US Bombs Hit Doctors Without Borders Hospital 410
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.
This was not a screw-up (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.
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, 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.
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, Funny)
surgical air strikes
I think you could have chosen a better phrase here.
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, 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.
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I agree. I would also add that if a belligerent (such as the U.S.) is not willing to sacrifice the lives of its own troops and civilians, then it has no moral justification for engaging in unilateral warfare.
In short, what the fuck are we fighting for?
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In short, what the fuck are we fighting for?
Profits of corporations, protection of the first world banking system, the military industrial complex...
You're on slashdot, you should know that...
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I would also add that if a belligerent (such as the U.S.) is not willing to sacrifice the lives of its own troops and civilians, then it has no moral justification for engaging in unilateral warfare.
I'm going to ask why you think that.
If we take other decisions that will kill innocents for what we consider greater goals (for example, mandatory vaccinations, which kill a handful to save millions), we don't demand that the decision makers up their personal stake.
I certainly agree that having a stake in terms
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I mean to say that there is clearly no real threat to the U.S. if:
a) the enemy is unsophisticated enough to seek shelter among civilians
b) it faces no domestic or international reprisals for bombing hospitals where it suspects those enemies might be (accidentally or otherwise)
We (the U.S.) have no moral justification for being in Afghanistan. I use the word "moral" because I suspect that the only reason we are there is because of money and/or international politics. Civilians are dying in horrific ways an
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, 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.
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Dude why are you so angry? Have a beer and chill out.
I'm not really angry, but I do not suffer fools gladly.
And, IMO, if you're in a debate on morality on the internet, and your response to "but if we do what you say 37,000 innocent people will die every year forever" is to say "chill out" you're a fool.
I don't think you understand the meaning of the term morality.
As this Kunduz debacle proves, it would be virtually impossible for a US-Air Force-free Afghanistan to keep the Taliban from taking over.
Obviously, the Taliban IS taking over. 14 years of bombing runs haven't prevented it. So, your suggestion is to keep bombing cities? It doesn't work.
You got another solution?
One that doesn't invo
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I'll be satisfied the first time I hear a politician who approves military action say that "I personally accept that my decision to approve this action will kill innocent men, women and children. This is a price that I am willing to pay for this action."
I have yet to hear a politician acknowledging the lives it will cost *in advance* and then approving it anyway. This isn't a "oh, a terrible mistake has happened." This is "we know what the costs are, and we're willing to pay them." If you can't publicly
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep in mind military terminology is really old. Way older then you.
They're surgical strikes, and smart bombs, compared to ones we used in the last big war against the Nazis. Both us (against the Japanese), and the Brits (against Germany) used night bombing campaigns to avoid enemy air defenses, and had to work their tails off to make sure they hit the intended city. Avoiding specific buildings was simply not possible. Day-bombing raids (used by us against the Germans), was better [wikipedia.org], but would still have been unable to avoid leveling the hospital if used against a built-up area:
As U.S. participation in the war started, the USAAF drew up widespread and comprehensive bombing plans based on the Norden. They believed the B-17 had a 1.2% probability of hitting a 30 metres (100 ft) target from 6,100 metres (20,000 ft), meaning that 220 bombers would be needed for a 93% probability of one or more hits. This was not considered a problem, and the AAF forecast the need for 251 combat groups to provide enough bombers to fulfill their comprehensive pre-war plans.[21] The bombsight was used for first time in March 1943.[29]
For all it's sins, the military we've got uses significantly less brutal solutions then were possible in any previous generation. It's not their fault that Presidents much prefer airstrikes (which have large civilian casualty-numbers if they go wrong) to special forces-ops (which can turn low casualty operations [wikipedia.org] into political disasters because we really liked those 18 guys).
In this case it doesn't seem like a US Military internal fuck-up at all. It seems like some embittered Afghan police officer sent in the coordinates of the hospital on purpose because MSF treats Taliban [slate.com] casualties. The Afghan Police concerned are still swearing up and down they were taking fire from the building.
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The Afghan Police concerned are still swearing up and down they were taking fire from the building.
Maybe they were... it wouldn't the first time that an enemy used a hospital or other "off limits" location to fight from.
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, 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.
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Amputation is a surgery as well.
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I used to feel the same, until I visited Belgrade. The Ministry of Defence building was hit by three bombs, each of which penetrated about 4 floors and then exploded. Damage to adjacent buildings (i.e. within 20-50 metres of the blast) was limited to broken windows and surface chips and abrasions. I saw another dozen or so buildings—quite pointedly left unrepaired during negotiations to enter the EU—all around downtown Belgrade that were the same.
Likewise Slobodan Milosevic's residence in a nearby suburb, located where all the diplomatic compounds were. You pass by row upon row of pretty 18th and 19th Century houses, each on a nicely tended plot of land, then there's a gap where Milosevic's house used to be, then another house, and another.
After this, I changed my estimation of how precision such bombing efforts could be....
... And then... I found out that they left all the really precision attacks to the French, because the Americans had a reputation for missing. :-)
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Newsflash. If you don't create problems for yourself in the first place, there will be no need for imperfect solutions.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/a... [globalresearch.ca]
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...The Doctors Without Borders people know that they are putting themselves at risk. They knew...
A big question here is whether this hospital targeting was an accident, or was it deliberate. And if it were a deliberate attack, was it because undesirables were known to be at the location, or was it simply a message the military was sending to organizations that indiscriminately help the wounded.
The US military will now investigate itself and conclude it was an accident.
Re:This was not a screw-up (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.
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The military always resists efforts to make things safer. It's partly offence at the suggestion that they might screw up or go rogue, and partly the old "safety only stops me using weapons when I need them" argument that is often made about gun safety devices by civilians.
Not just the US military either, of course. The British Royal Navy refused to have codes relayed from land for launching nuclear ICBMs from submarines, due to offence taken at the suggestion that their captains could not be trusted or migh
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:4, Informative)
The system the Royal Navy uses to come to a decision as to whether to launch or not is purely cost based - our nuclear deterrent launch authority is independent to that of the US, so we cant use their infrastructure to issue launch authority as that may be denied to us on occasion. Since replacing that infrastructure is a big and costly venture, unjustifiable for the two submarines that are on armed patrol, we use a simpler system.
As we havent had an issue yet, I'd say its perfectly adequate...
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We have our own submarine communication network, and the normal plan for using nuclear weapons is for us to use that communication channel along with an authentication code to tell the submarine commander to launch. In fact we had to set the arming codes on the US made missiles to 0000 or some equivalent, since we didn't want to use them.
The stated reason for this is so that in the event that the UK is completely annihilated before the order can be given, our submarines can retaliate anyway. The real reason
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We do not have a deep submergence communication system, only a system which requires the patrol subs to be at a given depth to be able to receive a communication at a set time during their patrol.
Without a method to contact the subs at depth, we have no ability to authorise a launch on demand so instead we use a beacon system - if the sub doesnt detect a transmission at the predetermined time, and they also dont detect several other 24/7 transmissions, then the Captain opens a letter the PM has issued the R
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The US doesn't have a deep ULF system either, they shut it down years ago. They, and the UK, use VLF. It doesn't seem to be an issue for the US.
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That's what imperialists tell themselves when their bombs kill a bunch of innocent people. And they never play by their own rules - Israel bombs buildings all over Gaza, with the excuse that they are being used by Hamas for military purposes, yet puts their own military headquarters smack in the middle of Tel Aviv.
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And yet, you know exactly where it is. It is not used for civilian purposes.
I realize you are trying to make the two sound the same, but they really are nothing alike. Placing a distinctly military base in some proximity to civilians is not the same as using some poor shmoe's house as a weapon storage, and then instructing him and his family at gun point not to leave, even when the IDF is phoning in telling them they are about to bomb
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, Insightful)
1600 bombs ... tens of thousands of strikes
Stopped reading. Bullshit detector went off. Questionable math. Lacking citation.
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Yeah we have to take a stand and pull out so the taliban can intentionally target hospitals.
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who used to work in close air support, I just can't wrap my mind around how such a target could get approved. Places like hospitals are the main reason we have Fire Support Control Measures such as Restrictive Fire Areas and No Fire Areas. Intel pushes sensitive areas to the aviation planners and they get included in the Airspace Control Order or SPINS (Special Instructions). Then they get plotted on all the maps so the air controllers know where to deny requests for Air Support (no you can't drop a bomb there, that's inside grid xxxx). What a cluster-F.....
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:5, 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.
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Well #3 and #4 are out because the hospital was bombed for an hour and a half. MSF repeatedly told everyone in the area where they were located. And even when they told the US that they were bombing MSF it took a half hour to stop. There is no excuse for this.
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Because several planes flew expensive missions and dropped expensive bombs on it at intervals - PFC Pyle can't sign off on something like that.
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It's interesting how willing you are to declare people murderers without actually knowing the chain of events that led up to the case.
This is a window into your character and what is revealed is disturbing, to say the least.
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Or you could try, you know, not being a bloodthirsty imperialist? You out yourself when you repeatedly excuse U.S. bombing while at the same time repeating the dumbfuckery of "barrel bombs." There would be no war in Syria if your fellow bloodthirsty imperialists weren't arming, funding and training foreign fighters to attack Assad, who was targeted for regime change before
100% accuracy: EVERY bomb hits the ground. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This was not a screw-up (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in the 1990's, the US accidentally dropped a bomb on the Chinese embassy in Serbia. It was widely dismissed as a targetting error. Fast forward a couple of uears and I am young platoon leader. My platoon sergeant had been a general's driver during the Kosovo conflict and claimed to have been in the room when they decided to bomb the embassy. The reason was that the Chinese had purchased sensitive parts of the F-117 that the Serbs brought down andvwere storing them in the embassy untill they could get them out.
At the time I thought the story was just bravado. Then I heard the same story from a Major who had been on staff. I personally never saw anything like this while I was in, but I was neither elite nor in any high up staff offices. However, from what I know of US infantry culture I am pretty sure that it would not take a lot for a hospital to be targetted. I also would not put it past the Taliban to use a hospital as a shield. The BBC is already reporting that there were 10-15 Taliban in the hospital. If they were using it effectively as a lynch pin or if somebody of high enough position was there, I don't doubt for a second that the US would have dropped fire on it.
Whether something like that happened or not... I'll be dead before we know.
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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.
I'm guessing they were told they did abortions at that hospital.
Airstrikes on population centers (Score:4, Interesting)
Airstrikes on population centres cause civilian casualties you say? The cost of sending in soldiers instead is too high, justifying the cost of the collateral damage you say? But not when Assad or Putin does it you say?
""The bombing continued for more than 30 minutes after American and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington were first informed,” the organization said in a statement."
I guess the difference is the level competence and precision.
Re:Airstrikes on population centers (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [google.is]?
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.
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As opposed to the USA, which is fighting ISIS (one of Assad's enemies) as well as Assad (one of ISIS' enemies). So we're on BOTH sides of a civil war in Syria.
Note, by the by, that helping Assad against ISIS allows Assad to use more of his own troops against, say, the Kurds, who are our nominal allies in the region.
So, we're helping Assad fight some of his enemies, while helping some of his enemies fight Assad....
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You may say that is fantasy, but anyway, that is the US plan.
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It is fantasy...
Assad is scum, but at least he is semi-rational scum...
ISIS is insane and needs to be put to bed... Assad you can ignore, ISIS you can't...
The Russians (gasp) have it right on this one...
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Re:Airstrikes on population centers (Score:5, Informative)
ISIS, ISIS, ISIL, Islamic State... these are all "respectful" terms. They want to be referred to as the "Islamic State", as their goal is to reestablish a new caliphate.
Daesh is an acronym of their Islamic name. Acronyms are rarely used in Arabic, which has led to confusion and anger on Daesh's part. It removes the "Islamic State" part that's so important to them. And it sounds similar to a word meaning "one who crushes underfoot". Daesh threatens to kill anyone caught using that term for them, which to me is reason enough alone to use it. It's also what the local opposition to them calls them, not wanting to dignify them as a legitimate caliphate.
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Note, by the by, that helping Assad against ISIS allows Assad to use more of his own troops against, say, the Kurds, who are our nominal allies in the region.
I might be wrong, but my impression was that Assad's strongholds were in the west/southwest and the Kurds in the north with ISIS in between so they don't really have any common border to fight on. It's the other rebel groups in Syria that are taking the piss with Assad's forces on one side and ISIS on the other. And now possibly Russian death from above, they must start to feel somebody up there hates them...
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It's not that simple of an arrangement. The Kurds are indeed in the north, mainly the northeast. Assad's strongholds are in/around Damascus and among the Alawi populations on the coast (that is to say, west of the Alawiyin mountains), although he also controls many scattered pockets elsewhere, even ones touching Kurdish territory. The FSA and Al-Nusra control large chunks from the western Turkish border down to Idleb, just on the east side of the mountains, as well as many pockets elsewhere. As for Daesh...
Re:Airstrikes on population centers (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
Re:Airstrikes on population centers (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the most complete and factual analysis I have seen on Slashdot so far. What concerns me and would stop me from embracing the strategy we have chosen were I sitting in the oval office is, that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not hold up after the original enemy is gone.
Al Qaeda and its offshoots and subgroups in particular are propaganda machines. When Daesh is defeated if it ever is, we will again be the Great Satin and just like before I suspect we find ourselves faced with the training and likely weapons we have provided turned on us. Its how these leaders hold on to power. Personally I think out best bet would be to just disengage form the middle east. let Southern Europe, Russia, China, Israel and the more stable elements in North Africa contain it if they can. While politically sacrificing Iraq and Afghanistan at this point is a tough pill to swallow, in the most mercenary sense the potential payback from stabilizing those places in no way approaches the costs.
Daesh could be very useful to us in that if we left it unchecked it will likely put a great deal of strain on Iran, Russia, and eventually China will be drawn in. These are our economic rivals, its hard to imagine we don't gain from them being in a multi-trillion dollar quagmire we have been stuck in for fifteen years now. A few decades of not seeing American's dropping bombs over there might cause a refocus of some of the extra-regional terrorism objectives as well.
Personally I think our best move is to pack up and go home. No foreign aide to the region. State department imposed travel bans for Americans. Lets just watch from the satellites and see how it pans out.
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Technically Russia is supporting a recognised state - Assad is unpopular and (by all accounts) a totalitarian cunt with no respect for humanity, but he's also the recognised head of state in Syria.
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They are taking part on the side which hasn't caused the Libyan clusterfuck.
In one action the US destroyed a large part of this hospital and hopefully they did more damage to their real targets. Repeat that every day for a couple of months and a city is mostly destroyed. A barrel bomb, dropped from a relatively low attitude has pretty good precision. It's a lot cheaper than laser/gps guided munitions dropped from high altitude, but they are both still bombs. Neither are very discriminate. The amount of mone
Re:Airstrikes on population centers (Score:4, Informative)
PKK, FSA, al-Nusra, Ahrar ash-Sham, and tons of other militias are opposed to and regularly fight Daesh. They control large swaths of Syria, and have recently been making major progress in the northwest, taking over Idleb - which was almost certainly the trigger for Russia to step up its game, as they're nearing Latakia.
Check a map.
Re:Airstrikes on population centers (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and to correct:
No, they actually said [doctorswit...orders.org]:
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.
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Dude, 30 minutes is a half-hour. This is not a 5-man start-up where everybody has the authority to do everything. It is not the Starship Enterprise where you can get someone in responsibility simply by hailing the bridge. It is a 308k-airmen bureaucracy.
The guys doing the bombing are in an Air Force Squadron that reports to a Lieutenant Colonel. I doubt MSF has his number, the number of the full Colonel who commands the Wing, etc. Even if they had that number how'd they know that particular colonel was the
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So what you're saying is that during a war there is NO "Holy shit you're bombing friendlies!" protocol?
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There is a Holy Shit you're bombing friendlies protocol. But the MSF is not a friendly. It's a neutral. That's kinda the entire point, and the most likely explanation is actually that some Afghan Cop got pissed at them for being too neutral and asked for the strike out of revenge for them treating the Taliban [slate.com].
As a non-friendly, MSF does not have a guy in the theater chain-of-coimmand, with has a hotline to the guy who knows exactly which squadron to call to scrub the exact bombing raid going on in Kunduz pr
Well... (Score:4, Funny)
Bombs without borders got the date and time mixed up and there was a scheduling conflict.
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I'm confused, I thought the US was proud of its ability to make "surgical strikes".
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [slate.com], 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.
In other news (Score:4, Interesting)
Arresting people occasionally puts innocents in jail.
It's impossible to completely avoid civilian casualties in war unless you conduct absolutely no military operations whatsoever. The subtext of this is, of course, that the US should have avoided this, but how? Never go to war? That's obviously impractical.
Okay, so how about only going to war when you have a really good reason? If that's your plan, and you do approve of war as long as there is a really good reason, then (since some civilian casualties are inevitable) you've just said that you're okay with civilian casualties as long as the war is for a really good reason. Needless to say, you never see anti-war people saying this.
Being more careful in war? Well, you can be more careful, but nobody's perfect; there will always be *some* civilian casualties. So you're not really objecting to civilian casualties; you just think there are too many, but fewer but still some is okay. I've never seen anti-war people saying that either.
So what exactly should be done, other than never going to war, ever?
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Leaving aside "never going to war ever", it would be easy for the US to quit killing people in Afghanistan, especially since bin Laden and Mullah Oman have been dead for years. It's a pretty safe bet that none of the people we're fighting had anything to do with 9/11. Just leave.
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So what exactly should be done, other than never going to war, ever?
Not get/stay involved in a war when there's no direct threat to your own country? Like a poster above said, US should just leave and let Afghanistan sort out its own problems.
Sure, humanitarian reasons may be a valid reason to have troops in some other country. But is that the reason US troops are there?
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The US is there because we started the current problem in Afghanistan after ousting the old leadership (Taliban) who was protecting terrorist (Al Qaeda) who actually did plan and commit acts of terror on US soil as well as soil of US allies.
To say we have no reason to be there is idiotic and ignorant of history. If you are old enough to post an opinion of your own about this on slashdot, you are likely old enough to have lived through that BS and the progression to date. Perhaps you were too young to care a
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There isn't much we could have done.
The Afghan police requested the airstrike. Everyone (including me) assumes they were lying [slate.com] because MSF has a very good reputation, but if the Taliban take a city, and an allied paramilitary unit says that retaking it requires blowing up a building that was used as a hospital before the invasion, because guys on top of it are killing them, you're not gonna subject them to the fifth degree before you do it.
A half-hour is lightning-fast in terms of stopping it when it turned
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
No. You just have a naieve and unrealistic idea of what war is or what war can be.
If we had CNN in the 40s we never would have been able to defeat Japan or Germany because of all of the bleeding hearts. Now THAT was real carnage. Nothing that the US does today is remotely comparable.
Re:In other news (Score:4, Informative)
I once checked out an archive of old Nazi political cartoons, and indeed they made use of that very sort of thing. There was one incident for example where the allies accidentally bombed Switzerland not long after hitting a hospital in Germany during a bombing raid. The cartoon played on the similarity of the Swiss flag and the Red Cross flag, with the allied pilot apologizing to the Swiss on the grounds that he got the flags mixed up.
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I once checked out an archive of old Nazi political cartoons, and indeed they made use of that very sort of thing. There was one incident for example where the allies accidentally bombed Switzerland not long after hitting a hospital in Germany during a bombing raid. The cartoon played on the similarity of the Swiss flag and the Red Cross flag, with the allied pilot apologizing to the Swiss on the grounds that he got the flags mixed up.
Yes, but that was Nazi media directed to Germans, not US Media directed to Americans...
We couldn't have won WWII if CNN was doing what they do today...
War is hell, it sucks, but the quickest way to win is to destroy the enemy until he/she finally figured out that their ideas and ways are lost and agrees to convert. Or die, either is fine.
It took the use of nuclear weapons against Japan to finally get them to cry uncle and give up their ways.
Amazingly stupid comment (Score:3)
We've had CNN all through the war crimes of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the illegal war against Libya, the overthrow of Ukraine's democracy, the bombing of even more countries that have never been a threat to us, the drone assassins that have killed hundreds of kids....
Obviously, none of that was s
Re:Amazingly stupid comment (Score:4, Informative)
[Re-posting to fix fucked-up tags:]
the overthrow of Ukraine's democracy
The what? Yanukovych campaigned on a promise not to sell the country out to Putin, then promptly turned around and started to sell the country out to Putin. The people who'd voted for him quite understandably raised hell about this, and he fled the country for (surprise, surprise) Russia, leaving behind an estate and mansion worth at least 100 million US dollars, which he somehow had been able to afford on a 2,000-dollar-per-month salary.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
Now THAT was real carnage
ROFL.
Sorry, you guys are just too soft-hearted for actual war if you call the US part in WW2 a "real carnage".
The USSR lost around 10 million soldiers in WW.
Germany lost about 5 million.
China lost 3.5 million.
The USA lost 0.4 million.
The real carnage in WW2 was on the eastern front and in China. For the Germans, the battle of Stalingrad alone cost them as many casualties (at least half a million, possibly up to 800,000) than the entire western front. 80% of the German casualties are thanks to the Russians.
And yes, the USAF bombed some German cities to rubble. But even so, German civilians fled the Red Army towards the west, not the other way around. If you've ever read stories about the siege of Leningrad from the Russian perspective, you know why. I know them. My girlfriend is from St. Petersburg as it is known today. After I've heard her tell WW2 stories from russian perspective, I laugh about US war movies. Omaha Beach: 2000 casualties. The horror. That would have been a quiet day in Stalingrad, where four times as many people died every day for five months straight.
That is what real carnage looks like.
Stalingrad had a population of 400,000 before the war. After the German 6th Army was destroyed, an official census counted 1,500 residents. Pictures from Stalingrad look worse than pictures from Hiroshima. That is real carnage.
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I can only assume you've never been in a combat zone or near one. I hate to say it but, realistically, shit happens. That doesn't make it better. It doesn't make it right. That's just how it is and there's not going to be any major change in this so long as we still have violent conflicts. Shit happens.
Remember, "There but by the Grace of God, go I." (Substitute FSM, Dumb Luck, Statistics, or Intelligent/Able to Relocate for God, I guess. It's an old adage hung on the wall in the barracks where I worked as
Sorry about that (Score:2)
We were aiming at the Chinese embassy.
Taking me back 50 years (Score:4)
Gods. Doctors Without Borders is one of the best charities on the planet, and gives hope that humans can actually be civilized.
Oh yeah (Score:3)
It's just another case of people in one country trying to make friends with people in another country on the other side of the planet - going very well as it seems.
It Wasn't A Bombing (Score:5, Informative)
If the Washington Post's article's details are correct, this was NOT a bombing gone awry. It was artillery rounds (and possibly 40mm cannon fire) from an AC-130 Spectre, a gunship that's been in use since the Vietnam era. They're usually pinpoint accurate, every round is fired with an eyeball targetting via low-vision video, and there'll be full video tape of the entire action.
Doesn't make it any nicer, doesn't make it any less of a screw-up (in fact, more so). Lots of videos online of Spectre working out in Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
The hospital should consider itself lucky: those hits were probably only 105mm howitzer rounds. If they'd been multiple thousand pounders, the catastrophe and casualties would've been even greater.
Of course if the Post is wrong and this was NOT an AC-130 .. never mind.
Re:Wait a day or two before passing judgment (Score:4, Interesting)
They were told, more than once, than a MSF hospital was there. Do they just get to ignore that because some yahoo thought there might be some Taliban in the area?
Someone might want to remind these people that they're not playing Call of Duty. This is criminal level stupid.
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Do they just get to ignore that because some yahoo thought there might be some Taliban in the area?
I think you meant to say:
Do they just get to ignore that because some yahoo thought the Taliban might be operating a command center from within the hospital?
The answer to that question is "no, you take everything you believe to be true into account and make a sober military decision based on what you believe to be true, and you take into consideration the risks and consequences if your information turns out to be false or outdated. Oh, and you don't let 'yahoos' make command decisions like whether to bomb a hospital or not. If you have the luxury of time, several high-level decision-makers need to be in on the decision. If you don't
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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... [globalresearch.ca]
Re: Liberals (Score:5, Interesting)
I like this one
http://www.globalresearch.ca/t... [globalresearch.ca]
(...)
Before his next appearance on Fox, Kristol could do worse than peruse Professor Hamoud Salhi’s address, presented at the Center for Contemporary Conflict, of the (U.S.) Naval Postgraduate School in June 2004.(iii pdf) It is entitled: “Syria’s Threat to America’s National Interest.” It is arguably even more pertinent now – and another reminder of how long Syria has been in U.S. sights.
He opens: “Syria’s threat to America’s national interest in the Middle East can only be understood in the context of U.S. plans to reconfigure the Middle East. Knowing now that the motive for invading Iraq was strategic, taking over Syria would give the United States further strategic depth in the region tipping the balance of power (even more) in favour of the United States regional allies, Israel and Turkey.”
Salhi notes that “strategic pre-emption” is long central to American policy in the Middle East, citing Rapid Deployment Forces during the Carter Administration, Dual Containment under Clinton, Pre-emptive Doctrine under George W. Bush. Polices, he holds, which: “have been instrumental in maintaining hegemony in the region”, avoiding threats to U.S interests, or to those of Israel,Turkey and the Gulf States.
After the 1998 US-UK Christmas bombing of Baghdad drew world-wide criticism, Salhi points out that the often daily (illegal) bombing of Iraq by the two countries was stepped up, with often daily sorties, “using the latest technology” destroying what minimal economic infrastructure remained: “under the pretext that they represented future threats.” It was he contends, the “quiet war”, an ongoing tragedy little noticed by the world.
The ground was – literally – being prepared for invasion, the trigger finger ever itchier, any excuse sought. George W. Bush would later explain that invading Iraq was necessary: “ to advance freedom in the greater Middle East ” (Emphasis mine.)
11th September 2001 arguably gave the excuse to release the safety catches. On 20th September 2001 PNAC sent a letter to Bush: “ recommending the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, even if no direct link to the 9/11 attack were found.” Time to redeem American: “supremacy in global politics (and for) regime changes in Iraq, Iran and Syria.”
Michael Ledeen, foreign policy expert, another neo-con minded Fox News commentator, alleged to be a “strong admirer” of Niccolo Machiavelli, regarded 1991’s Desert Storm attack on Iraq as a woeful missed chance states Salhi. He notes Ledeen’s view that driving Iraqi troops from Kuwait was wholly inadequate. Strategy should have been: “regime change in Baghdad” (as) “one piece in an overall mission”, which should have been: “one battle against Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia.”
Addressing “The Syrian Threat”, Professor Salhi reminds of the U.S. Congress 2004 “Syria Accountability Act” which considerably financially weakened Syria’s fragile economy, with further aims clearly paving the way to regime change.
That achieved: “the United States will have completed its final stage of encircling Iran. This would further tip the region’s balance of power in favour of Israel and ultimately open new doors” for the U.S. “active involvement in toppling the Iranian regime.”
(...)
Afghanistan is just a side gig, perhaps simply an opportunity to wage war even if it's strategically useless. The "revenge war against 911" narrative needs the US to go in Afghanistan : if you only attack Iraq, every one knows it's unjustified because there's no Al Qaeda or Bin
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Let us see if one of these others suit your tastes, lazy idiot.
http://www.voltairenet.org/art... [voltairenet.org]
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/coldw... [gwu.edu]
http://www.counterpunch.org/19... [counterpunch.org]
http://web.stanford.edu/class/... [stanford.edu]
Re: Liberals (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Liberals (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's time to actually inform yourself about Afghanistan before making such bold statements?
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It is insightful. Go learn about General Smedley Butler.
Re:Military 'service' nothing but paid murder. (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Russian military has no regard for civilian life. What a tragedy.
Re:Yeah, and? (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.
Re:Yeah, and? (Score:4, 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.
Re:Yeah, and? (Score:5, Informative)
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Someone ought to be tried as a war criminal for this.
Oh, wait. The US doesn't like the concept of war criminals if it could apply to them, and even made a law to invade another NATO country (the Netherlands) if it should happen.
Re:Yeah, and? (Score:4, Interesting)
No. They are terrorists. You are in control of professional soldiers. If you can't control your urge to hurt beyond such that you bomb doctors in hospitals, you shouldn't be in charge of anything remotely capable of doing that.
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The more relevant question us why the US forces are so incompetent this happened. All you wrote is a series of pathetic excuses, then blamed the victim.