We are at war with Islamofascists around the world, and in particular with
terrorist insurgents financed by Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Sun is
grossly irresponsible to publish the content of this video at this time. The
video has already now begun to be used by anti-war activists in Britain and
elsewhere to fan the already dangerous flames of anti-Americanism. In
geo-political terms, the Sun's friendly fire on the Americans will prove to have
been very dangerous indeed. Does the Sun not understand the meaning of "national
interest" and "self-restraint"?
Iain Murray on THE CORNER fears also that the incident has added fuel to the already burgeoning anti-American sentiment in this country. He is not happy with the media coverage of the issue either. He concludes his piece with this observation...
The Department of Defense should have released the film immediately and
without question on the understanding that it was to be seen only by the Coroner
and the victim’s family, as requested. That would have obviated the leak,
which has contributed to a rise in anti-American sentiment. What we have
at the moment is the worst of both worlds, straining the alliance and leading to
damaging leaks. The Anglo-American alliance is currently hanging by a
thread.
I agree with this. I am a strong supporter of our American Alliance but sometimes the US Govenrment can be its own worst enemy. In Iraq we are allies and it is surely a duty of allies to share information with each other, particularly in so-called 'friendly fire' incidents. Had they done so in this instance, and let the Coroner have the access to the video he wanted, there would have been none of this unfortunate press coverage.
Donal as you say is on a different planet. Not sure what alliance you are talking about, we think we have a special relationship, the Americans only have regard for their own national interest, we do not even appear on the radar screen unless it is to give a fig leaf of cover.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, big fan of Americans, just think this administration is beyond the pale.
Good point Iain, I think the showing of the video has cleared up some of the worst speculation about what went on. There was a very good counterpoint on the Comment is Free part of the Guardian from a soldier who said that it was easier than one thought to go from being the victim of friendly fire to a perpetrator.
ReplyDeleteHis key point [and I speak as some one who was against the war] is that he far preferred to hear the American accent of 'air support' coming to cover them, as he was more confident that they would take action against the enemy threat.
His other point was that the reason other countries have fewer friendly fire incidents is that they can't be arsed to meet NATO commitments, or try and find a way to weasel out of it. An eye-opening article to me.
However, I'm not certain you can say that the 'Americans' didn't share the information with us. The Guardian today has an article that indicates British personnel DID participate in the US enquiry. However, the MOD went on to deny that the video even existed...
One thing I will say is that it was a bit of a cheap shot of the Sun to castigate the US for allowing the men responsible to 'train others'.
Are they saying only people who have not been exposed to the harsh realities of front-line warfare are 'clean' enough to do this task ?
I like the American's but for us to say we have a special relationship / alliance is us dreaming , they should have released the video immediatly ,it was a blue on blue ,but not by the pilots ,they were just the delivery
ReplyDeleteDonal Blaney is a dangerous lunatic who does indeed live in a different world.
ReplyDeleteHe constantly insists that we are 'at war' and ceaselessly keeps on attacking Islamic peoples. He simply doesn't seem to understand that people who express a violent stance and oppressive views in the way he does are simply inciting violence rather than helping to limit it.
Just imagine how the IRA bombings would have escalated if people in the British media had gone around saying 'We are at War with the IRA'. The IRA used to say it to try and incite their own followers to violence against the enemy i.e. us. Donal's approach can only acheive the same thing.
Bizarely Blaney also persists in insisting that global warming is just some kind of wild conspirancy theory. Perhaps it is not a problem in his other world (or perhaps it's a flat earth !)
Personally I think he has become so extreme now that he does significant damage to Conservative support by being allowed to use his position on Doughty Street to express his wild ideas whilst taking the liberty of positioning them, by association as Conservative ideals. This just turns people OFF the Conservatives.
There are political avenues for people like Donal - the BNP would seem the closest fit.
I would reccomend he either joins them or just goes back to making up wills and doing a bit of conveyancing in a dusty office somewhere obscure - he adds no value and just damages the Conservative cause by being allowed to associate his extreme views with Conservatism - to say nothing of the damage he does to 18DS.
I can't quite believe he has the temerity to accuse the Sun of lacking self restraint !
I think you Iain have been very generous to say 'occasionally, just occasionally we might as well be in different worlds'. Frankly I'm surprised you are prepared to inhabit the same studio at times.
Nuff sed.
America has a bad habit of underestimating their opponets.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I find it hard to agree entirely with Donal, particularly with his tone, I do find it equally hard to see the Sun's purpose. The US have never denied that one of thair aircraft were responsible for the killing, and they accept that responsibility. The fact that there was a video recording of the event held by the US military should have been irrelevant to the coroner and to the soldier's family. Such information is not usually available to the relatives of the war dead, and I fail to see what has been gained from seeing the video.
ReplyDeleteDonal is correct that we are at war, and to give out detailed recordings of military operations might give information to the enemy, hence the US military were correct to classify it as confidential.
The Americans did give a copy of the video to the MOD who appear to have given a copy to the coroner, but telling him that it was classified and could not be used in court. If, as some people have said, a member of staff at the MOD leaked a copy to the Sun, that would be highly reprehensible.
We hear time and again of the US killing or injuring British forces by so called "friendly fire." I wonder what the proportion of Brit to US/US to Brit killings or injuries by"friendly fire"is?!
ReplyDeleteCan the US forces be this badly trained???
Appearing to be secretive was much worse for the alliance than showing it; in fact, the US pilots breaking down in tears once they realised their mistake has shown that they are human and had deep regrets, and reminded us of the horror of war and the dismal nature of things that happen in wars. Another dose of realism about Iraq and Afghanistan. The Sun is to be commended (for once) for acting in the wider public interest.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that has come out, which in it's own way is very shocking, is that the pilots of the A-10 aircraft were National Guard rookies, not experienced combat pilots. The US does seem to be digging deep to fight the current conflicts and is apparently not quite the "hyperpower" it claims. A very tragic incident, the more so because it seems clear that the pilots involved had been thrown in out of their depth and were devastated when they realised their mistake.
ReplyDeleteThe British are so desperate to have a relationship with the USA that they will endure any humiliation. Rumsfeld said they didn't need Britain to deal with Iraq thus humiliating Blair but that did not deter him.
ReplyDeleteThe Americans were quite capale of making a pig's ear out of the whole thing without our help. The stories coming out of DC on Bremer's serial follies make one wonder how long the Us will survive as a polity - 363 tonnes of US Dollars much of it vanishing into Iraq's miracle economy.
The serial bunglers who mismanaged this whole production cannot even find pilots who know what orange panels signify; and don't ask them what "UK" means, and heaven forbid they are asked to identify any British vehicles that are not in a videogame.
It is very hard to feel any respect for the US - it is making it very, very hard to take it seriously as an ally and forget a long history of them shafting the British from the 1920s through the McMahon Act and the destruction of British Empire and influence at Suez.
But to involve us in such a crassly mis-managed and overpriced war with a tinpot dictator with a GDP the size of Portugal and end up making Iran the power-broker in the Middle East is nothing short of criminal insanity.
They never prosecuted this war to win, never applied force with consistency, and bungled like amateurs and muscle-bound morons. It is humiliating to be associated with such goofiness
"The relationship hanging on a thread" and "one way street"; maybe at the political level things are like this, but where it matters, at the operational level, it is a very different story. Maybe there will be a few short term local difficulties because of this leak, but intelligence leaks have happened on both sides in recent years and the world keeps turning.
ReplyDeleteBeing an American, I am grateful that there are still some in the UK who remain 'big fan(s) of Americans'. Hey, I'm a big fan of your country too.
ReplyDeleteGuthrum is right, the 'special relationship' he speaks of is certainly special from the American point of view, but it is not so special for your country. Your country should negotiate a new 'special relationship', one in which your interests are served as well.
For instance, I was shocked to find a Labour government side with my President over the patently false pretexts for war. I think a strong rebuke from Blair is the only thing that could have stopped us short of the impending disaster.
See, if Blair had seen the 'special relationship' as a two-way relationship, he wouldn't have hesitated in calling Bush's bluff. He might have said something like, 'With all due respect, Mr. President, your reasons for going to war in Iraq are hogwash, and I will not support them.'
Of course, I may be written-off as a crazy Yank trying to blame the war in Iraq on the Brits. I assure you that blaming the British is not my intent, being written-off as a crazy Yank is....
-dave-
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ReplyDeleteIn reference to the comment by "anonymous"," America is not quite the hyperpower it claims". Excuse me sir but I believe it was a Frenchman who referred to my country as a "hyperpower". Most of us here in America do not believe we hold that status. Regarding the comment about our National Guard "rookies" I would like to add this comment. I agree that our Guardsmen can be a mixed bag at times but on the whole they receive more training than the professional armies of most nations. The air component of our National Guard is highly trained and very competent (blue on blue incidents aside). Someone else commented on why it is we always hear of American friendly fire incident but no other. Do no other armies fire at the wrong people? I think I know the answer to that question. Maybe one of the reasons American forces do suffer more friendly fire incidents is this. Americans usually provide the lions share of the fighting forces(no disrespect meant to the fine British military) therefore there are usually more American bullets flying around.
ReplyDeleteThank You
There are a number of such videos (though not blue-on-blue) on the web. Friendly fire incidents are legendary when fighting alongside the US. This has been the case for many many years. Normally the strafing and bombing is accompanied by whooping like some video game. We should stop putting our troops in the way of danger and stop supporting quixotic US imperial adventures that don't stack up. And I'm hard pressed to think of one which does.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you both, the Americans should have handed over the video, for the coroner's eyes only, expeditiously and The Sun shouldn't have published it. Of course I might have considerably more sympathy for The Sun if they had also published the Danish Mohammed cartoons.
ReplyDeleteCrossfire 8:03pm
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more.
I met Donal and he gave me the distinct impression that I was somehow a 'traitor to the cause' because I didn't share his hardline views.
I didn't speak to him much after that. I got the impression he'd written me off as a socialist and blacklisted me.
Unfortunately, some right-wing Conservatives are SO anti-European that they feel they have to define it through slavish loyalty to everything America says and does, right or wrong, for extra impact.
It's just as crazy as the Lib Dems blindly supporting everything the EU does and just as damaging.
It was actually British conservative commentator Peregrine Worsthorne in 1991 who described the US as a "hyper-power", although in his article at the time he also compared it with "the other hyper-power", namely the British Empire in its heyday.
ReplyDeleteI certainly did not mean the national guardsmen comment in a negative way (in response to your comments Eric Shirley) as I have a high opinion of the USA and its many achievements and people - just that there are obviously limits for the most powerful countries in what they can achieve through military means. I think this is what the British Empire realised in the past. You can be called powerful but at a certain point people become resentful and no longer give in. We seem to be nearing that point as regards the Middle East - I think a war with Iran for example would be a horrible disaster. We need to try harder to encourage liberation movements in Iran.
Personally I think the MOD are to blame for all the ill-feeling here. From the video it seems quite clear this was a tragic accident - the pilots never meant to kill any British troops, they weren't incompetent, they asked umpteen times whether there were "friendlies" in the area, and they were absolutely horrified at what had happened.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is the MOD who have consistently lied to the family about this. For 4 years they told the family there was no video or radio recording - when they knew from the beginning there was.
If lying wasn't an automatic response from this Government about absolutely everything, if - just occasionally - they could bring themselves to tell the truth, lots of people would have been spared a great deal of heartache.
We Brits don't really understand how the American legal and administrative mind works. The United States is by far the most bureaucratic civilised nation in the world. The big problem is that they interpret their laws literally - as anyone who has encountered any public servant in the US from immigration officers to policemen.
ReplyDeleteSome of the more intelligent of them will occasionally bend the rules, but it's rare. In the case of L/cpl Hull, a highish officer in the Pentagon has decided that the images are secret and that's that; there's no thought of compassion or relaxing the rules for the sake of the "special relationship". This kind of thinking doesn't enter their minds for the most part.
But I'm not anti-American, just anti some of their benighted attitudes. When I get particularly peeved with the Yanks I think about my many visits to the American Cemetery at Omaha beach and my boyhood days in Norfolk when I watched the Flying Fortress and Liberator bombers off to Germany day after day and then saw many fewer coming back.
Bernard Cowley
The United States is by far the most bureaucratic civilised nation in the world
ReplyDeleteSo true. German bureaucracy is designed to work; US bureaucracy is designed to make you hire a lawyer to untangle the mess.
Fascism is a distinct political philosophy based on the merging of state and corporate power. Anybody who uses the term "Islamo-fascism" is a warmongering neo-Nazi scumbag who should be sent to Coventry without delay.
ReplyDeleteGood lord, you can have Christian Socialists, Christian Anarchists, Christian Democrats, Christian Marxists etc etc etc, but heaven forbid you might ever actually call Al Qaeda and similar Islamofascists. How offensively and insensitively neo-Nazi could one be?
ReplyDelete