And for "Most Creative Re-Interpretation of the English Language Resulting in Loss of Life," the award goes to this guy (emphasis added):
Israel vowed yesterday to keep up its military offensive against Hezbollah, as one of the country's senior generals said the air strike that killed four unarmed peacekeepers, including Canadian Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, at a United Nations post on Tuesday was deliberate but accidental.
Brigadier-General Shuki Shahar, deputy chief of the Israeli military's Northern Command, said soldiers in the field had accidentally called in the co-ordinates of the UN base and that the air strike had been approved up the chain of command.
Hey, shit happens, right?
"Sometimes mistakes are made and innocent people are hit," Brig.-Gen. Shahar said. "We do the best we can. We didn't recognize it as their base."
You know, for most people, those 10 panicked phone calls pleading for the shelling to stop would have been a clue.
7 comments:
Actually, when you're in the middle of a live fire exercise, and the lieutenant in the headphones says he's about to get over-run and he needs artillary support then and there and not five minutes from now, you can forget to cross-check coordinates for friendly positions. And as for the lieutenant, or sergeant, giving you the coordinates, the incoming fire at times impairs concentration. That's why, in the US Army, they give purple hearts for friendly fire too.
I'm not saying invading Lebanon s a good idea, all I'm saying is that when your in the middle of invading Lebanon and taking heavy fire, you can get distracted.
On another note, Our Beloved Leader had a plan for rebuilding New Orleans, too.
And furthermore, throughout the entire history of Isreal, when things like this started getting out of hand, the United States would come in and shut things down. This time, Our Beloved Leader dispatched bombs instead of diplomats. So if you're to Government of Isreal, waiting for people like George to bail you out, what do you do?
And when we have Stephen running things on our side of the Great Lakes, do we really, seriously and candidly believe we have a right to throw stores?
The seer said: "Actually, when you're in the middle of a live fire exercise, and the lieutenant in the headphones says he's about to get over-run"
So Hezbollah was over-running the IDF's position in Israel? That is an interpretation I haven't yet heard.
David
Thanks for bringing that point forward. Perhaps Seer could clarify?
Canadian Observer
Actually, when you're in the middle of a live fire exercise, and the lieutenant in the headphones says he's about to get over-run and he needs artillary support then and there and not five minutes from now, you can forget to cross-check coordinates for friendly positions.
First, have you ever been in a live fire exercise? I have. I was a signaller in the RCA. And that's not how it works at all. You care passionately, all-encompassingly, that every round goes where it's supposed to. If you're even near one of the "safe boxes" around your FOOs or other friendlies, you double-check everything. I know that was the case in every box I was in.
What you're suggesting is like suggesting that infantrymen fire indiscriminately when the going gets tough. That doesn't happen, either. I've never been in a real combat situation but that's not what you said.
Second, what Israeli positions were in danger of being overrun? Kinda hard to be overrun when you're safe in your positions on your side of the border.
m@
What you say makes a lot of sense.
Canadian Observer
Thanks, CO. I'll add this.
I was on a gun for a year, and then in the Command Post for two years. A total of maybe 12 weeks in the field on live fire exercises.
Here's the sum total of the mistakes I saw:
- We once fired at the wrong time. This was because the fire orders were being given from our regimental commander in a non-standard way. Our rounds went to the right place, but they went before they were supposed to.
- We once fired at the wrong target. The command post officer failed to double-check the calculations from the technician, and sent the fire order without checking. Our observers immediately radioed in to say the rounds were off target and to check again.
We were high school kids, mostly. We trained a few weeks in the summer, a few weekends in the year, and one evening a week. We were not the professional, highly-trained units in the IDF.
My conclusion is that someone was ordering fire on the UN observer post. Maybe they saw it as a calculated risk, because there were Hezbollah units nearby. But that means they knew there was a chance of hitting it, and they took that chance.
They lost, and four peacekeepers are dead. One was a Canadian.
Any reason to feel okay with that any more? I, for one, am very, very pissed off about it. And don't think for a second that my MP doesn't know it.
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