US military blames "friendly fire" incident on "budget cuts" ...

[Occam's Banana]

h/t Laurence Vance: http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/...ds-more-money/

The Military Needs More Money

The military blames budget “cuts” in June for a “friendly fire” airstrike that killed five American soldiers in Afghanistan. The “cuts” supposedly affected training. If there is one agency of the federal government that doesn’t need any more money it is the military since most of the budget is spent on offense instead of defense.

And here is another reason not to join the military: You might accidentally get killed by other American soldiers.

FTA: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...dly-fire-us-a/

Budget cuts, errant B-1 bomber blamed in deadly 'friendly fire' accident in Afghanistan

The “friendly fire” airstrike that killed five American soldiers in Afghanistan on June 9 is the first known case of a battlefield catastrophe that can be linked to automatic defense spending cuts that greatly curtailed prewar training.

A review of the worst American fratricide in the long Afghanistan War also shows that the military’s official investigation faults a Green Beret commander, an Air Force air controller and the four-man crew on the B-1B bomber that conducted the errant strike.

[ ... full article at link (it's a long 'un): http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...dly-fire-us-a/ ... ]

[oyarde]

If you are going to use a bomber for fire support that should be completed with arty or mortars , precisely , then , yeah , there may be lots of dead that were not planned on . Ridiculous .

[XNavyNuke]

. This JTAC also had been demoted in rank for misconduct. On another occasion, he was kicked out of a special unit because he twice called in close air support directly over friendly positions during training. Yet he was allowed to participate in the operation on relatively short notice.

The Times has learned the JTAC showed a lack of basic knowledge about close air support when interviewed afterward by investigators.

Looks to me like the primary cause was likely having a rock sending up crappy GPS coordinates for the precision munitions. This information is monitored and the actual forensic report should indicate how close the impact was to the entered target. There was either a failure of the targeting system or of the human programming component. Another example of crappy journalism where the wrong questions are asked, but there is sufficient column space for political axe grinding.

XNN

[CaptUSA]

So let's see...

Accidentally killing our soldiers? Need moar money.
Declining test scores? Need moar money.
Suspicious IRS hard drive crashes? Need moar money.
Rising health care costs? Need moar money.
Benghazi? Need moar money.

What a curious job government work is. Every time you screw something up, you can just ask for more money. I wonder if we could apply that in the real world.

"Hey, that roof you just built is leaking!" - "yeah, need moar money"
"This paper doesn't make any sense!" - "yeah, need moar money"
"These windows are all streaky!" - "yeah, need moar money"

[presence]

When did Afghanistan attack the United States?

[jmdrake]

Well that makes the official story regarding the Pat Tillman death even more suspicious. After all the Pentagon had plenty of funding then.

Hey, here's a thought. Since the Taliban lacks integrated air defense, quit using B1 bombers over there and use drones and A10s for air support. With the money you save on not having to maintain a stealth aircraft you can spend it on more training. And really, isn't the whole F22 strike against ISIS suspicious? The F22 wasn't even meant to be a ground attack plane. It's been cancelled. It's never been used in combat before the ISIS strike. Yet, for some strange reason it was deemed the aircraft to use against some terrorists who also don't have IADS.

[acptulsa]

They have more money. Maybe they should cut all the earmarked crap that influential congresspeople tack onto their budget not because they work, but because they're made in those congresscritters' districts. Maybe they should stop pushing the state of the fighter aircraft art from ten years ahead of the rest of the world to thirty years ahead of the rest of the world. Maybe they should stop wasting money on mechanical soldiers which will follow orders without question or the slightest deference to morality, but may not be practical in our lifetimes no matter how many billions we throw at the problem. Maybe we should make better decisions than to spend a few decades, a few trillion dollars, and the lives of a few dozen test pilots and early passengers making the Osprey work, not because we wind up with something better than the helicopter but because the Marine Corps is allowed to have fixed-wing aircraft, the Army is not, and the needs of interservice rivalry dictate that the Marines have a fixed-wing aircraft that acts like a helicopter so they can rub the noses of the Army in that fact. Maybe we should stop shipping half the stuff we buy to ISIS. Maybe...

Well, I guess that paragraph is long enough. I could go on all day and all night, but don't want to miss the Halloween party later.

When did Afghanistan attack the United States?

When did the abused child attack the abusive parent? But the abusive parent still says, 'You made me do that! I didn't want to...' Every time.

[Pericles]

Looks to me like the primary cause was likely having a rock sending up crappy GPS coordinates for the precision munitions. This information is monitored and the actual forensic report should indicate how close the impact was to the entered target. There was either a failure of the targeting system or of the human programming component. Another example of crappy journalism where the wrong questions are asked, but there is sufficient column space for political axe grinding.

XNN

This is similar to another incident where we know exactly what happened - the GPS location of a friendly unit was entered into targeting as the location of the enemy target. Send people too much information, too quickly, and people get confused and do the wrong thing for the situation.