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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Pentagon Shouldn’t Get to Absolve Itself for Bombing a Hospital
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/05/03/pentagon-shouldnt-get-absolve-itself-bombing-hospitalThe Pentagon just made it official: No war crime was committed when a U.S. plane attacked the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan last year, killing 42 patients and health workers and injuring many more.
At least, thats the conclusion of its own investigation nearly all of which remains classified.
No war crime, says the Pentagon.
The 16 military personnel involved all will face some kind of administrative consequence, but none of them will be court-martialed. The 16 do not, apparently, include the top strategists of the U.S. war in Afghanistan nor anyone responsible for creating or approving the system for responding to desperate calls from civilians being slaughtered by U.S. warplanes. Nor anyone whose job it is to be sure that the U.S. military doesnt violate the Geneva Conventions prohibitions on things like attacking hospitals.
We dont know for sure, because the vast majority of the official report on the Kunduz hospital assault was redacted blacked out so no one without top security clearance could read even the Pentagons own assessment of what happened. Apparently Congress, the press, and the public are all supposed to be satisfied with the explanation that the cause was a combination of human errors, compounded by process and equipment failures. The official write-up adds that fatigue and high operational tempo also contributed to the fog of war that old standby for excusing large-scale attacks on civilians.
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The Pentagon Shouldn’t Get to Absolve Itself for Bombing a Hospital (Original Post)
eridani
May 2016
OP
How do they live with themselves after killing innocent people - healthcare workers...
ChisolmTrailDem
May 2016
#3
The Pentagon has long been in the habit of absolving itself for bombing hospitals, nt
bemildred
May 2016
#7
FlatBaroque
(3,160 posts)1. Is there not some way that Russia can be blamed?
Fuck this shit. We are now Israel.
Response to eridani (Original post)
Lurks Often This message was self-deleted by its author.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)3. How do they live with themselves after killing innocent people - healthcare workers...
...for God's sake!
Their attitude: "Oh well, sucks to be them!"
cali
(114,904 posts)4. Absolutely. It was clearly a war crime
Octafish
(55,745 posts)5. It's like Terrorism.
It's not Terrorism when friends of Poppy Bush do it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027245314
Same goes for War Crimes.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)6. "Fatigue and high operational tempo"
The excuse of an adolescent who got ambushed playing Halo.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)7. The Pentagon has long been in the habit of absolving itself for bombing hospitals, nt
Javaman
(62,515 posts)8. welcome to empire. nt
malaise
(268,903 posts)9. Judge, Jury and Executioner
imperialism on steroids.
It was a war crime - just collateral damage