Friendly fire
I post this without judgement. I don't know what to think about it. Fuckups are going to happen in wars.This is the cockpit video taken when Corporal Matty Hull was killed by American A10s, which the American military has tried to suppress. There has been a lot of talk in the English media about this, with some suggestion that the American pilots are cowboys. I don't think the video bears this out. I felt terribly sad for them -- they sound like young men -- when they realise what has happened. They are scared of the consequences: the fear is that they will be jailed because they attacked targets marked with identification panels. But they took them for rockets and were assured that there were no friendlies in the area.
A full transcript is here.
I note though that the way the military has treated the family concerned is disgusting. The Pentagon lied about the video, saying it did not exist. But it does; it shows that he died in a terrible accident. Nothing sinister; nothing really that needed to be kept secret. Just a fuckup.
posted by Dr Zen @ 4:16 pm
1 Comments:
I agree with your assessment of the pilots in this instance. The fault partly with their command, and partly with their decision not to run a close pass overhead for a second sighting. But have you listened to cockpit recordings of them when they've hit enemy forces? Do you think they felt equally sick and shocked when they have left Iraqis dead and dying behind them?
I was watching some of the footage from 'embedded' journalists in 2003 as they advanced into Baghdad, and they were talking to the crew of a Bradley APC. Those lads reaction to the chaos and carnage all around them was to sing 'Burn, Motherfuckers, Burn' and laugh about it.
Life is becoming one large computer game.
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