Nope. The story changed. They were not there to rescue Rangers.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/10/fatal-seal-mission-was-not-a-rescue/
All I need to see is the wreckage. Has anyone seen stills/scenes of the wreckage?
“Nope. The story changed. They were not there to rescue Rangers.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/10/fatal-seal-mission-was-not-a-rescue/
Thanks. That new story makes more sense than the “rescue” mission first reported.
I, like you, would like to see photos of the undisturbed wreckage. I don’t think a single RPG could bring down a Chinhook in such a rapid manner. It sounds more like a surface to air missile. We will probably not know the whole truth until many years after the fact.
I would feel more comfortable if it turned out that the mission was a rushed job that went sour (a lucky shot by a bad guy), than a planned one that resulted in an ambush because of intel leaks.
Either way the poor souls are dead, but a “screw-up” verses a betrayal is easier to deal with to me. In the haste of war...screw-ups are to be expected....although always tragic.
A not related gripe from me. In the Washington Times article you referenced I got this quote:
“We tracked them, as we would in the aftermath of any operation, and we dealt with them with a kinetic strike,” he said. “And in the aftermath of that, we have achieved certainty that they in fact were killed in that strike.”
I’m still an Army Reservist and the term “kinetic strike” is very irritating to me. Typically these days the Ops types seem to want have to have neat sounding terminology. Every time a new manual comes out (getting very frequent) someone has changed the acronymns or created new terms for previous ones that were just fine. I think someone at the Pentagon is hired just to come up with new terms on a regular basis. That is one job they can cut out of DoD at no harm to the force....the terminology developers.
Secondly....just how did they “verify” they were killed by the “kinetic” strike. Did someone count the grease stains?