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.”
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