So far most of the military casualties in the War on Terrorism, just as in Desert Storm, have been from "friendly fire" or as the military sometimes calls it "blue on blue." In both of the cases in Afghanistan , the problem has been great big guided bombs that guided into the good guys instead of the bad guys. Not to put to fine a point on this, in both cases the guys who got killed or injured were almost assuredly at least partially at fault.

First a word from our sponsor, Boeing Aircraft, maker of the Joint Directed Air Munition (JDAM.) The JDAM is a GPS guidance system that can be attached to several different types of "dumb" bombs. It has several nice features from a military perspective, including the ability to plug in any coordinate on earth. All the the plane has to do is get near the coordinates, the bomb goes right to it. Another nice feature is its cost, nearly half that of laser guided packages. One of the best, though, is since it depends upon GPS satellites, riding high above the weather, it can be dropped rain, snow or shine. Since it also has about a 95% success rate, and if it fails it tends to go way off course (which is usually a good thing as we'll soon see), it's the "choice of professionals" in killing the enemy.

The JDAM does have a few problems from the point of view of ground-pounders. You have to give the plane coordinates as opposed to, say, putting a little laser designator on the target. That means that a. you're never sure exactly where it's pointing and b. if the enemy can "spoof" the bomb it might go anywhere. The latter ability was successfully demonstrated by our old friend Saddam just last year. In addition, not all aircraft have the ability to take a "direct link" from the ground. So in most cases you call the pilot and say "I need that thing at coordinates 1234567891, I'm at coordinates 1235567891." And then the pilot calls back. "You want it at 123557891?" And you have to change your pants realizing that the fly-boy is about to drop it on your head.

This is, more or less, what happened at the prison riot. It was chaotic and the guys getting the data on the targets were close to the strike point and under heavy fire. Somehow the F-18 driver got the wrong coordinates. The bomb tracked in beautifully, right onto the targeting group and their Northern Alliance allies killing dozens of the NLA and injuring five of the ground control team.

The second incident is almost assuredly like unto the first. When any form of directed fire lands on the people directing it, what you usually have is one of the classic blunders, calling for fire on your own position. If you've seen the movie "Platoon", that is what the lieutenant does in the middle of the bunker fire-fight. And in the incident with the B-52, the bomb, again, tracked in perfectly on their position, killing three of the ground controllers and wounding several others. In that case, since there was probably a "hard" ground data-link, it is likely the ground controllers punched in their own position. Again, in war as in any human endeavor, "stuff" happens.

Friendly fire incidents are more common at the beginning of a war and, by and large, tend to go away as the war progresses. Those who make the mistakes once rarely make them twice, either through elimination or experience. And lessons are learned that permit the doctrine, the Standard Operating Procedures, to be changed. That assumes, by the way, that the same soldiers continue fighting the war rather than, eg, spending one year "in-country" and then being flown back to the states. Each time you send in a green unit, or a green individual, no matter how highly trained, they will make many of the original mistakes.

There are also some technology fixes for the whole "close air support by far flying planes", many of which have been "on the shelf" waiting for funding for the last, oh, ten or twelve years, hint, hint. Since even an old dinosaur like myself can see that many of these methods are the future of warfare, it behooves the powers that be to start paying more attention. Hard coding links in all aircraft to start. "Missiles" similar to the "dumb bombs" that can track from further out, so one plane can cover more territory. Ground hardware that "knows" where it is and automatically says "Hey! Stupid! Do you really want to kill yourself? If so press 'Enter' three times and kiss your butt good bye!"

Last but not least, can we get some smaller bombs, please? I know it's a lot easier for an F-15 to carry one 2,000 lbs bomb rather than ten 200 lbs bombs. But for the guys on the ground, who don't always have the option to "back up", making "danger close" a little bit closer than, say, five football fields would be a good thing.

Just a thought.

Yo, you up there in the wild blue yonder! You listening?