Source: RT
Miscommunication between military personnel is the reason the
Pentagon is giving for a drone airstrike carried out by the American
military in April that resulted in the death of two US servicemen.
Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith, 26, and Navy hospital staffer
Benjamin D. Rast, 23, were both killed by an unmanned US aircraft back
in April, which RT reported at the time
was the first occurrence of a friendly fire death caused by American
drones. Now following an investigation out of the Department of Defense,
it has been revealed that the two men lost their lives because those
commanding the craft assumed the men to be Taliban fighters, even though
air force analysts weren’t certain.
Throughout the course of a
381-page report finalized last week by the Pentagon, it is suggested
that could military officers working thousands of miles apart had better
communication with one another, the needless death of two American
soldiers could have been prevented.
The report reveals that
marines in Afghanistan and the drone control-crew in Nevada believed
both Smith and Rast to be Taliban insurgents, but Air Force analysts in
Terre Haute, Indiana watching the event unfold live weren’t as certain.
They noted that the gunshots coming from the Americans were directed
away from their fellow US soldiers, suggesting that they were not enemy
fighters. The controllers in Nevada and the commanders on the ground in
Afghanistan “were never made aware” of the assessment, however, reveals the report.
According to the report, at one point analysts explicitly called Smith and Rast “friendlies,” only moments later to redact the statement. Shortly thereafter they wrote that they were “unable to discern who personnel were,” though an airstrike was carried out anyway.
According
to the report, the crew commanding the Predator drone had not realized
that the two men had separated from the rest of the American armed
forces, though analysts in Nevada believed the men to be American. A
written assessment was supposed to be transmitted to the command crew by
the Mission Intelligence Coordinator, though the coordinator on duty at
the time of the attack was a trainee being supervised by a military
trainer.
Formally, the report says that “a lack of overall common situational awareness” caused the death, though no one with the American military can be found "culpably negligent or derelict in their duties."
According to the report, the analysts that believed the men to be American "should have been more assertive," and "should have persisted with their assessment until the crew either accepted or refuted the assessment."
Despite
continuing criticism from the American public and the citizens overseas
who are repeatedly forced to bear witness to the ongoing drone attacks,
the United States has recently been reported to be constructing new
drone bases in Africa in Asia. In August the US revealed that they would
be investing around $23 billion in furthering the drone program as
well.
Earlier this month a drone strike in Yemen killed two
American men who were believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda. Days
later, protesters with the October 2011 Stop the Machine movement in
Washington DC waged a demonstration at the Smithsonian National Air and
Space Museum in opposition to an exhibit showcasing drones, and were met
with a barrage of pepper-spray.
