Posted on 03/22/2011 12:40:05 PM PDT by Eurotwit
t was the sound of aircraft circling which brought the villagers out just after midnight. Then suddenly they saw a plane dropping from the sky.
“I saw it fall down by itself, and after hitting the ground it exploded,” said Mohammed Braik, the farmer in whose field the American F15 Strike Eagle came down. “It caught fire but there was no shooting.”
By the time we arrived this morning, people were climbing all over the wreckage – there’s a perilous disregard for basic safety here, which means that rebel fighetrs constantly shoot in the air, and no-one thinks twice about prodding and poking an unexploded rocket from a crashed warplane.
The people told us that they realised early on that this was an American plane and therefore, as they see it, on their side. It seems to have malfunctioned, so the pilots ejected. A group of officers who have gone over to the rebel side took charge.
“After the plane crashed, we moved to the site. We searched for the pilots, and found the parachutes and ejection seats,” said Colonel Omar Sayid, of the Military Police. Then they found one of the pilots.I wonder what that pilot thought was going on. A US pilot ejecting during such a mission would be prepared for anyone they encounter to be hostile. Yet I suspect that a mob descended on him shouting: “Welcome, welcome Libya“, because that’s always the first phrase you hear in the rebel-held east.
Pilot number one, who was scarcely injured, was taken to the military authorities in Benghazi from where he was quickly handed over to the Americans. But a rescue mission was mounted for pilot number two, and this is where what could have been comic turned sour. Osprey aircraft came in, all guns blazing, assuming – as the American military tends to do – that this was hostile territory.
“We are disturbed about the shooting because if they’d given us a chance we would have handed over both pilots,” said Colonel Sayid. “This shooting created panic.”
Worse than that, several bystanders were injured, amongst them 43-year-old Hamad Abdul Ati. We found him in Jala hospital in Benghazi, with multiple shrapnel and bullet wounds, and a broken arm. He didn’t understand why the Americans had been so aggressive in their rescue mission.
“We consider that whoever is shot down or a prisoner of war, we should save him and hand him over,” he told me from his hospital bed. “But another plane shot at me and Hamdy my son. I have shrapnel in my hand.”
Hospital staff told us that 20-year-old Hamdy’s injuries were far worse, and he was undergoing an operation to amputate part of one leg.
Yet Hamad told me he wasn’t angry, just puzzled.
“The whole eastern area is under the revolution, it’s well known. Why did this happen? My car is destroyed, my home is damaged,” he said, adding: “We would have just picked the second pilot up and put him wherever he wanted in a safe place. Even the other one, we had a celebration for him.”
That’s what’s heart-breaking about the incident. The villagers did indeed shout: “Welcome, welcome Libya” and try to offer hospitality and gratitude to their American friends.
But because the American military works on the assumption that anyone around could be hostile, it may be why it all went horribly wrong. Which is how the US airforce ended up injuring some of the Libyan civilians it’s supposedly here to save.
It squares with what the Telegraph reported. Basically the Osprey strafed the ground to keep the civilians away, and they were most likely hit by ricocheting bullets.
The first pilot was hugged, greeted and given juice by jubilant locals.
Sounds like an unfortunate incident, but still waiting for U.S. confirmation.
If we are screwing up this badly right off the bat and alienating our ‘friends’, imagine where things will go from here. This is one of the dumbest military escapades in our nation’s history. And as usual, without a declaration of war. We are taking our marching orders from the UN. Where are the loyal American troops who will put their foot down about illegal orders violating the Constitution?
Rule #2 why you don’t get involved in a civil war: It’s almost impossible to tell friend from foe.
Rule #1: There often isn’t any real difference between friend and foe.
I guess I can see whose side she's on, dumb twit would be the first one against the wall if it wasn't for those horrible soldiers allowing her the freedom and safety to write this drivel...
That’s the ironic thing. American airmen being heroes in Benghazi. I suspect Al Qaeda has a 90 percent approval rate in this region.
The whole thing is quite bizarre.
To quote Michael J. Totten:
“We should all resist trying to predict what will happen next in the Middle East because so much of what happens makes no sense at all in advance of it actually happening.
Who would have thought two months ago that France would lead a Western military coalition, that the United Nations would pass a Chapter VII resolution authorizing the use of force against a country that was elected to its own Human Rights Commission, that Barack Obama would fire missiles at an Arab country when less than thirty percent of Americans approve, and that Qaddafi loyalists would burn Lebanese rather than American or Israeli flags in the capital?
No one could have predicted any of this. It’s too weird. Don’t ask me what happens next. I give up.”
Cheers.
The jihadi version of cheering. What idiots...
I didn’t like some of her slant either including the headline.
Channel Four is usually decent, though I guess like all “tabloid” medias they like controversy.
But, they have made many great investigative programs that have gotten much exposure here on freerepublic such as:
The Great Global Warming Swindle
Undercover Mosque
Both are really worth checking out on youtube if haven’t yet.
Is ammo cheaper over there than here?
“no-one thinks twice about prodding and poking an unexploded rocket from a crashed warplane”
What do you expect from a human sub-species ?
Police Derangement Syndrome continues.
“The villagers did indeed shout: “Welcome, welcome Libya” and try to offer hospitality and gratitude to their American friends.”
Note to Libyans: During rescue operations, put your weapons down, offer your welcomes at a distance, and keep your hands where they can be seen.
The cops already do it.
Congress needs to vote to pull the USA out of amy effort to attack Libya.
It needs doing right away.Bengazi is a festering sore filled with jihadists who were the greatest suppliers of fighters against US soldiers in the Iraq war.
I hope Gadaffi levels Bengazi.
The US military rescue operaters for the 2nd pilot were briefed on just who they were likely to encounter on the ground at Bengazi: Al Qaeda.
And so do soldiers. Yet the reactions between the two are totally opposite. I guess there is a distinction to be made between American criminals and terrorists as well as American civilians and foreign civilians.
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