4 Canadians killed by friendly fire: Wikileaks

[CHIMO]

Four Canadian soldiers who died in September 2006 weren't killed by the Taliban but rather by friendly fire from U.S. forces, according to one of the thousands of documents released by Wikileaks about the war in Afghanistan.

The Canadian military maintained Monday, however, that the soldiers died during a ground offensive with the Taliban.

The document is among more than 91,000 released Sunday revealing new details about the war in Afghanistan and describing numerous accounts of brutality, corruption, extortion and kidnapping by members of the Afghan police force.

According to an incident report filed by the U.S. military unit, 205TH RCAG (Regional Corps Advisory Group), four Canadian soldiers were killed and seven others and an interpreter were wounded on Sept. 3, 2006, when a jet dropped a bomb on a building they occupied during the second day of Operation MEDUSA.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/07/26/wikileak-afghanistan-canada-soldiers.html
Monday, July 26, 2010 | 8:30 PM ET

[tuvor]

1. Gotta agree with this comment:

"When they can't even be honest about how they died, they do more to dishonor their service and memory than any taliban ever could."

[daleo]

2. It sounds likely enough

Multiple deaths, like the U.S. bombing that killed a bunch of Canadians in 2004.

[daleo]

3. For the record, it was 2002

6 deaths I think.

[Spazito]

4. You are right re the date but it was 4 soldiers killed, 8 injured...

On April 18, 2002, an American F-16 fighter jet dropped a laser-guided 225-kilogram bomb near Kandahar, accidentally killing four Canadian soldiers and injuring eight others.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/friendlyfire/

[daleo]

5. Thanks for the update

Memory is fallible and sometimes I'm lazy.

[Arrowhead2k1]

6. So the military is even lying to deceased soldier's families.

Why isn't this like the biggest story in this country right now? Heads should be rolling.

[CHIMO]

7. What really happened when Canadians died in 2006 firefight with Taliban

Classified U.S. military documents released by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks suggest that “friendly fire” was to blame for the 2006 deaths of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. That claim has been dismissed by official sources, including Retired general Rick Hillier, Canada’s former chief of defence staff.

In a Sept. 30, 2006 article, the Star’s Mitch Potter told the story of the deadly firefight, through the Canadian soldiers who were there.

===

PANJWAII DISTRICT, AFGHANISTAN—One must turn back time several generations to find Canadian soldiers in the state that Charlie Company finds itself today. Not since the Korean War has a single Canadian combat unit been so cut to pieces so quickly.

Either of the two events that rocked their world in the dust-caked hills of southern Afghanistan one month ago might qualify as the worst day of their lives. That they came back-to-back—one disastrous morning followed by another even worse—is a matter of almost incomprehensibly bad fortune.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/840993--what-really-happened-when-canadians-died-in-2006-firefight-with-taliban?bn=1

[daleo]

8. It's interesting

The rightwing now has to insist the "scumbag" Taliban are actually a pretty fair match for our army, in order to minimize the concern about friendly fire. War and propaganda are strange that way.