Retired Air Force captain says attack on Extortion 17 could have been prevented

Unfortunately when I was in Afghanistan the ROE sucked. The locals would drive their POVs up beside the convoys and unless they were about to go boom you couldn't do anything. This was after a Local drove into a convoy and blew himself up. Fortunately the Americans in the vehicle got their chimes rung. I knew of no other injuries.

Of course we can always look back and said if things were different, things might have changed, but those are all just theories. Tragic as the accident was, you cannot say with 100% certainty, that the outcome would have been different. We can make a list of things to change the outcome.....daylight insertion, not using NG aviation for insertion, or maybe not inserting where they did. Yeah, maybe if they killed those two other insurgents, the helicopter might not have been shot down, but what if there was two other teams with PRG's? Shoulda, coulda, and woulda but we will never truly know.