Slashdot Mirror


US Bombs Hit Doctors Without Borders Hospital

Prune writes: According to multiple news sources, U.S. airstrikes partially destroyed a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan, killing at least nine staff members and at least 50 overall, including patients, and this after giving its coordinates to U.S. forces multiple times. I'm especially saddened to report this given I had become one of the supporters of this charity after recommendations from Slashdot members in a discussion about choosing charities to donate to a while back.

19 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. This was not a screw-up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    not after having been made aware of their coordinates and location several times. Someone ordered this strike, believing there were "terrorists" treated at that facility, knowing very well it was a hospital and what the result would be, and giving no damn about it because they can get away with it. This is worse than all the other killings commited by U.S forces abroad, and people and governments must take a stand, or killings and murders like these will just continue.

    1. Re:This was not a screw-up by Rei · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This was not a screw-up not after having been made aware of their coordinates and location several times. Someone ordered this strike

      Right, because if there's anything that describes the US military brass, it's "relentlessly competent"?

      The US dropped 1600 bombs just in March of this year just against Daesh. If you expect 100% perfection out of tens of thousands of strikes from ~10 kilometers altitude using intelligence data gathered from tens of thousands of sources, you have a few screws loose on your beliefs of what is realistically achievable.

      --
      The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
    2. Re:This was not a screw-up by Njorthbiatr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah we have to take a stand and pull out so the taliban can intentionally target hospitals.

    3. Re:This was not a screw-up by websitebroke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I certainly don't expect 100% perfection when bombing anything, which is why I always call bullshit when our politicians say we'll use "smart" bombs or "surgical air strikes" when trying to justify attacking someone.

      Reference: every military action we've taken in my entire lifetime.

    4. Re:This was not a screw-up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Well, VW cheats on emission testing and it's a company-wide conspiracy. The US airforce bombs a hospital, killing many doctors and patients, and it probably was just a simple mistake.

    5. Re:This was not a screw-up by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not hitting a target is quite different from specifically hitting a target that they shouldn't. But you're right there's a lot of data to process and people make mistakes. So why was a human in the loop at all? Why isn't there a zone defined in a computer system that throws up an error when someone who's lost track of the war they are fighting punches in the wrong number?

      We should be expecting 100% and we should be striving for it, and not making excuses.

    6. Re:This was not a screw-up by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Do we even know at this point that it was approved? I see four potential points of failure here:

      1) Information about the hospital not relayed to those in charge of making the target decision(s)
      2) Those making the target decision(s) not noticing or deliberately ignoring the information
      3) The aircrew having a different target but mistakenly or deliberately targeting the hospital
      4) The aircrew targeting a different target but the bomb going off course.

      #1 and #2 can be applied repeatedly on each stage of communication. Malice is possible in #2 and #3, and technically #1 although that would be an unlikely spot for malice. All possibilities have non-malicious routes, and it would be highly unrealistic for #4 to be malice.

      --
      The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
    7. Re:This was not a screw-up by MacDork · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1600 bombs ... tens of thousands of strikes

      Stopped reading. Bullshit detector went off. Questionable math. Lacking citation.

    8. Re:This was not a screw-up by west · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed, the dishonesty is approving this bombing without stating UPFRONT that innocent men, women and children *will* die.

      If we are not willing to acknowledge this before the first shot is fired - absolutely accept that by approving military action, we WILL be responsible for killing innocents - then we have no business approving the action in the first place.

      Military action must only take place when the we feel the evil that comes from NOT doing the action outweighs *certainty* that we are directly killing innocents.

      Anyone not willing to take *personal* responsibility for those lives when they approved the order should be removed from office or command.

    9. Re:This was not a screw-up by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All I know is that I lack enough information to have an informed opinion, as do 99.9% of the people posting about it.

      Clearly something went wrong, either intentionally or by mistake.

      It sucks, but frankly that is war. It makes the news, barely, and then life goes on. The sad thing is that most people care, but not enough to do anything about it.

    10. Re:This was not a screw-up by anmre · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Backwards from your perspective.

      It was Saudi nationals who attacked us over 14 years ago, not Afghani's. Bin Laden was found in a house in Pakistan over 4 years ago, not a mountain in Afghanistan yesterday. So I ask again, why do we still drop bombs on Afghani civilians? You're bringing up 9/11 like it just happened. It was 14 years ago. Over 2300 U.S. troops dead and over 22,000 U.S. troops wounded. Many thousands more dead and wounded Afghani civilians (children) caught in the middle.

      We do have a moral reason to leave -- hospital patients are being bombed by American forces. Just think about that for a moment. Accident or no, if it were an American hospital that was hit, it would not be called "collateral damage" and you would be outraged. And of course, incidents like these make Daesh, et al., stronger not weaker. Backwards thinking indeed.

  2. Re:Airstrikes on population centers by Rei · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But not when Assad or Putin does it you say?

    You're really telling me that you see no difference between laser guided bomb strikes that occasionally go wrong and mass-produced $200 barrel bombs rolled out of helicopters to turn cities of millions of people into this?

    Yeah, totally the same thing.

    As for Russia's involvement in Syria, I don't think anyone is objecting to the fact that they're bombing. It's the fact that rather than bombing Daesh, they're bombing groups opposed to Daesh, in order to prop up the failing government of the aforementioned guy flattening cities with mass-produced $200 barrel bombs. As well as having sent large amounts of equipment with absolutely no bearing to Daesh (or any rebel group really), such as advanced air defense systems and air superiority fighters carrying air-to-air missiles. People's problem with Russia's actions are not that they're taking part in military activity, but what side they're taking part on behalf of.

    --
    The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
  3. Re: Liberals by thej1nx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Here is a prime example of your "foreign policy"

    You idiots are the one who financed the Taliban, Osama bin-laden, and this brought upon 911 on yourself, and indirectly causing the rise of ISIS. The bottom half of this 1998 interview is the proof of that.

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/a...

  4. Re:Yeah, and? by ledow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ignorant fuck.

    Bombing a hospital, even by mistake (which is hard if you've been told where it is), is very nearly an act of war in itself.

    Even if you live in a country that's too fucking thick to sign up to the Geneva convention on humane treatment, you have to be a really stupid fucker to hit a hospital full of allied and even US-based doctors trying to heal the sick, injured and dying.

    It's like shooting at the red cross. There's a reason that even special forces will not abuse the privileges provided by masquerading as red cross personnel.

    Get your head out of your arse, and realise that your country just DELIBERATELY bombed a fucking hospital full of friendlies that they were told was there.

    The sick and injured are not a threat to a military superpower.

  5. Re:Military 'service' nothing but paid murder. by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Having a general blanket statement like that and suggesting it be considered insightful based on one individual is a bit like claiming all Jews are swindlers and pointing to Bernie Madoff in defense of the statement. I'm sure other examples could be made as well that you would find disgusting.

  6. Re: Liberals by bigfinger76 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I believe you're mistaken in referencing Iraq. This incident happened in Afghanistan.

  7. Re:Airstrikes on population centers by Rei · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What do you mean "both sides"? There's several dozen different major militias, which really if anything fall into three "sides": Assad, Daesh (what you call ISIS), and a loose, sometimes self-sniping (but decreasingly so) alliance of kurds, secular arabs (the nominal FSA), and islamists. All three sides oppose each other.

    Russia supports Assad, the party recognized by the UN and human rights groups as responsible for the lion's share of the war deaths and over 10k tortured to death in its intelligence centers. However, it's doing this not by opposing the opposition uniformly, but by heavily focusing on non-Daesh entities. If successful, this would leave a conflict between Assad and Daesh, wherein the west would basically be forced to accept Assad. Iran and Hezbollah are Russia's copatriots in this.

    The US and the Gulf states support the non-Daesh forces. The US strongly supports the FSA, would support the Kurds if not for how it would cost them Turkey's support, and is willing to overlook the islamists so long as they continue along their path of denouncing anti-western activity. The Gulf states by contrast have largely been supporting the Islamist militias - Saudi Arabia in particular focusing on Ahrar ash-Sham, while Qatar seems to be in bed with al-Nusra.

    Israel wants Assad and Daesh gone, and seems content at sniping at either of them within the Golan Heights, but doesn't seem to want to take a larger, riskier role.

    The strategies used by the US and the Gulf states are similar in regards to Daesh: A continuous but restrained bombing campaign. Both the US and the Gulf states take part in this. The arming strategies have somewhat differed, however, and not simply in regards to what groups are the beneficiaries. The US has been very hesitant to deploy weapons to Syria, waiting three years starting and not giving anything heavier than a TOW. The strongest focus has been on coordinating small numbers of FSA members to operate as effective US ground spotters against Daesh. It's not gone very well. Providing intelligence has proven more useful, and the weaponry, although limited, has allowed for more effective operations in certain fronts, such as Idlib. The Gulf states however have focused more on money and arms to their groups, and started it early. The early successes of the islamist militias while the FSA was flailing led to many waves of desertion, turning it from the largest opposition group to at its lowpoint nearly a running joke.

    Turkey has proven willing to support taking on Daesh although uses the opportunity to snipe at the Kurds. Turkey's policy of chasing back Syrian planes who even approach their border has created an effective narrow no-fly zone in Syria's north, which militias on the ground have taken advantage of. With Russia's involvement now, however, it's questionable whether Syria will be able to continue that policy, out of fear of hitting Russian jets.

    Everyone has their own endgames in mind.

    In Russia's and Iran's, the conflict turns into "Assad vs. Daesh", the west reluctantly agrees to accept Assad, wipes out Daesh, and their only Mediterranean ally remains in power. They know he'll probably undertake some serious purges over the next several years while trying to wipe out any vestiges of opposition remaining. Their media will happily not report it.

    In the US's and Israel's preferred scenarios, the secular/kurdish/islamist coalition wipes out both Assad and Daesh, with their help on the latter. Each ends up with regions under their control. The goal would be a Lebanon-style power sharing agreement. A more realistic expectation would be a Libya-style post-dictator power vacuum with random sniping militias. Those who support this view that as a vastly better improvement than the current situation or an Assad re-conquest.

    In the Gulf states view, they really could care less whether the post-Assad, post-Daesh environment would be a Lebanon-style arrangement or simply another dictator, this time not allied with Iran against them. They'd be quite

    --
    The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
  8. Re:Yeah, and? by sumdumass · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why don't you get real. The hospital is in a territory recently taken over by the Taliban and the air strikes were called in by afghan police who claimed they were taking fire from the building.

    Given the history of the Taliban killing people from the west, what indication is there that this was still only a hospital and that these allied people were still alive and free at the time the air strike was called in? You do understand that when an enemy army takes over a city, that city is now behind enemy lines. What you know or thought you knew about it may or may not be even close to correct anymore because it is controlled by the enemy.

  9. Re: Liberals by Sique · · Score: 3, Insightful
    In Afghanistan, there are nearly no Arabs. It's inhabited by Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara, Aimaqs and other ethnic groups, none of them is Arab or speaks a semitic language.

    Maybe it's time to actually inform yourself about Afghanistan before making such bold statements?

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*