Doctors Without Borders airstrike - what happened?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Kind of surprising that there hasn't been a thread on this yet. Is this not being widely reported in the US news media?

Doctors Without Borders airstrike: US alters story for fourth time in four days

Commander of war in Afghanistan tells Senate panel that US forces had called in airstrike at Afghan request an admission of a war crime says MSF chief

US special operations forces not their Afghan allies called in the deadly airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, the US commander has conceded.

Shortly before General John Campbell, the commander of the US and Nato war in Afghanistan, testified to a Senate panel, the president of Doctors Without Borders also known as Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) said the US and Afghanistan had made an admission of a war crime.

Shifting the US account of the Saturday morning airstrike for the fourth time in as many days, Campbell reiterated that Afghan forces had requested US air cover after being engaged in a tenacious fight to retake the northern city of Kunduz from the Taliban. But, modifying the account he gave at a press conference on Monday, Campbell said those Afghan forces had not directly communicated with the US pilots of an AC-130 gunship overhead.

Even though the Afghans request that support, it still has to go through a rigorous US procedure to enable fires to go on the ground. We had a special operations unit that was in close vicinity that was talking to the aircraft that delivered those fires, Campbell told the Senate armed services committee on Tuesday morning.

The airstrike on the hospital is among the worst and most visible cases of civilian deaths caused by US forces during the 14-year Afghanistan war that Barack Obama has declared all but over. It killed 12 MSF staff and 10 patients, who had sought medical treatment after the Taliban overran Kunduz last weekend. Three children died in the airstrike that came in multiple waves and burned patients alive in their beds.

On Tuesday, MSF denounced Campbells press conference as an attempt to shift blame to the Afghans.

The US military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition, said its director general, Christopher Stokes.

Campbell did not explain whether the procedures to launch the airstrike took into account the GPS coordinates of the MSF field hospital, which its president, Joanne Liu, said were regularly shared with US, coalition and Afghan military officers and civilian officials, as recently as Tuesday 29 September.

AC-130 gunships, which fly low, typically rely on a pilot visually identifying a target.

It is also unclear where the US special operations forces were relative to the fighting, but Campbell has said that US units were not directly engaged in the fighting.

Campbell instead said the hospital was mistakenly struck by US forces.

We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility, Campbell told US lawmakers, declaring that he wanted an investigation by his command to take its course instead of providing further detail.

But Jason Cone, Doctors Without Borders US executive director, said Campbells shifting story underscored the need for an independent inquiry.

Todays statement from General Campbell is just the latest in a long list of confusing accounts from the US military about what happened in Kunduz on Saturday, Cone said.

They are now back to talking about a mistake. A mistake that lasted for more than an hour, despite the fact that the location of the hospital was well known to them and that they were informed during the airstrike that it was a hospital being hit. All this confusion just underlines once again the crucial need for an independent investigation into how a major hospital, full of patients and MSF staff, could be repeatedly bombed.

Campbell suggested but did not say that the Afghans were taking fire from the Taliban from within the hospital grounds, a claim the Afghan government has explicitly made. MSF unequivocally denies that the hospital was a source of fire. It has also noted the precision of the strike that hit only the main hospital building and not its adjuncts.

Mary Ellen OConnell, a professor of international law at the University of Notre Dame, said that according to international humanitarian law, the critical question for determining if US forces committed a war crime was whether they had notified the hospital ahead of the strike if they understood the Taliban to be firing from the hospital.

Any serious violation of the law of armed conflict, such as attacking a hospital that is immune from intentional attack, is a war crime. Hospitals are immune from attack during an armed conflict unless being used by one party to harm the other and then only after a warning that it will be attacked, OConnell said.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/06/doctors-without-borders-airstrike-afghanistan-us-account-changes-again?CMP=fb_gu

[decocker 7,198]

i've seen a couple stories about it. i don't know why doctors without borders would think themselves above collateral damage. and to accuse the us of a war crime, well i never..

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think there ought to be independent investigations for these sorts of things, rather than just allow individuals to escape responsibility by hiding behind bureaucracy.

[decocker 7,198]

I think there ought to be independent investigations for these sorts of things, rather than just allow individuals to escape responsibility by hiding behind bureaucracy.

we do what we want. don't look too close.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Sounds like a terrible mistake and not a war crime but I don't think that an independent investigation into the incident is too much to ask.

[decocker 7,198]

Sounds like a terrible mistake and not a war crime but I don't think that an independent investigation into the incident is too much to ask.

doesn't sound like a mistake, more like ignoring information they already had.

“Today’s statement from General Campbell is just the latest in a long list of confusing accounts from the US military about what happened in Kunduz on Saturday,” Cone said.

“They are now back to talking about a ‘mistake’. A mistake that lasted for more than an hour, despite the fact that the location of the hospital was well known to them and that they were informed during the airstrike that it was a hospital being hit. All this confusion just underlines once again the crucial need for an independent investigation into how a major hospital, full of patients and MSF staff, could be repeatedly bombed.”

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Sounds like a terrible mistake and not a war crime but I don't think that an independent investigation into the incident is too much to ask.

Even if it's gross incompetence - one hand not knowing what the other is doing, it would still be a war crime.

[Sousuke 1,214]

Maybe the pilot just misidentified the location? They say it was a AC130 flying low, so this wasn't very high tech. AC130 Spooky are like 1960s tech.

Speaking of Spooky where is he these days?

Edited October 7, 2015 by Sousuke

[decocker 7,198]

Maybe the pilot just misidentified the location? They say it was a AC130 flying low, so this wasn't very high tech. AC130 Spooky are like 1960s tech.

Speaking of Spooky where is he these days?

it should be investigated as dsf has asked, no matter what.

MIA vj peeps.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Should be, most likely won't be. Next week, when the Russians do something similar - it'll be all about war crimes and international law.

It's not a matter of law, its a matter of what's politically convenient.

[Umka36 781]

Obama apologizes to Doctors Without Borders after deadly Afghanistan airstrike

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/politics/obama-calls-doctors-without-borders-president-apologizes/index.html

[Darnell 8,478]

Kind of surprising that there hasn't been a thread on this yet. Is this not being widely reported in the US news media?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/06/doctors-without-borders-airstrike-afghanistan-us-account-changes-again?CMP=fb_gu

don't you get us news media where you are? Yes? No? If no, any plans to move soon?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

don't you get us news media where you are? Yes? No? If no, any plans to move soon?

Any plans to post about the topic anytime soon or are you really interested in my moving? Seriously, what's the goal here?

Edited October 9, 2015 by Trumplestiltskin

[Jacque67 7,328]

Any plans to post about the topic anytime soon or are you really interested in my moving? Seriously, what's the goal here?

Trump and the Chinese landlady would make a GREAT couple!!!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I believe Trump is taken