Excerpt:
"More than a dozen U.S. military personnel have been disciplined — but face no criminal charges — for mistakes that led to the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital that killed 42 people in Afghanistan last year, U.S. defense officials say.
The punishments, which have not been publicly announced, are largely administrative. But in some cases the actions, such as letters of reprimand, are tough enough to effectively end chances for further promotion. The military has previously said some personnel were suspended from their duties but has given no further details.
The disciplined include both officers and enlisted personnel, but officials said none are generals.
...The hospital, run by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders in the northern city of Kunduz, was attacked by a U.S. Air Force special operations AC-130 gunship, one of the most lethal in the U.S. arsenal. Doctors Without Borders called the attack "relentless and brutal" and demanded an international investigation, but none has been undertaken.
Army Gen. John Campbell, who was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan at the time but has since relinquished command, has called it a "tragic but avoidable accident caused primarily by human error."
...Afghan officials claimed the hospital had been overrun by the Taliban, but no evidence of that has surfaced. The hospital was destroyed and Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym, MSF, ceased operations in Kunduz."
7 comments:
Doctors without hospitals.
There are so many layers of lies and potential lies that the truth will never out or it may out and we'll never recognize it as such.
Instrument failure supposedly caused our miltitary to fire on the wrong target, identifying it by sight rather than by GPS coordinates. But maybe this is a cover for firing on the correct target but no one wants to explain why it was the correct target because that might compromise secrets. The Afghan military says the hospital had been overrun by Taliban (which shortly thereafter took over the city) but the report says there is no evidence of this. The report could be lying to cover for failure to keep the city secure, or there could in fact be no evidence for the Afghan military's charge; they may be covering their own butts. After all, there is a reference to the takeover coming as a surprise even to the Taliban who apparently just walked into the city jail and took it over, the police leaving of their own accord. Afghan honesty and bravery in defense of anything outside of tribe being what it is.
Lies, lies, and more lies.
It's a fine kettle of fish. Er, I mean:
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
and the women come out to cut up what remains,
jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
and go to your gawd like a soldier.
@ rh: zing!
Amartel pretty much sums it up. These things are like layers of an onion. The more one peals the more variables are exposed. In Vietnam we always had to double-check before putting in an airstrike because often the village chief (the
sitting in the potential tgt area) had been feuding with the District chief over taxes and the Dist Chief was using the good ole USAF to eliminate his political opposition. And then as is the case here, when things went south the aircrews would be left holding the bag with careers ruined.
a "tragic but avoidable accident caused primarily by human error."
As opposed to the terrorists who purposefully create horror without regard to human error. I'm sick of Americans throwing their own under a bus for shit like this.
I suppose it's possible that some pro Taliban agent painted this as a target in order to manufacture an atrocity. It's also possible that due diligence was not done by those responsible. There are lots of possibilities. I see no reason to question the integrity of the people who investigated the incident. Their verdict seems reasonable.......Anyone who enters a war zone is taking a risk. I respect the courage and decency of the Doctors Without Borders people, and I hope their sense of decency precludes overwrought criticism of the American military. Their criticism of America should be considerably less than that directed against the Talban.
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