Friendly? All Deaths Are Shameful in a War That Shouldn't Be

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/12-0



U.S. soldier makes a radio call in this battlefield file photo.

Friendly? All Deaths Are Shameful in a War That Shouldn't Be
by Rory Fanning
Published on Thursday, June 12, 2014 by Common Dreams

Twenty-four hours after reading the news that five U.S. soldiers were killed in yet another friendly fire incident in Afghanistan, I fear this response is already old news.

And it is old news, Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire 10 years ago last April. It has been 12-years since the first friendly fire incident occurred in Afghanistan, when an American fighter pilot dropped a 225-kilogram laser-guided bomb on four Canadian soldiers in what is known as the “Tarnak Farm incident.”

It has been said countless times that friendly fire is an inevitable fact of war. Time called the friendly fire incident that happened on Monday in Afghanistan, "a curse of the technologically advanced" A curse is something that is out of the control of the alleged cursed. The US is in complete control of its actions in Afghanistan. What we need to start saying and hearing is, ‘friendly fire is an unnecessary fact during unnecessary wars.‘

There have been 25 officially reported friendly fire incidents since 2001 in Afghanistan. However, after the cover up of Pat Tillman's death we can only assume there have been more. This officially reported number does not include the unspecified number of innocent Afghans who have been killed or captured and sent to Guantanamo indefinitely as a result of bad U.S. intelligence, outright negligence, or war crimes. Anand Gopal reports extensively on this largely unacknowledged number in his latest book No Good Men Among the Living. The capture and detention of innocent Afghans is something I can attest to firsthand.