“Unspeakable”: An MSF Nurse Recounts the Attack on MSF’s Kunduz Hospital

[Octafish]

87. Agree 100-percent. This is Year 13 in Afghanistan.

US repeatedly bombs hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan

By Thomas Gaist
World Socialist Web Site, 5 October 2015

EXCERPT...

While US military officials have tried to excuse the atrocity against the MSF hospital as “collateral damage” resulting from the targeting of Taliban fighters allegedly occupying buildings that were part of the same compound as the medical center, both MSF staff members and other witnesses have reported that there was no fighting in the hospital compound.

It appears far more likely that the attacks were intentionally ordered by officers with the US-led force, in order to send the message that medical personnel suspected of giving treatment to anyone opposing the US military are acceptable “collateral damage” or even legitimate targets.

US authorities have been aware of the exact location of the facility for years, MSF operations chief Bart Janssens told Al Jazeera. The precise coordinates of the hospital were re-confirmed with US military representatives as recently as September 29, according to MSF spokesperson Vickie Hawkins.

It cannot be ruled out that the hospital was destroyed deliberately by officers emboldened by aggressive new rules of engagement laid out in the 1,000-plus page US Defense Department Law of War Manual (LOWM) released by the Pentagon earlier this year, which authorize US commanders to attack civilian infrastructure and populations based on their own calculations of “military necessity.”
Among countless sweeping authorizations for use of military force, the LOWM contains expanded authority for US commanders to attack targets despite the presence of “human shields.”

So broad are the LOWM’s authorizations for “Conduct of Hostilities” that, even if it were conclusively shown that US commanders deliberately targeted the hospital, the US military could easily interpret the intentional destruction of the Kunduz hospital as “legal,” so long as the responsible commanders testify that they assessed the operations to be “militarily necessary” at the time.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/05/afgh-o05.html

I think the officers thought they wouldn't get caught. And if they were found out, no one would hold them to account.