I find the following quote on today's horrible events in Iraq odd:
The U.S. military said it could not confirm the attack and was investigating the incident. "I cannot comment on this because we have not received any reports from our units that this has happened nor that any were involved in such a tragedy," Lt.-Col. Dan Williams, a U.S. military spokesperson, wrote in an e-mail in response to a question from the Associated Press.On a recent episode of Nova on PBS, the topic of the use of network centric warfare by the US military in Iraq was discussed and I understood it to mean that all units are connected to a computer network so that all things can be immediatelty reported to command essentially as it occurs. Either they have network centric access to information or they do not.
Also, if it is true that the wedding party fired guns in celebration, as happened two years ago in Afghanistan and is not so unrelated to the deaths of Canadians in Kabul also in 2002 during a night time live fire exercise, you might think that there would have been something in place to weigh against this use of largely automated air power.
Comments
Nils Ling - May 21, 2004 11:25 AM
Meh .. call me a heartless bastard, but I can envision this conversation:
"So, given we've just been pummelled in a war and are under military rule and have gunships flying hither and yon and the invaders are all a little jumpy ... how do you guys think we should celebrate the nuptials?"
"Why, let's fire guns into the air! It's an age-old tradition dating back almost a half a century! Surely nobody will mind!"
"Should we warn anybody this is going to happen?"
"Hell, no, who ever got concerned about a little gunfire in a war zone?"
Ya know ... sometimes the herd thins itself ...
Alan - May 21, 2004 1:08 PM
Point taken but surely not including the Canadian military? What is the diff? Plus, given (according to yesterday's NY Times) the US allowing every household in Iraq to keep one machine gun for protection (neo-con policy experiments continuing), it's not like they do not know they are out there.
Alan - May 21, 2004 4:20 PM
A new source of one the ground Iraq related info is Back in Iraq which in the linked post indicates the state of certainty about the wedding party missle launchings.