Why Bombing a Hospital Is a War Crime

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/10/08/why-bombing-hospital-war-crime

Jecs’ words cry out from the MSF website: “It was crazy,” he said. “We had to organize a mass casualty plan in the office, seeing which doctors were alive and available to help. We did an urgent surgery for one of our doctors. Unfortunately he died there on the office table. We did our best, but it wasn’t enough.”

And the world, or a sizable piece of it, can put itself inside the burning, deliberately bombed hospital. And the U.S. is accused of committing a war crime.

I’ve been pondering those words ever since they entered the conversation: pondering their moral weight, their heart-stopping, accusatory coldness. My initial reaction was, well, of course it’s a war crime. Indeed, the two words, “war” and “crime,” ought to be inextricably linked. It’s impossible to wage war — especially the way a superpower wages war, with so many weapons of mass destruction at the ready — without violating conventional moral strictures, without killing civilians in mind-numbing numbers, with virtually every action.

So why is this different? Bombing a hospital, especially with deliberate intent — apparently at the behest of the Afghan government, which has hated the hospital for treating the injured regardless what side they’re on — is depraved and utterly reckless. Not only did the U.S. kill patients and staff members from all over the world, who were working there because of a commitment to give help to those in harm’s way, but it destroyed one of the few medical centers in a city with a population of over 300,000.

[malaise]

1. K & R

for truth

[cwydro]

2. K and r.

[bemildred]

3. KnR.

Enough of this bullshit.

[B Calm]

4. We dropped 2 atom bombs on Japan. . .

Just sayn'

[gratuitous]

12. A dubious measure of progress

I guess it's good that we didn't nuke the hospital. Still pretty reprehensible.

[Old Crow]

5. K&R. This is a must-read piece on DU today. (N/T)

[Demeter]

6. And yet, no General has been Fired

How very odd and perplexing

[d_legendary1]

17. Its one of the few occupations where

one can royally screw up and not get punished for it. That and being POTUS and Vice POTUS.

[Jeneral2885]

7. So was bombing Pearl Harbor

and letting the Imperial Family get away with it.

Oh wait, 911 isn't a war crime?

[Jeneral2885]

8. How about MH17

you not concern about that? Only want to curse the US military and government?

Russia rocks?

[Old Crow]

9. No one's said the events you've listed aren't horrible.

Unlike those events, however, this one happened six days ago and the actor was the United States. It follows that U.S. citizens who want their own nation to obey the Geneva Convention would want to discuss it and try to determine exactly what occurred and why.

[GummyBearz]

10. Well thats just great

[Octafish]

11. Edward Snowden has an elegant solution to the question...

He noted the C130 war planes have gun cameras and voice recorders. Get that flight's data and make it public. We'll see if it was a war crime or not with our own eyes and ears.

[Old Crow]

14. Bingo!

Perfect solution. If it was an accident, you'd expect the military would fall all over itself to make that footage public.

On the other hand, if that footage never sees the light of day, what does that tell you?

[Octafish]

15. Wouldn't it be great if there was a whistleblower interested in justice who'd leak the tape?

Wonder why they don't step forward?



Thank you for grokking, Old Crow.

[randome]

13. Why not wait to see what the investigation turns up?

Not that the more conspiracy-minded of you will believe it, of course. Maybe it was a war crime and maybe it was a complete accident. Maybe it was something in between. Being in a rush to condemn the U.S. serves no one's purpose.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]

[lostnfound]

16. Why haven't we seen the photos and life stories of the dead in this tragedy?

To use the phrasing used by Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann in Manufacturing Consent, they weren't "worthy victims". Victims of US usually aren't.

[d_legendary1]

18. The media is too busy with the Kardashians

and the stupid things the GOP is ranting about. And don't forget those crazy school shooters. They're important too!

[polly7]

19. K&R nt.

[eridani]

20. US Military Was Aware Kunduz Trauma Center Was Fully Functioning Hospital, Sources Say

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/33185-us-military-was-aware-kunduz-trauma-center-was-fully-functioning-hospital-sources-say

The new information adds to a body of evidence that the internationally run medical facility site was familiar to the U.S. military, raising questions about whether the decision to attack it violated international law.

A day before an American AC-130 gunship attacked the hospital, a senior officer in the Green Beret unit wrote in a report that U.S. forces had discussed the hospital with the country director of Doctors Without Borders — a medical charity group known by its initials in French, MSF — presumably in Kabul, according to two people who have seen the document.

The attack left a mounting death toll, now up to 30 people.

Separately, in the days before the attack, "an official in Washington" asked MSF "whether our hospital had a large group of Taliban fighters in it," Tim Shenk, a spokesman for the charity, said in an email. "We replied that this was not the case. We also stated that we were very clear with both sides to the conflict about the need to respect medical structures."

Taken together, the revelations add to the growing possibility that U.S. forces destroyed what they knew was a functioning hospital, which would be a violation of the international rules of war. The Pentagon has said Americans would never have intentionally fired on a medical facility, and it's unclear why the Green Beret unit requested the strike — and how such an attack was approved by the chain of command — on coordinates widely known to have included a hospital.

Even if the U.S. believed the Taliban was operating from the hospital, the presence of patients inside would have made an air attack on it problematic under standard U.S. rules of engagement and the international law of war.