The latest controversy comes after media reports on the weekend said the target of the airstrike was a group of Taliban leaders, not a pair of hijacked tanker trucks as originally reported by the German government.
Quoting a secret report from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Saturday, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported that Colonel Georg Klein, the German officer who issued the orders for the airstrike, "wanted to attack the people, not the vehicles."
So the official objective isn't anymore to make sure that "the Taliban share in the terrorist's fate?"
The new revelations have raised pressure on Guttenberg. The 38-year-old from the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian ally of Chancellor Merkel's conservative party, initially deemed the airstrike "militarily appropriate." But he has since reversed that position, calling it "inappropriate."
Whatever the political outcome, the message to German troops is clear:
"You are to behave like good little hostages, and if you yo much as inconvenience
If this wasn't about senselessly sacrificing good people's lives it would be a joke (albeit a sick one).