Why do questions about friendly fire, or blue on blue upset many Americans so much?

Question

Excellent point by Darwins Friend.

Factual and thorough transcript by Beastie.

I got a previous question taken off because it was deemed so bad.

All I did was get a few links.... from newspapers and let people see for themselves.

Truth does hurt.

How many widows and Fatherless children have been the cause of their incompetence?

The sickening part is hiding the dirty deeds away... that stinks.

They are supposed to be our allies, but it appears to me that they only point this out when they need us.

4 countries complained about the Iraq campaign.. China, Russia, Germany and France.

Strangely and coincidentally

those same four countries were the biggest suppliers of military hardware to Iraq, and Germany even helped Saddam bankroll their arms/chemical contracts with them.

So there are many countries with underhand motives out there.

Answer 1

Probably because the truth hurts and they are hitting too close to home?

Answer 2

Truthiness hurts.

Answer 3

Because about 10% of the casualties in war are from friendly fire, and that conflicts with the rosy Hollywood view of war that most Americans have. If Americans knew how ugly and messy wars really are, they wouldn't support them with such zeal.

Answer 4

Because unfortunately they are usually the ones doing the firing.

In the first Gulf War more British troops were killed by "friendly fire" than by the enemy.

Answer 5

I have no idea. I think its a lack of real education about war and hollywood movies. Just think about being at war in a firefight its nightime. I just would know who the enemy was unless communiacation was excellent. You have to know exaclty where everybody is. It seems very difficult.

Answer 6

no its more because we have a hard time with war betyond belief u guys think that we like to fight i dont belive we do! and we ceretintly dont like to think that we accidently shot are own people! we dont have lines of young men and women interested in the army its frowned upon!

Answer 7

because their friendly fire caused english troops to get killed, waiting for thumbs down - truth hurts doesnt it !!

Answer 8

Because they are usually the perpetrators.

Answer 9

It's difficult to understand unless you are there why friendly fire happens.  All participants in war have this problem and always have had.  It's called the 'fog of war'.

However, the US armed forces do seem to get more 'hits' than anyone else but, as someone else has said, they tend to shoot first and ask questions afterwards.

Answer 10

Unfortunately, these incidents show that the American forces are badly trained and disciplined. When things get a bit hot they tend to panic and fire on anything and anyone..............As the saying from as far back a s the second world war goes,

When the allies open fire...the Germans duck

When the Germans open fire...the allies duck,

When the Americans open fire...everybody ducks.

Things haven't changed a lot, have they?

Answer 11

because americans have a hard time figuring the question out

Answer 12

i read a book by the comic spike milligan and he recalls his time in ww2 and he says they had to watch out for the american planes as much as the german because they were so incompetent. so it's not a recent thing.

Answer 13

The principle of shoot first ask questions later is deeply ingrained into the American psyche.They simply can't see anything wrong with it.

Answer 14

Probably because their military is apparently unaware that other countries have soldiers fighting on the same side as them.

They'll claim it's confusing in a firefight. Now, this is true. But when two A10 tankbuster planes attacked a column of British APC's in Iraq, it was a nice, bright, sunny Middle Eastern day, not a firefight. They killed a lad called Matty Hull in that column, and then they hid the guilty parties away, as far as possible from prosecution as they could get. Even after the transcript of the pilot's inflight conversation was leaked to an MoD inquiry proving their actions were premeditated and erroneous. They misidentified the fluorescent Allied forces markings on the APC's as, and I loved this, SAM launchers.

This proved both culpability and utter, bone headed, stupidity. How on earth could you convince yourself that ANYONE would draw attention to a missile launcher by painting it bright orange? Oh, but this pair of geniuses managed it fine.

I've met a bloke who served with the Americans in Bosnia for a month. It would have been longer, but again friend identification is not a strong point for the US forces and some gun happy Yank shot up his unit and nearly killed him. I say nearly, because it's only thanks to rapid evacuation and immediate first aid that he's actually alive now.

Again, because it was a US soldier, he 'couldn't be identified.' Big bucket of whitewash there, then.

So in short, Americans don't like mentioning blue on blue because they are so very good at it. And unlike everything else they're good at, they don't like boasting about it.