Top Breaking video nails US friendly fire pilots who Killed UK soldier (video)

[viking1]

This is sad and very tragic , just a poor judgement from a pilot who never been into action , this happends in war ,so no US HATE here please....
:
The ?top secret? tape has been seen by the Oxfordshire coroner who is holding L/Cpl Hull?s inquest, but both the Ministry of Defence and the US government have REFUSED to let him show it in court.

L/Cpl Hull?s widow Susan, of Wiltshire, was even told it did not exist !

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Story :

THE Sun today publishes the full, disturbing truth about how the US pilot of an A-10 tankbuster jet broke all the rules to shoot up a British convoy in the Iraq war.

We obtained the cockpit videotape at the centre of a diplomatic row between the two Allies.

It shows how the pilots ? reservists who had never been in action before ? made SIX crucial errors.

They left 25-year-old Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull dead and four comrades from the Household Cavalry Regiment seriously injured.

On the tape, one pilot ? call sign POPOV36 - appears to gloat sickeningly during the attack.

He is egged on by the second ? call sign POPOV35 ? who encourages: ?Get him, get him!?

Looking down at the chaos as a soldier drags burning comrades from the vehicles, he adds: ?It looks like he is hauling ass. Ha Ha.?


A second burst of fire is unleashed 98 seconds after the first. Moments later the pilots are told the truth over the radio.

As they take in the horror, POPOV35 says: ?We?re in jail dude?. POPOV36 weeps as they return to base: ?God dammit. F*** me dead.?

The ?top secret? tape has been seen by the Oxfordshire coroner who is holding L/Cpl Hull?s inquest, but both the Ministry of Defence and the US government have REFUSED to let him show it in court.

L/Cpl Hull?s widow Susan, of Wiltshire, was even told it did not exist.

She said last night: ?I?m very relieved this is being made public at long last. I can?t believe these pilots can discuss what they?re doing so casually when these are the last moments of my husband?s life.?

Defence officials insist their hands were tied by a legal pledge with the Pentagon not to reveal any of their secrets. But we can reveal there is NOTHING secret on the tape. But it WILL cause appalling embarrassment.

They were being guided to their targets by Forward Air Controllers from the US Marine Corps ? embedded with British ground units and relying on maps, intelligence and the pilots? own vision.

At the same time, the convoy of British armoured vehicles ? two Scimitars and two Spartans ? were moving north to probe enemy lines.

They were inside an area US pilots had been told not to shoot into, and carried orange overhead canvas panels used to identify coalition forces to aircraft. They also displayed thermal reflectors and Union Flags.

Circling at an altitude of 12,000ft, the A-10s spotted Iraqi vehicles 800 yards north, and the British patrol less than three miles west. ERROR ONE came when they asked the Forward Air Controller, call sign Manila Hotel, if friendly forces were around the Iraqi vehicles ? not to the west. In ERROR TWO neither pilot gave the precise grid references for the Household Cavalry patrol to double check its identity

ERROR THREE saw them convince themselves the identification panels were really orange rocket launchers.

In ERROR FOUR POPOV36 decides to attack, saying he is ?rolling in? ? without permission from the Forward Air Controller. POPOV35 asks for artillery to fire a marker round into the target area to clear up confusion.

But ERROR FIVE came when POPOV36 attacked without waiting for it. In ERROR SIX POPOV36 strafes the column for a second time but still doubts its identity.

Only the bravery of Trooper Chris Finney, 18, stopped further attacks. He jumped on a burning vehicle to radio in a Mayday report and call off the strike, dragged a badly wounded comrade from the inferno, then went back in for L/Cpl Hull. He was injured and won the George Cross.

POPOV36 is known to be a lieutenant colonel, and POPOV35 a major, but their identities have never been released. Neither has the result of a US Air Force inquiry.

Last night a senior US military source told The Sun: ?This tape needs to get out. The pilots need to be brought to account.?

An MoD spokesman said: ?There has never been any intention to deliberately deceive or mislead L/Cpl Hull?s family. We did inform them some classified material had been withheld.

Video clip of the accident

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11021-10043,00.html

[BusterBunny]

spotting......

[DeadFidel]

War is not a science.

" I am going to be sick"

" We are going to Jail"

" Abort, abort"

[DeadFidel]

Plus..did Motorola win the defence contract?

[who]

Teach idiots to press buttons, and they press buttons. It's fairly simple.

Unfortunate incident for both sides.

[BusterBunny]

damn, that shit is gnarly....i didn't know reservists flew combat missions nor do i think they should, so i feel bad they were even in that spot.....i don't think the world MUST be allowed to see the footage....we (the public) should be told the facts and the video should be at the top of the list of things they show in flight school.....glad i got to watch it tho, but don't feel it is a right....totally sucks ass and a rather surreal viewing experience

[Sarah_Jayne]

Originally Posted by BusterBunny

damn, that shit is gnarly....i didn't know reservists flew combat missions nor do i think they should, so i feel bad they were even in that spot.....i don't think the world MUST be allowed to see the footage....we (the public) should be told the facts and the video should be at the top of the list of things they show in flight school.....glad i got to watch it tho, but don't feel it is a right....totally sucks ass and a rather surreal viewing experience

maybe not *the world* but the court hearing the case should be allowed

[Fabien]

Fucking amateur
WTF's this ???
You're fucked INDEED

[BusterBunny]

Originally Posted by sarah_webinc

maybe not *the world* but the court hearing the case should be allowed

would depend on where the trial was held public/millitary and the charges....imo


i must say i am glad the government didn't lie about what happened....and they are lucky they didn't, with the bootleg video evidence hitting the streets.......

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

The U.S. has massive military superiority - we essentially control the air in Iraq, except for the occasional helicopter shot down by ground fire. In a conventional war, where our nation is threatened by another country, we can respond with overwhelming might.

However, in a guerilla war, history should have taught us, the situation is much different. Shock and Awe does not win Hearts and Minds...

People may be horrified by this friendly fire "incident", as they were when NFL star Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan, but that is not why we are not winning in the Middle East.

If it were Iraqi's that were struck instead, even innocent civilians, do you think this would have garnered the same attention? Yet that is a nearly daily occurance.

I would not be surprised to learn that the U.S. military has been responsible for more Iraqi deaths than all of the suicide bombers combined; yet the advertising driven domestic news machine reports the daily insurgent inflicted body count, and the handful of Americans ground up in this quagmire, while ignoring the ever increasing numbers of Arab people we are killing, often without cause or concern. Those people all have families - many all too willing to sacrifice their own lives to avenge the unfair and unlawful taking of life of their loved ones.

We do get the occasional Pentagon report of scores of Al-Qaeda killed in this operation or that (often curiously timed with elections or military budget appropriations votes), even though we sometimes learn later that it was simply our military personnel snapping and raping/killing innocent Iraqi's (the convenient cover-up is that those killed were "suspected insurgents", just as the British convoy was mistaken for not being a "friendly").

The reality for many people in the Middle East is that U.S. bullies indiscriminately wreck similar havoc on innocent civilians every day. Many people are still without basic services such as water and electricity, and the situation is growing worse, not better. How can we expect to win, when the status quo is unnacceptable to the majority? How would you react if you had to live under similar conditions?

We U.S. still likes to act like a savior in Iraq, ignoring all of the time, that for many Iraqi's this is the most unstable time they can remember in their lives.

And what is the real result of all of the money that the Bush neo-con driven Administration has poured into attempting to bring false democracy to Iraq?

Well, we now know that the whole premise for the war was a farce. Nothing but lies piled upon lies. Human rights abuse has become systematic from Al Ghraib, to Guantanemo, to the secret prisons the CIA has kidnapped people to throughout the world.

The current Iraqi puppet government is a joke. Their leaders must live inside the U.S. protected "Green Zone" (the area where they are paid off in green dollars, and siphon off the riches belonging to the Iraqi people) because they are afraid to face the day-to-day reality that the average Iraqi must face in a country at war with itself.

So who benefited? Follow the money...billions and billions of dollars of it - enough to make Social Security solevent for the Baby Boomer generation. The money has been squandered on bad policy and an absolutely misguided war.

It is time to put the magnifying glass upon the septic (think) tanks that promoted the war (and continue to support it, since so many on their Boards benefit directly from it), and to put even more focus on the Adminstration benefactors that kicked over campaign contributions in exchange for huge no-bid contracts, of which so much of the money is unaccounted for, or clearly was wastefully spent lining the pockets of war profiteers.

Day by day, our civil rights have been eroded, and yet we are no more secure than we were prior to the establishment of the Homeland Security Department (the Bush Administration end-around on dissenting viewpoints within the NSA, CIA and FBI).

The tide is turning - the Bush agenda is on the ebb.

We certainly face some difficult days ahead, however, I am confident if we can chart a new more enlightened course as a nation, which understands that we can not always lead by might, and that we are better served by doing what is right, then we may some day be able to overcome this dark and turbulent time in our history.

/rant

ADG Webmaster

[Sarah_Jayne]

Originally Posted by BusterBunny

would depend on where the trial was held public/millitary and the charges....imo


i must say i am glad the government didn't lie about what happened....and they are lucky they didn't, with the bootleg video evidence hitting the streets.......

it is an inquest into the death of the British soldiers...they would know exactly which judge saw the video and therefore could have a trail of responsibility. The family claims they were told a video didn't exist but then suddenly as inquest was happening it turns out there is one. I am sure if it was the other way around and it was American soldiers killed by British pilots the US would be demanding to see the video when determining the cause of death, etc.