Marines 'opened fire on villagers' in mission to rescue crash crew

Okay, okay, okay, wait. I'm trying to picture this. I've seen that article on Yahoo! talking about the bombs dropped for cover (linked below).

But, why the hell were they dropping bombs for cover? Forget the dude's farm, and collateral damage for a moment. But, wouldn't it have been equally dangerous to the rescue mission itself?

I'm just trying to visualize the positions of the parties with respect to one another here, and I can't picture a scene where dropping bombs would be the immediate choice for effective cover. Maybe a strafing run or something? Possibly even a missile. But the article says:

The jets dropped two 500-pound bombs to provide cover while one of the Ospreys

Yahoo! Article

This is what a 500-pound bomb looks like:


Now, doesn't that look a little excessive for 'cover'?

reply to post by Noscible


The pilot of the Harrier did not know who was running to the downed pilot, Good guys or bad so he did the only thing he could do and it turns out it was the best thing. He dropped two bombs in between the downed pilot and the people running at him to let them know it was wise to stop, the 500 pounders were the smallest thing he had to drop so thats what he did. He could have hovered down low but that would have blinded him and everyone else let alone risk his own aircraft and him do to the kicked up dirt and sand.

is america starting world war 3 by itself. first afghanistan, then iraq and now libya. unbelievable. who's the next arab state on it's target list.

Originally posted by keepithush

Likely real story = Unnecessary use of force on unarmed civilians posing no threat.
What they said "Under heavy fire we burst into action against terrorists and terrorists shoot at us so we terrorists heroic Rambo adventure terrorist skin of the teeth terrorist terrorist Predator style rescue terrorist hail Obama"

ROFLMAO! this is probably closer to the truth than anything!

Originally posted by WJjeeper

Originally posted by keepithush

Likely real story = Unnecessary use of force on unarmed civilians posing no threat.
What they said "Under heavy fire we burst into action against terrorists and terrorists shoot at us so we terrorists heroic Rambo adventure terrorist skin of the teeth terrorist terrorist Predator style rescue terrorist hail Obama"

ROFLMAO! this is probably closer to the truth than anything!

No, I don't believe it is.

Just give it up, its war and people die. You hear about each and every one of them related to the US in questionable news propaganda and internet threads, while completely and voluntarily disregarding the massive amount of civilians that die every day from other means. If some of you really had good intentions for preventing the loss of innocent human life you would have started elsewhere and be doing more than stating you opinion on ATS.

If a US soldier does so much as accidentally bump a Muslim in a foreign country and it is widely publicized, all the sudden some of you believe he is a maddened Rambo killing machine bent on disturbing the so called 'peace' in said country and our nation deserves to have every other nation gang up on us in a spectacularly nuclear WW3, despite your apparent high respect for human life. People who think like this have no business even being listened to and should consider a more rational approach to problems that they might care about, as well as an emotional check.

End rant.

I just saw on SBS news that coalition bombing of a residential area has caused 'numerous' civilian deaths, combing for clarification now.

Was just watching Al Jazeera, and they presented a melange of both stories. They indicated that two of the Harriers were deployed ahead of the rescue Osprey. The Harriers dropped two bombs in response to "a convoy of civilians"--so, I don't know if this is an actual motorized convoy, or if they meant merely a group of people walking.

Then, they added that there were also reports that one or both of the Harriers did a strafing run which was what may have caused the civilian casualties, but that these reports were contested by the U.S. Military (so much for my idea that they could have used a strafing run to avoid injuries/casualties).

reply to post by ballsdeep


Please dont act like "they fired on villagers that had their backs to them and looked as if they posed no threat". How can we truly speculate on subject matter like this?