Princhester, I must say that I’m surprised to see apparent support for a position with I had considered to be unsupportable. I don’t consider that I made a piss-poor effort of rebutting Not In Anger’s comment, in that I actually made no effort in that direction, since I considered it to be idiotic on the face of it, and therefore hardly requiring any arguing against.
Your post is something else altogether. I think that, for the most part, you and I are likely to see pretty much eye-to-eye on everything about this situation that matters, quite apart from Not In Anger’s dickheadedness or sensibility.
As I see it, U.S. friendly-fire incidents, while certainly troubling when considered in-and-of-themselves, are not a defining characteristic of the U.S. military, and their relevance to the whole Iraq debacle are insignificant. My objection to Not In Anger’s comment is that he suggests that having the U.S. as an ally in any military conflict represents more of a liability than an asset, and further that this is the fault of the troops.
I’m the last guy you’ll find arguing that these incidents of fratricide are acceptable, but it’s ignorant and offensive to lay the blame for them on the troops. I suspect that one of the main reasons that the U.S. racks up such a high collateral damage score is that so much of the ordinance that’s flying is courtesy of the U.S. – those guys aren’t miserly with their implements of destruction, and they can’t be faulted for that. Of course, there’s obviously an element of human error involved when that hardware is directed where it ought not to go. But where do we lay the blame for these errors? I don’t think that this is because American troops aren’t quite as bright as Canadian, British, Australian, or Swazi troops – rather I think that it’s institutional procedural problems. The misplaced sense of economy that sees folks in action for much longer than is strictly advisable, relying on issued amphetamines to combat fatigue, is a pretty good example of something that goes against all common sense. Sure, “go-pills” might be useful if extended periods of activity are absolutely unavoidable, but mandating speed for people in control of fighter/bombers is lunacy. I wouldn’t trust a tweaker to park my car, and I sure as hell don’t want to be standing in front of one who’s armed with an air-rifle, much less several million dollars worth of military hardware. But this isn’t the troops fault – it’s not like they can say, “I’d rather not take the drugs, sir, since they make me twitchy and seem to impair my judgement.”
In short, their troops are just as good as our troops, and much better equipped. While it may be argued that it’s a bit of a crapshoot to be proximate to U.S. troops for any length of time, I think that the benefits of the greatly reduced numbers of hostiles chucking ordinance in your direction outweigh the risks of becoming another blue/blue statistic by several orders of magnitude.
I hope that you don’t think that I am suggesting any such thing. I think that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is an appalling disgrace.
However, if U.S. troops should ever find themselves involved a just war, I’d certainly hope that Canadian troops would be right there to support them in it, and in the event that the Commonwealth were ever in clear and present danger from an aggressor, I’d sure as hell be grateful to have U.S. forces as allies. I should think that would be obvious.
