The devil is very, very much in the details on this one. And those details are WAY beyond most of the public affairs statements, and even farther beyond all the lawyers' statements. Dropping bombs is an awesome responsibility that requires tremendous care to do it exactly right... proper target, proper approvals, rules of engagement, etc. Most of the time, guys take that responsibility every bit as seriously as they need to, and things work the way they're supposed to.
Sometimes, though, mistakes happen. Mostly, even those mistakes are the result of a chain of error chains that defy easy finger-pointing. On rare occasions, though, somebody does something reckless that results in friendlies getting killed.
The line between a guy doing the very best that he can & making an honest mistake, and a guy who gets too aggressive & gets reckless, can be a rather fine one at times (particularly when you get lawyers involved). Without understanding all the situation at hand, the rules & procedures that should have been followed, the full sequence of events, and a whole bunch of details that don't generally get out to the press, it's all but impossible to say which side of the line a particular incident was.
For all that I've read about the F-16 incident with the Canadians, while I've got some opinions, they're not really backed with nearly enough hard data to go out and proclaim as "Well *I* think that these guys..." The people who have the full picture, hopefully, are the AF investigators. Not that they never make mistakes, but they've got a lot more to work with than anybody on the outside.
This case is a long way from fully playing out.
