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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.
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.
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.
Oh, and to correct:
No, they actually said:
The deletion of "in Kunduz" was clearly done to make it sound like the US kept hitting the hospital again and again; there is no other reason someone would have removed that from the sentence.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
It is.
And they do precisely what they say they'll do. They blow up the exact building the airmen intended to blow up.
The problem in this case is the Afghan police told the Air Force they were taking fire from the MSF hospital, and they needed it to be leveled. Since the Taliban controlled the entire fucking city, including the hospital, a whole yesterday, the Air Force didn't bother to check the pre-Taliban-list of targets you shouldn't level in Kunduz.
The Afghan Police are still swearing up and down they were being attacked from the hospital, MSF speculates this whole fiasco is revenge for MSF's "treat anyone, even Taliban" policy, and I doubt the US Government will make a determination over whether the raid was justified until they can prove conclusively whether the Afghan Police are making shit up. Which will be somewhat difficult, given that said police specifically asked for most of the evidence to be destroyed.
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.
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.
MSF/Doctors Without Borders has been adamant there were no Taliban shooting from the hospital, and MSF has a lot more credibility (they're comparable to Red Cross) than the Afghan police that reported this as supposedly a fire base. Not to mention that the police have a clear revenge motive against MSF, as they are known to have long been complaining that MSF treats patients from all sides, including the Taliban, indiscriminately.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."