The United States Says that a String of Errors — Explains Its Doctors without Borders Hospital Bombing at Kunduz in October

© 2015 Peter Free

 

29 November 2015

 

 

Pretty much the outcome that Médecins Sans Frontières expected?

 

From the Los Angeles Times:

 

 

Gen. John F. Campbell said the Oct. 3 strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital, which killed 30 civilians and left 37 others wounded, was "tragic, but avoidable." Human errors compounded by technical malfunctions onboard the AC-130 attack aircraft caused the strike, he said, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon in a video broadcast from Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.

 

According to the military's investigation, the special operations gunship had sought to attack a building suspected of being used as a base by Taliban insurgents, but the plane's onboard targeting system identified the coordinates as an open field. The crew decided to open fire on a nearby large building, not knowing that it was the Doctors Without Borders hospital.

 

Because the gunship had been diverted from another mission, the crew had not been briefed on the location of the hospital.

 

No U.S. military personnel were in visual range of the hospital when Afghan forces, claiming they were under fire, requested the airstrike, the report said.

 

The summary did not answer all the questions about what went wrong, including whether the errors identified in the report constitute war crimes or why the crew opened fire when it appears they had reason to be uncertain about the target.

 

© 2015 W.J. Hennigan and David S. Cloud, U.S. report on Afghan hospital attack 'shocking,' medical group says, Los Angeles Times (25 November 2015) (extracts)

 

 

The “we didn’t do it on purpose” explanation

 

The investigation’s concoction of accumulated mishaps solidly negates the “knowing” element that is required to hold people accountable for allegedly criminal acts. The hospital bombing was (apparently) an unfortunate mistake.

 

Mistakes do happen in war. Even as here, in having equipment failures, not briefing flight crews, shooting everything willy-nilly, and not really giving a shit who is inside the buildings that we are firing upon.

 

When convenient, this method of explanation evidently goes, blame an underling.

 

 

For those who care, an added glitch

 

Hospital staff were reportedly in contact with American and Coalition authorities for most of the 1 hour and 7 minute duration of the attack:

 

 

MSF made multiple calls and SMS contacts in an attempt to stop the airstrikes:

 

- At 2.19am, a call was made from MSF representative in Kabul to Resolute Support in Afghanistan informing them that the hospital had been hit in an airstrike

 

- At 2.20am, a call was made from MSF representative in Kabul to ICRC informing them that the hospital had been hit in an airstrike

 

- At 2.32am a call was made from MSF Kabul to OCHA Civil Military (CivMil) liaison in Afghanistan to inform of the ongoing strikes

 

- At 2.32am a call was made by MSF in New York to US Department of Defense contact in Washington informing of the airstrikes

 

- At 2.45am an SMS was received from OCHA CivMil in Afghanistan to MSF in Kabul confirming that the information had been passed through “several channels”

 

- At 2.47am, an SMS was sent from MSF in Kabul to Resolute Support in Afghanistan informing that one staff was confirmed dead and many were unaccounted for

 

- At 2.50am MSF in Kabul informed Afghan Ministry of Interior at Kabul level of the airstrikes. Afghan Ministry of Interior replied that he would contact ground forces

 

- At 2.52am a reply was received by MSF in Kabul from Resolute Support stating “I’m sorry to hear that, I still do not know what happened”

 

- At 2.56am an SMS was sent from MSF in Kabul to Resolute Support insisting that the airstrikes stop and informing that we suspected heavy casualties

 

- At 2.59am an SMS reply was received by MSF in Kabul from Resolute Support saying ”I’ll do my best, praying for you all”

 

- At 3.04am an SMS was sent to Resolute Support from MSF in Kabul that the hospital was on fire

 

- At 3.07am an SMS was sent from MSF in Kabul to OCHA CivMil that the hospital was on fire

 

- At 3.09am an SMS was received by MSF in Kabul from OCHA CivMil asking if the incoming had stopped

 

- At 3.10am and again at 3.14am, follow up calls were made from MSF New York to the US Department of Defense contact in Washington regarding the ongoing airstrikes

 

- At 3.13am an SMS was sent from MSF in Kabul to OCHA CivMil saying that incoming had stopped

 

- At 3.15am an SMS was received from CivMil OCHA stating that information had been passed to Resolute Support in the North and CJOC in Kabul as well as ANA in Kabul and the North

 

© 2015 Médecins Sans Frontières, Public release of initial MSF internal review, Kunduz.msf.org (05 November 2015) (PDF) (at page 8)

 

 

Is General Campbell’s delivered explanation complete?

 

Are concerned people going to believe that, in addition to the arguable incompetence that the General already described, American commanders could not contact their AC-130 during an attack of such comparatively long duration?

 

Are we expected to add communications difficulties and/or excessively convoluted and time-consuming chains of command to the previous list of mistaken happenings? Or, alternatively, are we to intuit that the AC-130 crew were so unimaginative that they could not intuit that their aircraft was one that the dying hospital was complaining about?

 

 

A possible conclusion

 

A military operation that experiences such a string of easily avoided failures constitutes the spiritual (not legal) essence of war criminality all by itself.

 

 

The moral? — “The underlings screwed up” outcome is why Doctors without Borders early asked for an independent investigation

 

It is noticeable how frequently the highest levels of the Obama Administration act with a lack of persuasive integrity. I am not saying that our leaders are lying. Just that the levels of carelessness claimed in their implied defense (against war criminality) seem dubious. At least so, when absorbed in light of the Obama Administration’s frequent claims of life-preserving rules of engagement.

 

These wrongs are what happen when fear (in the face of terrorism) motivates one excessive response after another. Perpetual war does not breed selectivity in killing. Similarly lax and callous targeting probably characterizes our drone assassination program.

 

We become what we hate. Whether by error or concealed purpose.