On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 16:30:49 -0000, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:


"Mike" wrote in message
om...
Friendly fire
Supporters of Maj. Harry Schmidt, whom the Air Force is
court-martialing for dropping a bomb on friendly Canadian troops in
Afghanistan, ask this question: Why hasn't the military filed such
serious charges against other pilots in a series of "friendly fire"
deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Possibly because there was no evidence to justify one in those
cases.


Maj. Schmidt, an F-16 pilot in the Illinois Air National Guard,
dropped a bomb on the Canadians after seeing flashes of gunfire he
thought were antiaircraft guns. It turns out the fire came from the
Canadians' live-fire exercise.


The culpability arose not because he mistook the source
of the fire but because he dropped his bombs after his
commanders denied him permission to do so.
Keith -
Why must you always confuse things with pesky facts.
Regards,



A spot check of after-action reports in other "friendly fire"
cases show similar mistakes.
-An F-15E pilot flying over southern Iraq saw gunfire flashes near
the town of Karbala on April 2, 2003. Minutes before, a Patriot
battery had mistakenly shot down an F-18, killing the pilot. The F-15
pilot thought this meant enemy air defenses were in the area and
mistook the fire of a U.S. Army rocket launcher as an Iraqi air
defense gun. Three U.S. soldiers were killed.
"The F-15E, and his wingman, believing that they had just
witnessed an enemy SAM launch and unaware of the presence of any
friendly forces, began a bombing run, dropping one GBU-12 bomb," a
U.S. Central Command report says.

A tragic error in the heat of battle which is clearly different
from causing death by disobeying orders


-Over the Godoria Range of Djibouti in Africa, a B-52 crew
mistakenly targeted a group of Marines on the range instead of the
target they were pointing out for the bomber. One Marine officer was
killed.
A investigation discovered that one of the navigators moved the
bull's-eye from the target to the Marines to judge the distance
between the two, but then never moved it back to the target before
nine, 750-pound bombs were dropped.


A case that is still under investigation as I recall.

The key issue in the case of the F-16 pilot is that he
sought and was REFUSED permission to bomb but
went ahead and did so anyway. An honest error is
one thing, wilful disobedience of the rules of engagement
is quite another.

Keith