Canadian troops die under US friendly fire - Page 5

Argus · 04-19-2002, 10:52 AM

I stand duly corrected Donut

In terms of the other fact I quoted concerning numbers, I realized that I was wrong when I said that 150 was the number of Allied casualties in the Gulf War, that was only the US casualties, total casualties were closer to 200+.

Not to split hairs, but I had always read that 10 of the 25 British deaths were as a result of American fire...regardless its 10 too many.

Thoran · 04-19-2002, 12:28 PM

Ryanamur I'd seen those statistics... but in fact they don't really PROVE anything. The fact that they can enumerate all the instances is actually a support of my position. In the past nobody ever bothered to keep track of FF incidents... because they happened ALL THE TIME.

I see a lot of percentages being thrown around... 35% this, 25% that. It's very easy to make a number look however you want it to look if you just find a small enough number to compare it to. You can even make the incredible achievement of a hundred casualties out of a force of 750,000 look like a bad thing. I'd recommend you take a look at other wars... the PERCENTAGE of FF casualties in WW2 for instance might have been much smaller... but the # of deaths due to friendly fire was certainly a couple orders of magnitude MORE.

I'm not interested in percentages, I'd like to see statistical data that would establish that the US somehow is involved in more FF incidents relative to troops deployed/sorties flown than other countries. I just don't think you'll find that the REAL numbers support this idea of US carelessness.

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04-19-2002, 10:52 AM	#41
Argus The Magister Join Date: June 7, 2001 Location: Moscow, Russia Posts: 111	I stand duly corrected Donut In terms of the other fact I quoted concerning numbers, I realized that I was wrong when I said that 150 was the number of Allied casualties in the Gulf War, that was only the US casualties, total casualties were closer to 200+. Not to split hairs, but I had always read that 10 of the 25 British deaths were as a result of American fire...regardless its 10 too many.

04-19-2002, 12:28 PM	#42
Thoran Galvatron Join Date: January 10, 2002 Location: Upstate NY Age: 56 Posts: 2,109	Ryanamur I'd seen those statistics... but in fact they don't really PROVE anything. The fact that they can enumerate all the instances is actually a support of my position. In the past nobody ever bothered to keep track of FF incidents... because they happened ALL THE TIME. I see a lot of percentages being thrown around... 35% this, 25% that. It's very easy to make a number look however you want it to look if you just find a small enough number to compare it to. You can even make the incredible achievement of a hundred casualties out of a force of 750,000 look like a bad thing. I'd recommend you take a look at other wars... the PERCENTAGE of FF casualties in WW2 for instance might have been much smaller... but the # of deaths due to friendly fire was certainly a couple orders of magnitude MORE. I'm not interested in percentages, I'd like to see statistical data that would establish that the US somehow is involved in more FF incidents relative to troops deployed/sorties flown than other countries. I just don't think you'll find that the REAL numbers support this idea of US carelessness.

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