If We Want Just One Way to Symbolize the Obama Administration’s Legacy — Its Steel-Headed Stalling — regarding the Kunduz Doctors without Borders Hospital Bombing — Is Just about Perfect

© 2015 Peter Free

 

04 November 2015

 

 

A month gone and still clammed up

 

You will recall that the United States apparently intentionally bombed a Médecins Sans Frontières  (Doctors without Borders) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan on 03 October 2015.

 

I have written about this probable war crime before, here and here.

 

Wikipedia summed the facts:

 

 

On 3 October 2015 a United States Air Force AC-130U gunship attacked a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital (English name: Doctors Without Borders) in the city of Kunduz, in the province of the same name in northern Afghanistan. In the aftermath, it has been reported that at least 30 people were killed, over 30 injured, and 33 remained missing.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

 

Médecins Sans Frontières condemned the incident, stating that all warring parties had been notified of the hospital's location ahead of time, and that the airstrike was deliberate, and a violation of international humanitarian law.[8][9]

 

The United States military initially stated the airstrike was carried out to defend U.S. forces on the ground. Later, the United States commander in Afghanistan, General John F. Campbell, stated the airstrike was requested by Afghan forces who had come under Taliban fire. Campbell stated that the attack was "a mistake", saying "We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility."[10][11]

 

On 7 October 2015, President Barack Obama issued a rare apology.[12] Three investigations have been begun into the incident by NATO, a joint United States-Afghan group and the United States Department of Defense.

 

Doctors without Borders has called for an international and independent probe, stating that the armed forces who carried out the airstrike cannot conduct an impartial investigation of their own actions.[12]

 

© 2015 Wikipedia, Kunduz hospital airstrike (visited 04 November 2015)

 

 

“Just trust us” is — by inference — the party line

 

Given that this is the same Administration that apparently deliberately just killed a bunch of medical providers and their patients, trust seems to be a bit of a stretch. I’m with MSF. An independent investigation is necessary, even if only for ethical propriety’s sake.

 

 

The Obama political scheme is, of course, to let memories fade

 

The Administration does not want to open itself to clear-headed fact finders. Who knows what war criminality such a group might turn up?

 

“No” the President probably calculates, who really cares about dead medical folk serving in a war zone, their critical care patients, and a handful of children? We’ve got a war on terror to run.

 

The fact that the American policy might be part of the deadly violence problem does not occur to the President — or to most of us — seemingly ever.

 

 

The moral? — Drone murders of innocents, random medical bombings and fomenting interminable war — it’s all in a day’s work

 

Does inadvertent evil come in clearer form?