US F-16 Kills 4 Canadians, Wounds 8

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by 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.

OK to be pissed off. I am too. But we shouldn't judge or point fingers before we have all the facts.
This may turn out to be human error on either side.
Who's to say that one of our guys didn't report the wrong coordinates for the training field?

They're saying that some of the wounded are in really bad shape.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Evil_Eric_4
This the second time I heard of live fire exercises killing our own boys.

Don't we train soldiers BEFORE we send them into combat zones?

Because like successful armies throughout history we rehearse our operations ahead of time, modify our tactics to the problem at hand and refresh our memory in regards to skills which we are not using regularly in operations but may need to have honed to razor sharpness at a moment's notice.

Btw it was the Canadians who were conducting a live-fire excercize, and the F-16 was flying a combat mission. The pilot thought the Canadians were firing on him, asked for permission to bomb and was denied permission. He wouldn't let it go and claimed he was in danger and dropped his bomb claiming self defense. I think he's in big trouble.

Tingkai,

Don't you wish it was a B-52? They fly above the flak and only respond to ground requests for airstrikes.


Again, my regrets and condolences to our Canadian friends.

[Sirotnikov]

It was obviously on purpose!!!1

Americans just love to kill inncent canadians!

We shall never forget kandahar!!!!

[Seeker]

"The pilot thought the Canadians were firing on him, asked for permission to bomb and was denied permission. "

WTF?!

What's your source for this?!

The MoD spokesman was trying to be diplomatic about this so I didn't actually get a clear picture of what happened.

[Guynemer]

CNN reported that he was denied permission to drop his bomb, Seeker.


Deepest apologies to Canada.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Tingkai
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.

Accidents happen in peacetime also. And the situation in Afghanistan is not yet peace.

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.

Did you support the deployment of CA troops, anyway? Is this just an excuse to pull out for you?"

[Richelieu]

The cause is still just and the threat is still real.
Besides, to pull out now would be an insult to the victims.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Sikander

Btw it was the Canadians who were conducting a live-fire excercize, and the F-16 was flying a combat mission. The pilot thought the Canadians were firing on him, asked for permission to bomb and was denied permission. He wouldn't let it go and claimed he was in danger and dropped his bomb claiming self defense. I think he's in big trouble.

Err, that's right.
BUT did the Canadians had any anti-aircraft weapons?

I mean, did he see a rocket coming for his ass or something?

Oh man, I remember the crisis of The Aegean, The Imia crisis, where in the last minute a proposition to napalm half the turkish coasts was averted...
In the heat of a crisis, sh!t happens. It is unavoidable.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by paiktis22
Err, that's right.
BUT did the Canadians had any anti-aircraft weapons?

That's the thing about the fiasco. They didn't have any weapons capable of hitting the plane and yet the fool still thought that he was in danger for some reason.

[Bereta_Eder]

Was the pilot an avid ice hockey fan per any chance?






















(no offense to the canadians, just a little joke, if it offends I'll edit it)

[MikeH]

Why is it called friendly fire? It's not very friendly.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
That's the thing about the fiasco. They didn't have any weapons capable of hitting the plane and yet the fool still thought that he was in danger for some reason.

He's in the plane. He's over Afghanistan. It's in the middle of the night. He doesn't see ****! There's a lot of firing down there.

That's what i call a bad situation.

And the people who should be telling him " Hey buddy, those are the good guys" are not relaying the information.
I'm not expecting a pilot to know where the training sites are in Afghanistan. I am expecting someone to tell him where they are when he needs to know it though.

The one thing that i would question (not condemn) from the pilot is the actual decision to drop the bomb. He says he felt threatened. That's his call. I'm glad i did not have to make that call and i'm not prepared to condemn him now.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Richelieu
And the people who should be telling him " Hey buddy, those are the good guys" are not relaying the information.

They denied him permission to "set them up the bomb."

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by DinoDoc


They denied him permission to "set them up the bomb."

And they told him that it was up to him if he felt he was threatened
These are the same people who are supposed to let him know that these are Canucks downthere.

[Garth Vader]

Yeah instead of simply denying his request to bomb, a simple explaination of why should have done it.