Punditry: Friendly fire video will appear on YouTube

[andygates]

Here's my prediction for the day.  The US military have classified a cockpit video which allegedly shows an A-10 crew killing a British tank and, inside it, a chap called Matty Hull.  The coroner at Matty's inquest has seen the video and is furious, demanding that it be declassified.  So far, the Powers that Be have failed to do this.  Everything points to the video showing trigger-happy tank killers killing the wrong tanks, and the "secret" classification being purely to save face.

A blag of that tape is going to get on YouTube.  I don't know how but I'd say within the week.  Because this sort of dumb cover-up stinks, and because it'll get the uploader their fifteen minutes.  You heard it here first

Comments

[carl42nz.livejournal.com]

I think that was the guy whose last words to his family was "It's not the Iraqis I have to worry about its the Americans"
Sadly he turned out to be right.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The tape has made it as far as a tabloid. Standard intel fuckup plus pilot's failure to abort when he saw the dayglo orange painted on the roofs of friendly trucks.

[jonnycowbells.livejournal.com]

But to be fair to the pilot, he thought the orange was a rocket launcher and checked with base that there were no allied forces in that area. I've never been in an armed jet plane over hostile territory, but I can see how I might not want to take the risk of letting something launch at me if I thought it was hostile.

Looks like intel's to blame. It's been looping on Sky TV all day - someone's sure to have ripped it to YouTube by now *goes and checks* - Hmmm. Surprisingly not. Nor is it on video.google yet.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Intel certainly appears to be at fault, though of course we can now speculate as to whether our guy was in the right place - ah, the fog of war!

An orange rocket launcher? That seems like a... curious choice. What would make someone think that?