Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* The Tarnak Farm Incident ft. Robert Evans

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

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And Bossman tells him to wait and he makes him wait for two minutes. Then he tells him to hold fire and then get more information on what's going on. Great idea. Just four seconds after this, Schmidt ignores Bossman's order and the orders of Umbach to continue to wait and says, quote, some men on the road, it looks like a piece of artillery is firing at us. He then immediately follows that with I am rolling in in self defense. Oh my God. So in English, what that means is obviously rolling in is an attack run. And right, right. By invoking defense in the situation, per Air Force regulations,

neither Umbach, the flight leader or boss man, the air traffic controller, the AWACS can call him off. Schmidt knows this. Yeah, it's literally like that South Park bit. It's coming right for me. You know, like anything I do is fine now. Sure. By declaring he was in a self-defense situation, the pilot is allowed to completely act on

his own. And of course, within Air Force regulation, there's a caveat to the saying, by doing so, you take all command liability onto yourself. So this guy is basically doing a George Zimmerman in an F-16. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The flight version of Leroy Jenkins, but you know, people die. Cool. Standing his ground from the sky. I'm standing my clouds.

Yeah. A boss man acknowledges that he has called it a self-defense situation. Now the guy on the boss man radio then turns to the other guy in the AWACS plane saying, Roger, he's invoking self-defense on the fire. On the road, he sees artillery shooting at him. Standby for details. 35 seconds after that, Schmidt drops a single 500 pound bomb. The bomb falls for 22 seconds before Schmidt announces he has scored a direct hit on his

target. Great. Eight seconds later, Bossman tells him to cease fire immediately and disengage because they're bombing friendly forces. Great. Well, yeah. Oops. On the ground, Corporal Curtis Hollister said, quote, I remember flying through the air.

It kind of felt like I was swimming complete and total blackness swimming. And then I woke up. I don't know how long I was out for. I just remember someone shaking me awake. Sergeant Lorne Ford remembers being blown through the air and landing in a ditch. He lost his left eye and one leg. And he said, I bled a lot that night, but I can't complain. Okay.

You can. You're allowed. Yeah. If anybody's allowed to complain, it's him. You can in fact complain. You know, I think in the context of the quote, he's saying he can't complain because he was alive. But at the same time, it's just like, I still feel like you're allowed to complain.

You lost a leg and an eye. Yeah. No, but I get it. Yeah, for sure. Shrapnel, fire, and a powerful blast wave tore through the Canadian soldiers killing four. Corporal Ainsworth Dyer, Private Nathan Smith, Sergeant Mark Legere, Private Richard Green were all killed. And they were the first Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan. And the first combat deaths the Canadian military suffered since the Korean War. And they happened because of this fucking idiot. Yeah, yeah.

Immediately afterwards, the pilots switch from anger to confusion. Umbach is cursing over the radio, which you're really never supposed to do, especially when you've just done something that's absolutely going to trigger an investigation. And Schmidt tells him he was sure they were shooting at him. And Schmidt calls Bossman and mostly because at this point, they're like, why the fuck were there even friendly forces there at all? At this point, Schmidt calls Bossman says, check your report. your report. Was there any restricted areas? Were there any friendly forces supposed to be in the area?

Schmidt checks his notes and says, I see nothing. Can you concur? The Bossman then answers, Bossman concurs. Meaning they're all agreeing that none of them are told that Canadian soldiers are supposed to be in the area. Again, really should not have mattered. After that, Schmidt says, I hope that was the right thing to do. He and Umbach find out exactly what happened by the time they land because remember they're

flying all the way back to Kuwait. By the time they land there, they know how many people have been killed or wounded. When he lands, I think they're like, what happened? How many? I think is what he said and they said four. Great. And they said four. Great. And of course, this leads to an investigation. I think it's fair to say, really nobody had any idea what caused this. And there was a lot of questions immediately.

For starters, why would two very experienced pilots make several very simple mistakes? Tarnack Farm is right next to Candar Aerofield. and by right next to, I mean, pretty much adjoining it. Why would they think it suddenly turned into a fucking Taliban base where they're so entrenched? There could be batteries of anti-aircraft rockets firing up at the sky. Right. Also, why did they think it was firing at them? The Canadian soldiers were not shooting at the sky at all. They weren't firing any kind of rockets or missiles whatsoever. There was also the small fact that Schmidt completely ignored all standing rules of engagement,

which called for him to either just fly away or hit any ground target with cannon fire first before a bomb. But instead, he declares in a self defense situation. Both Canada and the United States held inquiries and both found that not only were both pilots guilty of being absolutely fucking awful at their jobs, but of a massive breakdown in communication all the way down till they got them to that point. The boards found that the Canadian soldiers on the ground did everything that they were supposed to do. Their command had failed them by not telling Joint Command that they were supposed to be there. But also the US and Canadian militaries

were not really talking to one another very well at all, leading to a failure of any kind of double checking about de-conflictions. It was a systematic breakdown of Allied command effectively all the way up until it ended up 10,000 feet in the sky and a bomb falling on them. The inquiry also found that even if you believe Schmidt was in a quote self-defense situation like he claims, he still broke every protocol in order to get there. Namely, when I said that he descended, he descend to below 10,000 feet, which is very low for a jet and also below the minimum altitude of all American aircraft

we're supposed to keep while operating in Afghanistan. He did this in order to drop the bomb. He also slowed his plane down to drop his bomb. So the head of the American inquiry, General Stephen Sargent, which is a great name for a general, general sergeant, found that the guy actively put his plane in harm's way while declaring he was in a self defense situation just so he could engage a target.

Yeah, that that I mean, what else could it be? Yeah. Like, so you you thought you were under threat? Yes. OK, so why did you put yourself more in threat? Right. Right. Why did you stay there? You could just like bounced like nothing was keeping you. You were in an F-16. Yeah. Just fly away. Real fast. Sergeant immediately rejected any claims of self-defense,

noting that if there was any threat to the pilots at all, there had been some hint of it in the flight audio, some stress in their voice, something, but there wasn't. Right. Sergeant also blamed Umbach because he was the one that was supposed to be in command of the situation. And he simply let Schmidt go wild. Right. Well, and also, although Schmidt specifically framed things the way he did, so he didn't have to listen to Umbach, right? Right.

I mean... That is also my suspicion is that he knew if he declared a self-defense situation, everybody would just have to let him go. Right. Because like, what could Umbach have done at that point? Shoot him down? That wasn't gonna happen. And of course, he thought he was doing this to random Afghans, right?

And the only reason that anybody gave a shit is because he did it to Canadians. That's the important part to remember about this story. That if he just blew up some innocent Afghans, we would never have heard about it. And he probably would have gotten a medal. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just that he dropped a 500 pound bomb at a bunch of Canadians. That's why it makes the news.

Right, right. If he had, again, if he, yeah, if he'd just gotten a bunch of Afghan civilians, it would have just gone away. Nobody would have even complained and they would be like, yeah, did you hear Schmidt blew up a ring back? It's crazy. Right, right. Great on you, Schmidt. Get another. Yeah. So the US military charges Schmidt and Umbach with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, eight counts of aggravated assault, and one count of dereliction of duty. As we often say on this show,

for the US military to charge you with crimes while at war, you have had to crime so hard. Yeah. So hard, especially for you to be not only an officer, but a pilot, you have done some, like you to be not only an officer but a pilot You have done some see like you've done some stringer belt type shit where you have kept the notes about a criminal conspiracy at Yeah, you really fucked up to get this kind of charges The case was sent to an article 32 hearing which is kind of like a grand jury

Fact finding to decide that the case should move forward to a formal courts martial. The pilots defense called a series of other F-16 pilots to come to the stand to testify to their actions, kind of like cops do. And each were asked what they would have done in the same situation, using the reasonable cop defense effectively, which unfortunately for pilots is not in the cunts, is not like defended by the Supreme Court yet. But, it should not surprise anybody that every single pilot up there pretty much agreed with what Schmidt and Umbach did. Though I did find one very hilarious statement that ended with, quote, combat aviation is

not a science, it's an art, which might just be the most wrong you've ever been in. Just ever. It's quite literally a science. Right. But that is what he said in defense of Schmidt's actions. What? Yeah.

Like, which fucking artist are you Jackson Pollock in this fucking situation? Right. Like, I just love it's like, no, we paint beautiful frescoes with war crimes. Like leave my boy alone. Yes. You're an artist. Specifically the painting you recreated was Guernica.