Friendly Fire
Thaldarin
Alonzi! Join Date: 2003-07-15 Member: 18173Members, Constellation
Alonzi! Join Date: 2003-07-15 Member: 18173Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">'legal' murder?</div><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6440795.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6440795.stm</a>
tl;dr of the article. American pilot kills a group of Brits in 2003 in Iraq, video/other evidence leaked to tabloids, legal action, articles and investigations etc.
The site includes a 1min 43sec news report in which it shows some in cockpit footage and the reporter also states an American represent has stated that the pilot did nothing wrong, apparently America see's nothing wrong in killing a group of innocent people who are supposed to be allies? Or is this reporter committing slander under America's name on national television? With this comment is America simply denying that their pilot committed this offence and then willingly covered it up or denying the existence of friendly fire altogether? I'm a bit bemused and confused about this situation. How can you keep denying anything went wrong in front of someones family as they watch the moments their son and his colleagues and friends were murdered?
Of all the friendly fire incidences I've heard of and read of on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars/campaigns I have not once heard of anyone being severely punished with a sentence to that of a civil one, is the world legalising murder? From what I hear murder is murder, punishable by death in places, most places a nice long jail stretch. Yet these guys go out, murder one or several people stupidly, accidentally, purposely that isn't the question, they're getting away with it and we're letting them. Particularly as in this instance which has been brought to light, no one is being judged nor tried, but the American military procedures and safety measures are. That's all very well for the future but what about those who have had their lives taken, lives ruined which may or may not have been covered up like this incident was? Do they not deserve to know the absolute truth? Deserve some justice possibly?
If you look through previous articles on the BBC about the incident one mentions the group responsible for this particular incident apologised, which to me is extremely insincere, crass and insulting as they say nothing until they are caught.
tl;dr of the article. American pilot kills a group of Brits in 2003 in Iraq, video/other evidence leaked to tabloids, legal action, articles and investigations etc.
The site includes a 1min 43sec news report in which it shows some in cockpit footage and the reporter also states an American represent has stated that the pilot did nothing wrong, apparently America see's nothing wrong in killing a group of innocent people who are supposed to be allies? Or is this reporter committing slander under America's name on national television? With this comment is America simply denying that their pilot committed this offence and then willingly covered it up or denying the existence of friendly fire altogether? I'm a bit bemused and confused about this situation. How can you keep denying anything went wrong in front of someones family as they watch the moments their son and his colleagues and friends were murdered?
Of all the friendly fire incidences I've heard of and read of on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars/campaigns I have not once heard of anyone being severely punished with a sentence to that of a civil one, is the world legalising murder? From what I hear murder is murder, punishable by death in places, most places a nice long jail stretch. Yet these guys go out, murder one or several people stupidly, accidentally, purposely that isn't the question, they're getting away with it and we're letting them. Particularly as in this instance which has been brought to light, no one is being judged nor tried, but the American military procedures and safety measures are. That's all very well for the future but what about those who have had their lives taken, lives ruined which may or may not have been covered up like this incident was? Do they not deserve to know the absolute truth? Deserve some justice possibly?
If you look through previous articles on the BBC about the incident one mentions the group responsible for this particular incident apologised, which to me is extremely insincere, crass and insulting as they say nothing until they are caught.
Comments
they engaged.
blame the people who told the pilots that they were clear to fire.
That's like saying a school bus driver should be tried for murder if while passing legally through an intersection he's hit by a speeding SUV.
In the course of the work a soldier does, his friends and/or non-combatants may routinely be in the line of his fire. They are trained to be very careful about using their weapons, but in a situation as dynamic as a battlefield, accidents are going to occur.
I've never heard of ANYONE who killed an ally in friendly fire not put themselves through psychological torture far worse than any human court could hand down. Of course a nutcase who is routinely a loose cannon is drummed out, but nobody in the military hates the guy who accidentally killed a friend during the legal course of duties. Why? Because the same thing could happen to them.
Especially in air to ground strikes. From 30,000 feet, one convoy looks pretty much like another. That's why they radio in and say "Hey, I have a target, is it friend or hostile?"
And the guys on the ground say, "We confirm target hostile. Engage."
It's pretty hard to make the process more efficient. Unless you wanna ask the enemy nicely if they'll where GPS units to identify themselves to us.
That's like saying a school bus driver should be tried for murder if while passing legally through an intersection he's hit by a speeding SUV.
In the course of the work a soldier does, his friends and/or non-combatants may routinely be in the line of his fire. They are trained to be very careful about using their weapons, but in a situation as dynamic as a battlefield, accidents are going to occur.
I've never heard of ANYONE who killed an ally in friendly fire not put themselves through psychological torture far worse than any human court could hand down. Of course a nutcase who is routinely a loose cannon is drummed out, but nobody in the military hates the guy who accidentally killed a friend during the legal course of duties. Why? Because the same thing could happen to them.
Especially in air to ground strikes. From 30,000 feet, one convoy looks pretty much like another. That's why they radio in and say "Hey, I have a target, is it friend or hostile?"
And the guys on the ground say, "We confirm target hostile. Engage."
It's pretty hard to make the process more efficient. Unless you wanna ask the enemy nicely if they'll <strike>where</strike> <i>wear</i> GPS units to identify themselves to us. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know... How could the pilot have known? More to the point have you ever been a fighter pilot? No, Thaldarin I don't believe you have, so shut up with your judgement m8. I may not be a fighter pilot myself but as a best friend on one I can tell you there is no ****ing way you'll know from that elevation and traveling velocity what the hell is on the ground, heck it might even be barely visible or not at all with cloud cover.
Now, I have several friends who are Brits and I like the BBC as a news source and I like the US military and shall we say strongly despise stupid politicians (ie: President Bush) who can't follow military logic (ie: Sun Tzu's Art of War)... yes. And this whole situation sucks. Friendly fire is one of the worst combat accidents you can have (the kind your enemies laugh about) and yes I think that's what it really was, an accident. The worst thing is the inevitable miscommunication that can easily result.
I'm not one to judge that guy. He has been sent to war and told to kill humans. And like the others said already, he was told those were hostiles. The mistake wasn't his, he was just the one who pulled the trigger (or pressed the 'pickle' button). And it's a war. People get killed. Blame the ones who thought that war was a good idea, not the poor sod who has to fight it or risk a court martial.
As for punishment, like Rob said, he's probably undergoing intense <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=3452422130239921664&showtopic=100550" target="_blank">psychological torture</a> (though not of that kind) right now. I just thought it'd be fittingly ironic to link that thread since some people tried to (as always) write psychological torture of as "not that bad."
"Mord" and "Totschlag" if you are guilty of "Mord" you had the intention to kill someone and did so.
If you are guilty of "Totschlag" you killed him by accident, but you have to kill him through careless acting.
Example:
You stab your teacher, for giving you a bad mark. This is clearly "Mord" because of the intention.
You grab a gun and start shooting bunnies in the field and accidentally kill someone in the course. This is "Totschlag" because you did not want to kill a human, by you were acting careless which in the end got a human killed.
You are on a battue and shoot one of the beaters by accident, because the beater took of his security vest and strolled away from the main group. This means that you are neither guilty of "Mord" nor "Totschlag" because you neither acted careless nor did you intend to harm/kill someone.
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To sum it up: Friendly Fire cannot be legalized murder, unless the pilot actually had intention to kill the British troops.
As for my personal oppinion: The pilot is usually the last person to be blamed, cause they have a hard time judging situations (zipping past troops with high speed, constant pressure, pills keeping you awake etc).
The persons that need to be blamed, are the soldiers responsible for communication between troops and the soldiers responsible for radar/satellite tracking of the troops. They are the ones supposed to know, where their troops are and the ones to make sure, that pilots dont bomb the crap out of allies.
He may have only been the button-masher but look at it rationally, was he under attack? No, there was not a high threat to the pilots safety. Those who know about vehicles being equipped in modern war know that it was possible to find out that the destroyed party was an ally via communications, quite simply this is a big lack in procedure which resulted in death. It was intent, they intended to kill the party below without finding out exactly who it was, "Shoot first, ask questions later".
To Rob it is easier to make efficient, ground spotters must be more accurate and all coalition forces and allies will have radio contact and communications set up between one another. How hard is it to radio back to find out and say "Do we have any friends around co-ordinates xx,xx?", You get a not that I'm aware of back, okay then you get ready in case of conflict breaking out and investigate and through communication they could have found out it was a group, a convey that was not a threat. Although in this case, it was murder, pure and straight up. No one shot at the pilot, no anti-aircraft missiles or gunfire, no ground troops breaking out in fire. This was careless, lack of thought and severe lack of training or extremely ineffective training.
To x5, I'm not your "m8" and discussing using terms like that and cursing is pretty weak. I am not judging, only questioning the system. Killing the enemy is effectively legalised murder however friendly fire from recklessness should be punishable.
To those who talk about psychological torture, these guys are still out in combat which shows their so called mental torture was non-existent or implies that they don't care so much, I mean why would they when their government covered it up?
Which leads me to the final thing no one seems to be bothered that the US military, air force and government covered this up for almost 4 years. Am I the only one that thinks sending peoples children in to war zones, already knowing that their resources are limited to work for people which are not to be trusted is a particularly good thing? The reason they are there was a lie, the reason they are still there is a lie and they are being murdered for a lie, only to have their murder made in to a lie.
Why not have every single vehicle and/or military unit talk to each other? Give everyone in New York who has a car a radio and tell them to communicate on the same channel. Absolute pandemonium. There would be so much chatter that you couldn't tell who was who.
We don't have a clever way of identifying ourselves outside of verbalized names, so no one would know who was talking to who or why or from where. You think we're disorganized now? That system would have planes crashing into fuel tankers and artillery pieces dropping shells onto our own airfields.
The reason a chain of command exists is to turn the task of directing 10,000 men into directing only a handful, who then direct their own handfuls, and so on until the ones at the end of the line get their orders.
If a guy in the trenches, or a pilot, has a need, he goes to his IMMEDIATE superior. He can't call the convoy he's looking at any more than I can yell at someone I know two miles away from me. They are not in contact, and they will never be. The pilot's got enough to worry about without having to mess around with dozens of radio circuits.
No, the pilot's life was not in danger, but unless he's flying over some anti-air, it rarely ever is. That isn't the point. You don't win a war by just fighting after you've been attacked. You go out and make a victory. That means catching the enemy while he's moving supplies or soldiers and taking those resources away from him. That means Hunter/Killer missions.
Honestly, does it sound intelligent to you for a military body to be so retarded that it kills it's own on a regular basis? Is this the same military that crumbled the Iraqi army in hours? No, these kinds of things don't happen often, and you should be glad about that.
Frankly, Friendly Fire is not an issue we as civilians should be allowed to discuss. Just as certain words can only be used by certain types of people, this is something that we should leave to those who are actually IN the military and face the consequences. We don't understand it.
[...]Frankly, Friendly Fire is not an issue we as civilians should be allowed to discuss.[...]
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I mostly agree with the rest of your post, but STRONG OBJECTION right there. Forbidding civilians to discuss something (outside of state/military secrets of course) is highly undemocratic. Government and military alike are meant to serve the people, the civilian population, and as such we should be allowed to discuss friendly fire as much as we like. Although it is, as with any debate, important to ensure that we carry out an informed debate.
"Modern warfare" isn't as modern as we often think. There is still plenty of room for errors, and as the old proverb says, **** happens. And in war, where the stakes are high, when **** happens, BAD **** usually happens. And then a convoy gets paved.
For that matter, the A-10, while excellent in its role, is an old plane. The onboard avionics are dated, and it's possible that the pilots lacked critical information that could have prevented the disaster. Again, don't blame the pilots for that, blame the ones that gave them outdated equipment.
In closing, you're going after the wrong guys. If there's blame to be laid at someone's feet (that's not for me to judge), it's not the pilots'. Seek the culprits higher up in the hierarchy, far higher.
In closing, you're going after the wrong guys. If there's blame to be laid at someone's feet (that's not for me to judge), it's not the pilots'. Seek the culprits higher up in the hierarchy, far higher.
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I haven't stated blame at the pilot but have stated blame at a group behind the operations which will include the pilot among them.
I mostly agree with the rest of your post, but STRONG OBJECTION right there. Forbidding civilians to discuss something (outside of state/military secrets of course) is highly undemocratic. Government and military alike are meant to serve the people, the civilian population, and as such we should be allowed to discuss friendly fire as much as we like. Although it is, as with any debate, important to ensure that we carry out an informed debate.[...]
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What I'm saying is that we have no right to pass judgment because we have no frame of reference. This is an issue involving internal military mistakes. They have enough trouble dealing with it themselves without us butting in and adding to the anxiety.
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I guess this somewhat isolated incident pretty much sucks. friendly fire in general sucks, but I'm sure armies do whetever they can to prevent it or they'd be in serious trouble. I'll never get why an american or british life is so valuable and front page news, but tens of thousands of iraqi civilians dead = routine... I think I once saw a calculation on the value of a life from different places, based on how many dead it takes to make the news. something like 1 american = 10k middle eastern people = 100k africans...
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I'm sure Africans and Middle Easterner's don't get a flying hoot if an American dies, either. Just like most people don't really care if someone on the other side of the country dies, but they surely care if their friends or family die.
<a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e06da463d7&p=1" target="_blank">http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e06da463d7&p=1</a>
Keep in mind the FAC cannot hear the inter cockpit communication between the pilots - it sounds like there was a communications foulup. I don't know the details about the investigation but they decided not to charge the pilot.
The brits were using orange ID panels to identify themselves as friendly. The pilots saw the panels, but after being told there were no friendlies in the AO, convinced themselves they must be something other than ID panels.
As lolfighter said, the A-10 didn't have advanced optics back then. They literally use binoculars to help them spot and identify targets. They can also look through the mavericks sensor, if they're armed with them.
Since then there have been numerous upgrades to the aircraft, including the integration of the Sniper XR targeting pod. This not only allows them to self designate targets for precision guided munitions, but it also gives them a powerful tool to help find and identify targets farther than the naked eye could.
Like I said, I shouldn't be speculating, but I figure they at least shouldn't be flying anymore. I doubt it's a murder offense, though.
Cases like this need to be learned from, not avenged and forgotten.
They clearly debated the fact of friendlies although the plane never got detected nor did it get shot at. They were too busy being trigger happy "I think killing some of these damn rocket launchers would be great." They were totally disobedient to the fact it could still be friendlies down there, considering that is their identification panels which they believe they can see.
You can argue when the pilot says "That doesn't look friendly" is coalition getting ready to attack back but what would you do with someone clearly trying to kill you?
From watching the LiveLeak video at approx 7min50 they realised their mistake, instead of pulling back and using what I'd imagine would be their training to assess the level of threat (clearly minimal) they make a huge mistake. To me this sort of thing should be punishable as clearly the pilot could have said "No, that looks like the identification sign of allied forces, I'm pulling out" or those behind him on communications could have said "Pull out not worth the risk, we'll find out more", although that seems sensible, which clearly isn't in the minds of those in a war zone.
"I think killing some of these damn rocket launchers would be great." is not a trigger happy statement. The guy is saying, "Hey, if we can take out these rockets now, they won't be used against us later." Not, "I think it would be AWESOME to blow something up."
Saying, "Get him. Get him." Is basically him agreeing with his wing man's decision to take them out, given minimal risk of friendlies.
We can take this incident out of context and twist it any way we want, and because we don't have a "normal" mission to compare it against, whatever we do sounds plausible.
If you want to get into all sorts of semantics, this specific case would probably be considered manslaughter anyway, since he's not intentionally killing friendlies. You may want to argue that he 'deliberately' fired at the convoy, but again there was no real malice directed towards the British who were really in the convoy. You may even want to argue intent, but his intention was to kill an insurgent/enemy convoy, not a British convoy.
Murder:
the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder).
Manslaughter:
the unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought.
You may, in this specific case, want to be more concerned with military cover-ups and attempts at hiding the truth, since the dead soldier's family was not told exactly how he died (it really doesn't take much to say "it was friendly fire" without divulging vital mission information). This is understandable (but also reprehensible), because reporting every friendly fire incident is likely to kill morale and public support for something that's relatively extremely unpopular.
As to the specific question denoted in the subtitle: no, I don't think it's legal murder, perhaps torturous psychological event filled with reprimands and potential punishments for manslaughter.
This is why I think we should discuss it, because clearly if you aren't 100% of your enemy and there is a strong possibility it is your ally you don't shoot, otherwise I'm the only one in this conversation with any common sense.
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Don't make statements like that. I'm sure a lot people think you're sense is just as uncommon as you think theirs is. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> Whatever that means...
Anyway, just because you're not 100% sure you have an enemy doesn't make it any more likely that it's an ally. Consider this: What if that wasn't a friendly at all. What if those WERE rockets, and because they'd only heard "we have no friendlies that far up" from the controller 6 times instead of 7, and they're mission time was up, they returned to base without hitting it. Now, by the time the next wing goes out, the rockets are gone. Few hours later, those rockets decimate several coalition vehicles - say worst case a Deuce-and-a-Half full of troopers. I know we're playing what-if's, but in the heat of the moment, what-if's are all you have sometimes.
If you're not a soldier, you can't question his actions. Period. Being in the military is something that no civilian can ever experience or understand. This is exactly why military and civilian law differ.
Thaldarin, it comes down to this:
Do you believe that the pilot intentionally engaged that convoy knowing it contained British troops?
If you don't, then there's no point in debating because accidents happen and the best we can do is prepare against future incidents.
If you do believe that the pilot knowingly killed British troops, then I think you don't have common sense.
If you're not a soldier, you can't question his actions. Period. Being in the military is something that no civilian can ever experience or understand. This is exactly why military and civilian law differ.
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Slight O/T on FF but still with military etc.
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6456969.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6456969.stm</a>
Something of importance surrounding the US military at the moment being evidence, truth and what actually happened as the US seem to be the biggest outright liars known to date it appears from the two cases posted in this thread and linked via the BBC site, Time magazine, live leak, other sources.
Okay now back on topic,
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6449227.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6449227.stm</a>
Apparently the Coroner and I share the same opinions and views. Ruling that it <b>was</b> and <b>unlawful</b> killing.
Slight O/T on FF but still with military etc.
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6456969.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6456969.stm</a>
Something of importance surrounding the US military at the moment being evidence, truth and what actually happened as the US seem to be the biggest outright liars known to date it appears from the two cases posted in this thread and linked via the BBC site, Time magazine, live leak, other sources.
Okay now back on topic,
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6449227.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6449227.stm</a>
Apparently the Coroner and I share the same opinions and views. Ruling that it <b>was</b> and <b>unlawful</b> killing.
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Well of course it's unlawful. There is no law that permits killing your own troops. It's the circumstances of the law breaking that are in question.
The pilots and their intelligence officers believed no friendlies were in the area they were bombing. The most likely case, beyond a reasonable doubt, was that both the pilots and the intelligence believed that these were enemy targets.
So this was just a blue on blue incident that regrettably resulted in one killed soldier.
Hardly murder. This action can't be punishable because the pilots were acting on the best intelligence they had at the moment. Any other pilot would have done the same thing. Only afterwards did they find out these were friendlies.
Case closed, there's nothing more to discuss here.
It is due to the sheer quantity of operations that we are employing on those battlefields, the vast numbers of individual units and individual men who are each performing individual tasks, that such unfortunate accidents happen by chance. And it's just that: chance. I think I can confidently say that if any other country were devoting the same manpower in the same location, they would experience as many of these sad occurences as we do. You can only do it right so many times before you make a mistake. It is a regrettable and pointless mistake, but it happens nonetheless. It happens in war, and it will likely continue to do so until we have... robot soldiers, or something.
If you're not a soldier, you can't question his actions. Period. Being in the military is something that no civilian can ever experience or understand. This is exactly why military and civilian law differ.
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80% of finnish males serve as conscripts in the armed forces for a period of time ranging from 6 to 12 months
... friendlies were in the area they were bombing ...
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small correction: the A-10 gatling gun <a href="http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/images/Gau8a_a.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/images/Gau8a_a.jpg</a> Is not a bomb last I checked <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />