Thursday, November 26, 2015

So sorry...but

The US military which refused independent investigation of the attack upon an Afghan hospital , "investigates" itself, and finds it was all just a dreadful mistake. We, the Pentagon Jury, find ourselves NOT GUILTY of deliberately targeting a MSF hospital. 

No surprise there then, is there?

A few low-level military personnel get a good finger-wagging and their wrists slapped and the mainstream media accepts, without question, the same old cliches:
'human error'
'Mistakes were made'
'Fog of War'
'Collateral damage'
'We're good, they're evil'

It is, of course, better to be viewed as a bit incompetent than to be seen as committing a war crime.

MSF gave a lukewarm reception to the findings. Christopher Stokes, its general director, said: “The US version of events presented today leaves MSF with more questions than answers. It is shocking that an attack can be carried out when US forces have neither eyes on a target nor access to a no-strike list, and have malfunctioning communications systems. Kunduz hospital patients 'burned in beds … even wars have rules', says MSF chief  “It appears that 30 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of people are denied life-saving care in Kunduz simply because the MSF hospital was the closest large building to an open field and ‘roughly matched’ a description of an intended target.” He added: “The frightening catalogue of errors outlined today illustrates gross negligence on the part of US forces and violations of the rules of war. The destruction of a protected facility without verifying the target – in this case a functioning hospital full of medical staff and patients – cannot only be dismissed as individual human error or breaches of the US rules of engagement. MSF reiterates its call for an independent and impartial investigation into the attack on our hospital in Kunduz. Investigations of this incident cannot be left solely to parties to the conflict in Afghanistan.”

No comments: