Posted on 07/23/2002 12:26:30 PM PDT by Clive
AN APOLOGY TO THE PSYCHO-AMERICAN COMMUNITY
On behalf of the entire Canadian media, I would like to apologize to members of the Psycho-American community for our coverage of the Kandahar "friendly fire" incident ("Harry Schmidt Was Called Psycho Long Before His Bomb Killed Four Canadians," etc., etc.). You may recall that a month ago, following a fortuitous leak to The New York Times, the very name of Major Harry "Psycho" Schmidt triggered a wild stampede by the Dominion's commentariat to blame the deaths of four Canadian soldiers on one mean trigger-happy nutcake sonofabitch Yank flyboy who happened to satisfy all our most condescending stereotypes.
However, following another fortuitous leak to The Washington Times, we now realize Major Harry "Psycho" Schmidt is the designated fall guy for one of our second favourite clichés after the psychotic Yank militarist -- the establishment cover-up. The new conventional wisdom is that Major Psycho was cursed with a nickname too inviting a target for the brass not to set him up. So we're now clamouring for an investigation into the investigation. Our new Defensive Minister, John McCallum, says the investigation won't be reopened because "the families of the victims want closure." General Maurice Baril, who led the Canadian inquiry, says he can't talk about the report because it's "classified." He's released eight partially blanked-out pages from a 14-volume report and that's more than enough. Hang on. Back in April, wasn't it an American stonewall we were supposed to be worried about? What on earth does the Canadian military know that could possibly be that "classified"?
George Jonas wrote the best column on this subject four weeks ago, and he deserves a National Newspaper Award for reminding us that the herd mentality of journalism and its rent-a-quote hangers-on is one of its most risible characteristics. Just for the record here are the questions our man posed back then:
1) "Did Majors Schmidt and Umbach's pre-flight briefing on the night of April 18 include notification about the Princess Patricia's live-fire exercise near Kandahar? If not, why not? Did the Canucks forget to tell the Yanks or did the Yanks forget to tell their pilots?"
2) "Did the F-16s stray into the sector? If not, who assigned them to overfly an area where Canadians were conducting live-fire exercises without being briefed about it? Who was in charge of co-ordination?"
3) "Why was it left up to pilots whizzing by at 20,000 feet to determine whether muzzle flashes on the ground were hostile or friendly? And, especially, why were the pilots ordered by their controller to mark the area, if the area was known to be occupied by Canadian troops?"
We now know some of the answers:
1) No, neither pilot was briefed on the Patricias' presence. We do not yet know whether the Canucks forgot to tell the Yanks, but we do know that, if they did, the Yanks neglected to tell their pilots and that the Pentagon is refusing to say whether they informed the AWACS (Airborne Warning And Control System) crew flying above the F-16s.
2) No, they did not stray into the sector. They were there legitimately.
3) When they first spotted the artillery fire, the pilots appear to have tried to ascertain whether it was friendly: "I've got tally in the vicinity. Request permission to lay down some 20 mike," said Schmidt. "Let's just make sure it's not friendlies," said Umbach. "When you've got a chance, put it on the spy," Schmidt asked. Whether he was asking Umbach or the AWACs is not entirely clear. But their controller seems to have followed them through the procedure from marking the area to releasing the bomb.
Taken as a whole, the transcript doesn't entirely square with the conclusions of the U.S.-Canadian investigators, who blamed the deaths on "the failure of the two pilots to exercise appropriate flight discipline, which resulted in a violation of the rules of engagement and an inappropriate use of lethal force." U.S. Central Command specifically briefed reporters that the pilots proceeded with the attack after being told to "hold fire." The transcript indicates that, after the pilots had locked on their targets, the controller said, "Hold fire. I need details on safire." (That's surface-to-air fire.) Schmidt provided details and then announced that he was "rolling in self-defence." The controller did not order him to stop but merely said, "Boss man copies."
Did the pilots know of the Princess Pats' exercise? Definitely not.
Did the AWACS controller know? Apparently not.
Did the Combined Air Operations Center know? Nobody's saying. But, if they did and they'd passed it on, then the F-16s would have been unable to bomb the Pats even by accident: In the event that the pilots had identified the designated exercise location as a target, the Global Positioning Systems in their computers would have caused the firing mechanism to "lock." And, just in case you're still in any doubt, it turns out that in the 30 days before the Canadian deaths there were eight other incidents in which what was reported as "enemy fire" subsequently turned out to be "friendlies" -- all in the same vicinity as the Patricias, the Tarnak Farms training area.
A month ago, renowned military experts like Tory flygal Elsie "Wacko" Wayne, the psycho senior with the shoot-from-the-hip-replacement style, were convinced we had a couple of bomb-happy Yanks who were out of control. Just because Elsie and Co. were jumping to conclusions doesn't mean the conclusion they jumped to was wrong. It could well be that Major Psycho was itching to drop some serious ordnance and didn't care much for procedure. But it's not a question of either/or: It doesn't have to be just "pilot error" or, alternatively, "command-and-control failure." It could be both. What we know now is that while the behaviour of the pilots may be open to interpretation, the systemic failings seem pretty straightforward: The fellows who should have known about the training exercises didn't, night after night. And it was the systemic failings that manoeuvred the Patricias into harm's way, that put them in Schmidt's line of fire.
I don't like it when systemic failure isn't addressed -- whether it's the State Department with its no-questions-asked Saudi visa express program, or the Immigration and Naturalization Service issuing flight-school approvals to dead terrorists. The Pentagon has a better record than other U.S. departments. Yet, by the most generous interpretation, it would seem that both the Americans and Canadians at least partially mischaracterized what occurred over Afghanistan. To reverse George Jonas's questions, did the Yanks lie to the Canucks, or are both the Yanks and Canucks lying to us?
If so, why would the Canadians go along with it? Isn't this supposed to be a story about gun-happy Americans and Pentagon incompetence? But suppose we were culpable, too. Some Canadian military types say it's likely some of the holes in command-and-control were ours -- that we had no forward air controller on the ground, that he'd been bumped off the deployment. The Prime Minister has gone on TV and said the feeble state of our shrunken military is no cause for concern: It doesn't matter that we have to hitch a ride to the battlefield because it's more cost-effective than maintaining our own transport. But what if some of the other cuts we've made contributed to what happened over Kandahar?
Who knows? I suppose our Defensive Minister does, but he wants to move on, because, he insists, the families of the victims are in a hurry for "closure." And, even if they aren't, the Government is.
Obviously, the jury returned a verdict before the trial and now the trial must be sealed to protect the jury.
Pity that the pilots will have to go throught the full process to find out what the BOI ought to have established.
Did the Combined Air Operations Center know? Nobody's saying. But, if they did and they'd passed it on, then the F-16s would have been unable to bomb the Pats even by accident: In the event that the pilots had identified the designated exercise location as a target, the Global Positioning Systems in their computers would have caused the firing mechanism to "lock."
And, just in case you're still in any doubt, it turns out that in the 30 days before the Canadian deaths there were eight other incidents in which what was reported as "enemy fire" subsequently turned out to be "friendlies" -- all in the same vicinity as the Patricias, the Tarnak Farms training area.
What we know now is that while the behaviour of the pilots may be open to interpretation, the systemic failings seem pretty straightforward: The fellows who should have known about the training exercises didn't, night after night. And it was the systemic failings that manoeuvred the Patricias into harm's way, that put them in Schmidt's line of fire.
I don't like it when systemic failure isn't addressed -- whether it's the State Department with its no-questions-asked Saudi visa express program, or the Immigration and Naturalization Service issuing flight-school approvals to dead terrorists. The Pentagon has a better record than other U.S. departments.
But now we know that this culture of systemic failure extends even to the Pentagon!
This one bugs me--back when I was in the Big Green Machine, the word would have gotten around about Tarnak Farms being a friendly training area just from these previous incidents, and everyone would have been alert to the possibility, even without everyone being formally notified.
Apparently, the drawdown in overall readiness since 1991 has also extended to such things as common sense and reason.
If the Combined Air Ops Center knew about the Canadians, and didn't pass the word, the CAOC senior staff needs to go find other work.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.