he broke the rules he was supposed to be following and mistakenly dropped a bomb because he ****ed up, then I agree they should nail him to the wall. Remember that the Danes and Germans lost 5 due to a f*ck-up not too long ago.

This one does leave a more bitter taste, of course, given that it really doesn't look like the troops could possibly have been to blame for what happened...

[Mr. President]

This is symptomatic of a very serious problem. The vehicles the army uses are now incredibly technologically sophisticated, with some assault helicopters containing supercomputers now. But the men flying them are not necessarily trained or adept at using the technology.

[MikeH]

In the Gulf the Americans killed more British troops than the Iraqis did.