Afghanistan: US Airstrike Hits Kunduz Hospital

[My Wife Hates CIV]

when you bomb as much as the US does... this is going to happen. it was a mistake.

[Sava]

Yes, if it was "just" incompetence it may not be a war crime.
But one would assume that the US military has procedures for servicemen who, with gross incompetent/unprofessional behavior, endanger human lives (or lead to their destruction).

One similar incident that comes into my mind would be Iranian Air flight 655 in 1988 (which was shot down by a US missile cruiser after being mistaken for an attacking Jetplane)
(with the notable difference that the incompetence of the people involved in the Kunduz Hospital case is even more striking than the incompetence of the ships crew in the iranian airplane incident)

if there is an accusation of anything more than incompetence, it needs to be met with evidence

I've seen zero evidence to suggest this was a war crime.

I've seen a lot of evidence suggesting this was a mistake... initiated by Afghan forces. The case you make about examining the different levels of command and responsibility only reinforces that.

Negligence isn't a war crime. Ineffective command structure is not a war crime.

Iranian Air flight 655

also not a war crime

[Bereta_Eder]

I wonder what the muricans are doing down there?

just cultivating more sradicalised suicide bombers?
Let's say all of afganistan is now bin laden (actually that's probably the case)

so they keep bombing, creating bad blood that will come back to bite them.

(I know it's indifferent to me but I have some time to kill)

[Sava]

so they keep bombing, creating bad blood

true

that will come back to bite them.

probably not in the form in an attack worse than what we've already experienced

[My Wife Hates CIV]

dang, SAVA is making sense! it could just be because I have not a drink yet today.

[Proteus_MST]

if there is an accusation of anything more than incompetence, it needs to be met with evidence

I've seen zero evidence to suggest this was a war crime.

Negligence isn't a war crime.


also not a war crime

I don´t claim it is a war crime (at least not if it was de facto negligience)
I just want that the incompetence of the service men who were responsible for the Kunduz hospital incident gets punished ... and not rewarded or brushed under the carpet (which obviously was the case with regards to the air warfare coordinator who was involved in the shooting down of iranian air 655)

[kentonio]

sadly, the geneva convention doesn't say "no collateral damage"

Yes it does, in fact it's extremely specific about it. Stop being a ******.

Negligence isn't a war crime. Ineffective command structure is not a war crime.

Both of those things can be war crimes for ****s sake. If you are told a location is a hospital and you bomb it anyway because no-one bothered to listen to the people who told you it was a hospital, then that's still a ****ing war crime. Or maybe the nazis should have just said 'well yeah, we gassed a lot of Jews, but hey it was just a mixup due to negligence and our ineffective command structure'.

[Sava]

I don´t claim it is a war crime

Then you are on the correct side of the facts.

I just want that the incompetence of the service men who were responsible for the Kunduz hospital incident gets punished ... and not rewarded (which obviously was the case with regards to the air warfare coordinator who was involved in the shooting down of iranian air 655)

Me too.

and thank you for finding an example for me

[Sava]

Yes it does, in fact it's extremely specific about it.

quote it

quote the exact ****ing language

[Sava]

Both of those things can be war crimes for ****s sake.

Sure. They CAN be. If countries get together and sign a treaty saying it is.

But they haven't. And your understanding of international law with regards to war crimes is piss poor.

[kentonio]

quote it

quote the exact ****ing language

Article 51(5)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I prohibits
an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Or the US Air Force's own rules..

The US Air Force Pamphlet (1976) states:
Those who plan or decide upon an attack must refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated

Feel free to explain how blowing up/burning 22 people to death including 3 children and 12 Médecins Sans Frontières staff was 'proportional' to the military threat. The threat which MDF say didn't actually exist. Or to use their own words..

"Their [U.S.] description of the attack keeps changing -- from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government...There can be no justification for this horrible attack.

[Apocalypse]

The geneva conventions are valid for the military of the signatories countries ... they are AFAIK not valid for the police forces of the countries.
Which should be no surprise, because police forces don´t use measures that are as destructive as MGs, Artillery or bombing runs

I would make the same argument if it were the Afghan army or US army. Their title of police isn't my argument. The US army was not targeting the hospital, they are targeting hostile forces. Military forces are allowed to use self-defense.

I really don't know what happened but here are some different things which could affect who is responsible. Coordinates are not really an issue because it was not a bombing. The AC-130 was used and it uses direct fire weapons. They have bombs but typically don't use them in cities. Why I brought up the direct fire weapons is that they can see things on the ground very well with the optics.

The Afghan security forces have previously raided this hospital before to arrest insurgents. They may have just lied being under attack, or the location of the attackers to get the hospital out of the way. They talked to US Special Operations forces about the location of the fighting who then relayed to the AC-130. We don't really know how that was relayed but it can be done by coordinates but based on the Afghan's ability to relay things I wouldn't be surprised if they just directed stated the hospital because it would be the easiest and quickest way to get support, especially if they were actually under attack. The Afghans could have also been under fire, given their general area to US SOF, and then the AC-130, after identifying friendly Afghan security forces, targeted the people the security forces were engaging. Even if they were under attack from fighters in the hospital, they still could have instigated things.



That's photos of the area. The AC-130 should be able to clearly identify targets. If there was fighting outside, and the building got hit accidentally, then neither the US nor Afghans were at fault.

If the Afghan security forces gave one location, and it wasn't clearly relayed to the AC-130, then it's really on the US.

If the Afghan security forces lied about the attack, and said they were getting shot at from inside the building, then it would likely be on the Afghan security forces but also us for trusting people who sometimes rape little kids.

[NICE MOBIUS]

‘an admission of a war crime’

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 said the US and Afghanistan and 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.

Usually when you change your story four times in four days, you're hiding something...

Or it's an admission that the those in control of the operations are so incompetent they have no clue whatsoever what was going on.I imagine it's likely a combination of both - given that it happened despite a 'rigorous US procedure'.

[NICE MOBIUS]

I would make the same argument if it were the Afghan army or US army. Their title of police isn't my argument. The US army was not targeting the hospital, they are targeting hostile forces. Military forces are allowed to use self-defense.

I really don't know what happened but here are some different things which could affect who is responsible. Coordinates are not really an issue because it was not a bombing. The AC-130 was used and it uses direct fire weapons. They have bombs but typically don't use them in cities. Why I brought up the direct fire weapons is that they can see things on the ground very well with the optics.

The Afghan security forces have previously raided this hospital before to arrest insurgents. They may have just lied being under attack, or the location of the attackers to get the hospital out of the way. They talked to US Special Operations forces about the location of the fighting who then relayed to the AC-130. We don't really know how that was relayed but it can be done by coordinates but based on the Afghan's ability to relay things I wouldn't be surprised if they just directed stated the hospital because it would be the easiest and quickest way to get support, especially if they were actually under attack. The Afghans could have also been under fire, given their general area to US SOF, and then the AC-130, after identifying friendly Afghan security forces, targeted the people the security forces were engaging. Even if they were under attack from fighters in the hospital, they still could have instigated things.

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That's photos of the area. The AC-130 should be able to clearly identify targets. If there was fighting outside, and the building got hit accidentally, then neither the US nor Afghans were at fault.

If the Afghan security forces gave one location, and it wasn't clearly relayed to the AC-130, then it's really on the US.

If the Afghan security forces lied about the attack, and said they were getting shot at from inside the building, then it would likely be on the Afghan security forces but also us for trusting people who sometimes rape little kids.

You don't hit something 'accidentally' for an ongoing period of 30 minutes.

[Apocalypse]

‘an admission of a war crime’



Usually when you change your story four times in four days, you're hiding something...

Or it's an admission that the those in control of the operations are so incompetent they have no clue whatsoever what was going on.I imagine it's likely a combination of both - given that it happened despite a 'rigorous US procedure'.

They never said the Afghan security forces directly talked to the AC-130 in the first place. That wasn't the change.