Anatomy of an Afghan war tragedy - Polidicks

[quote=LATimes] Nearly three miles above the rugged hills of central Afghanistan, American eyes silently tracked two SUVs and a pickup truck as they snaked down a dirt road in the pre-dawn darkness. The vehicles, packed with people, were 3 1/2 miles from a dozen U.S. special operations soldiers, who had been dropped into the area hours earlier to root out insurgents. The convoy was closing in on them. At 6:15 a.m., just before the sun crested the mountains, the convoy halted. "We have 18 pax [passengers] dismounted and spreading out at this time," an Air Force pilot said from a cramped control room at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, 7,000 miles away. He was flying a Predator drone remotely using a joystick, watching its live video transmissions from the Afghan sky and radioing his crew and the unit on the ground. The Afghans unfolded what looked like blankets and kneeled. "They're praying. They are praying," said the Predator's camera operator, seated near the pilot. By now, the Predator crew was sure that the men were Taliban. "This is definitely it, this is their force," the cameraman said. "Praying? I mean, seriously, that's what they do." "They're gonna do something nefarious," the crew's intelligence coordinator chimed in. At 6:22 a.m., the drone pilot radioed an update: "All … are finishing up praying and rallying up near all three vehicles at this time." The camera operator watched the men climb back into the vehicles. "Oh, sweet target," he said. --- None of those Afghans was an insurgent. They were men, women and children going about their business, unaware that a unit of U.S. soldiers was just a few miles away, and that teams of U.S. military pilots, camera operators and video screeners had taken them for a group of Taliban fighters. The Americans were using some of the most sophisticated tools in the history of war, technological marvels of surveillance and intelligence gathering that allowed them to see into once-inaccessible corners of the battlefield. But the high-tech wizardry would fail in its most elemental purpose: to tell the difference between friend and foe. This is the story of that episode. It is based on hundreds of pages of previously unreleased military documents, including transcripts of cockpit and radio conversations obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the results of two Pentagon investigations and interviews with the officers involved as well as Afghans who were on the ground that day. [/quote] Source: [url]http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/10/world/la-fg-afghanistan-drone-20110410[/url] That's fucked up.

Sad yet true. :frown:

Who drives in a convoy of vehicles through a Combat Zone?

[QUOTE=CodeMonkey3;29190782]Who drives in a convoy of vehicles through a Combat Zone?[/QUOTE] Civilians in their own homeland.

I can see how they easily made a mistake, but honestly when you have the technology we have today you should be able to out-maneuver those vehicles without any casualties.

What the fuck. "They're praying so they [b]must[/b] be Taliban insurgents" :downs: Fucking retard [editline]15th April 2011[/editline] By that logic everybody in Afghanistan is an insurgent

[QUOTE=CodeMonkey3;29190782]Who drives in a convoy of vehicles through a Combat Zone?[/QUOTE] It's not a combat zone. It is their home.

[QUOTE=CodeMonkey3;29190782]Who drives in a convoy of vehicles through a Combat Zone?[/QUOTE] I don't know, perhaps civilians who have been dealing with this shit the past decade?

[QUOTE=Glitch360;29190991]What the fuck. "They're praying so they [b]must[/b] be Taliban insurgents" :downs: Fucking retard [editline]15th April 2011[/editline] By that logic everybody in Afghanistan is an insurgent[/QUOTE] Probably more to the story...they don't authorize air strikes that easy.

Mission accomplished. Freedom has been secured.

[QUOTE=CharadesV2;29190906]I can see how they easily made a mistake, but honestly when you have the technology we have today you should be able to out-maneuver those vehicles without any casualties.[/QUOTE] How easily? Unless they actually started attacking the American troops, the best thing they could have done was keep an eye on them, not just assume that they are going to attack and open fire.

[QUOTE=CharadesV2;29190906]I can see how they easily made a mistake, but honestly when you have the technology we have today you should be able to out-maneuver those vehicles without any casualties.[/QUOTE] Modern technology is not the end-all solution to everything, even though proponents of the "Revolution in Military Affairs" and Alvin Toffler's ideals would like you to think otherwise.

They have no idea how many more insurgents and Taliban fighters that accident just created.

[QUOTE=archangel125;29199281]They have no idea how many more insurgents and Taliban fighters that accident just created.[/QUOTE] I would say they're pretty acutely aware of it. [media]http://catastrophist.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/afghan-stability-coin-draft.jpg[/media]

[QUOTE=Regulas021;29199597]I would say they're pretty acutely aware of it. [media]http://catastrophist.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/afghan-stability-coin-draft.jpg[/media][/QUOTE] PowerPoint, the [I]other [/I]religiously used technology responsible for for unintended, massive collateral suffering

Why Don't they just pack their bags and leave Afghanistan. That Land has a history of never being controlled, and the only man who was able to control it for a few decades was Alexander the Great and I highly Doubt that their is a American version of him.

[QUOTE=jellal;29199904]Why Don't they just pack their bags and leave Afghanistan. That Land has a history of never being controlled, and the only man who was able to control it for a few decades was Alexander the Great and I highly Doubt that their is a American version of him.[/QUOTE] Alexander the Great died after "controlling" Afghanistan for a couple of years Not there's literally any correlation between the modern US efforts there and a marauding Macedonian warlord banging Egyptians

[QUOTE=Regulas021;29200164]Alexander the Great died after "controlling" Afghanistan for a couple of years Not there's literally any correlation between the modern US efforts there and a marauding Macedonian warlord banging Egyptians[/QUOTE] We Do the same thing, but we just sugar coat it.

People die in war all the time. Also, this isn't nearly as bad as when they were fighting the russians and they would bomb whole villages.

[QUOTE=jellal;29200215]We Do the same thing, but we just sugar coat it.[/QUOTE]What, banging Egyptians?

[QUOTE=kaven;29192620]Probably more to the story...they don't authorize air strikes that easy.[/QUOTE] I dunno about airstrikes but I've read a lot of accounts of British Apache pilots and seen a lot of gun-cam footage and it doesn't exactly seem like a rigorously extensive and detailed process.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;29201092]What, banging Egyptians?[/QUOTE] Killing People for Reasons that would seem Justifiable to the general public, but in fact are not if you have another view of life.

[quote]The Americans were using some of the most sophisticated tools in the history of war, technological marvels of surveillance and intelligence gathering that allowed them to see into once-inaccessible corners of the battlefield. But the high-tech wizardry would fail in its most elemental purpose: to tell the difference between friend and foe.[/quote] No, the issue is that you can have a multi-million dollar system of cameras, scanners, identification, and yet in the end the descision to turn them into paste or not is made by some bored 19 year old kid sitting in front of a monitor with a joystick in his hand.

[QUOTE=1239the;29202210]No, the issue is that you can have a multi-million dollar system of cameras, scanners, identification, and yet in the end the descision to turn them into paste or not is made by some bored 19 year old kid sitting in front of a monitor with a joystick in his hand.[/QUOTE] Where do you get this perception? Because it's not any sort of accurate representation

[QUOTE=kaven;29192620]Probably more to the story...they don't authorize air strikes that easy.[/QUOTE]Still, it's a pretty dumb thing to say

[QUOTE=Glitch360;29203638]Still, it's a pretty dumb thing to say[/QUOTE] No, because it wasn't the only piece of evidence. In Afghanistan insurgents are known to pray before a battle (religious people praying before a conflict isn't exactly confided to the Middle East anyway), and this was a convoy of trucks driving directly towards an area US troops where operating. There was [i]also[/i] an unaccounted for group of insurgents about the same size in the area, which was why the drones where there in the first place. In addition to that, this isn't a movie. People say things that don't sound cunning, clever, witty, or, let's face it, even intelligent, all the time. If he'd said: "Okay, they're starting to pray now. From the evidence we've gathered after fighting in this country for nearly a decade, this makes them seem more like insurgents." It would have sounded more thoughtful and intelligent, and would have conveyed the same message. No one talks like that outside of a courtroom, though, because this isn't the 12th century and no one expects their every word to come under scrutiny.

[QUOTE=Glitch360;29190991] By that logic [b]almost everyone in the middle east[/b] is an insurgent[/QUOTE] fixed.

[quote]"Why didn't he say 'possible' child?" the pilot said. "Why are they so quick to call kids but not to call a rifle." The camera operator was dubious too. "I really doubt that children call. Man, I really … hate that," he said. "Well, maybe a teenager. But I haven't seen anything that looked that short."[/quote] [quote]But the ground forces unit said the commander needed more information from the drone crew and screeners to establish a "positive identification." "Sounds like they need more than a possible," the camera operator told the pilot. Seeing the Afghan men jammed into the flat bed of the pickup, he added, "That truck would make a beautiful target."[/quote]The pilot and camera operator are absolute pieces of shit. Seriously. "A warm spot! Must be a rifle." "Why the hell do we have to be so sure that they're insurgents, it really bothers me. Kids? I don't see any kids, must not be any. Bombs away, motherfuckers! Haha! Awesome. Wait... they're not running, they're trying to help each other, waving at us, there's women and children... Uh... not my fault!" Asswipes.

[QUOTE=Last or First;29204558]The pilot and camera operator are absolute pieces of shit. Seriously. "A warm spot! Must be a rifle." "Why the hell do we have to be so sure that they're insurgents, it really bothers me. Kids? I don't see any kids, must not be any. Bombs away, motherfuckers! Haha! Awesome. Wait... they're not running, they're trying to help each other, waving at us, there's women and children... Uh... not my fault!" Asswipes.[/QUOTE] That idiot who dropped out of high school and constantly got into fights didn't join the military to protect their country There's pretty much nothing preventing them from getting in

[QUOTE=Jund;29204669]That idiot who dropped out of high school and constantly got into fights didn't join the military to protect their country There's pretty much nothing preventing them from getting in[/QUOTE] Except that they don't take people without a diploma, and only take around 5000 GEDs at most a year (and even THEY need to have extremely high scores on the AFSAB)