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posted by
n1
on Thursday October 08 2015, @06:44PM
from the known-unknowns-of-collateral-damage dept.
from the known-unknowns-of-collateral-damage dept.
A Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital was bombed by the US. Result, 12 dead staff members and 10 dead patients. The coordinates of the hospital had been communicated to the US forces before to avoid mistakes. The US admits the attack was a decision. MSF is now seeking an independent inquiry.
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Afghan Hospital Bombing: MSF Demands Investigation Under Geneva Conventions
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If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
conclusion.
-- William Baumol
(Score: 3, Insightful) by moondoctor on Thursday October 08 2015, @07:24PM
While I believe this is a very, very important story, is this the Direction Soylent is heading? I like the nerdy stuff. Politics tends to get weird. Honest discussions about techy stuff with smart people with similar interests to me is why I'm here.
Gotta say, I like soylent a lot. Over time my split between here and the unmentionable site has been going more and more to soylent. Finding the discussions on this site to be interesting and informative and less cluttered with idiots and trolls. Thank you!
p.s. I think that there should be an impartial international investigation, with charges and penalties where required.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tramii on Thursday October 08 2015, @07:31PM
According to https://soylentnews.org/about.pl: [soylentnews.org]
"We are a volunteer-powered news aggregation site that deliver articles about technology, science, and general interest."
If you don't like discussing politics, then don't read the political posts.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday October 08 2015, @08:25PM
I'm feeling somewhat the same way, but then we just have an insulated and isolated site where we come to escape the brutality of the real world.
The truth is, these are very serious things that are happening. Our government has knowingly bombed a hospital, killed doctors who risked their lives as part of that group, and killed innocent patients. Even if those patients were known terrorists, high on the list, it's an affront to human decency, and a blight on America's soul, that we killed them and their doctors at the same time.
It was a *hospital*. Yeah, I don't like Politics either around here most of the time. However, do you *really* think this is political? Politics is reserved to *talking* about laws, treaties, etc. Politics is supposed to be the art of negotiation and compromise. Bombing a hospital is *not* politics. We've come so far from whatever respect we had as honorable participants in military action, that we are just highwaymen and thugs now.
SoylentNews posts these articles because American's (which I think may be the primary audience) need to know just how thoroughly, and abhorrently, their government is failing them. We've become the monsters we hated. Perhaps we should know that. I for one don't want an insulated site where we delude ourselves into thinking everything is okay. It may not be as bad as many misanthropes feel it is, but it's for damn sure not anything rosy either.
I'm going to disagree, and say that we need to hear these things.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:17PM
After 9/11, watching American politics and foreign policy was a lot like watching the rise of Nazi Germany in slow motion, kicked off by America's own Reichstag fire [wikipedia.org] (9/11 itself).
But about the hospital bombing, I don't feel much sympathy for those killed or injured in the bombing because people who go to war-torn shitholes with populations of feral savages to save lives are a lot more stupid and insane than they are altruistic.
I feel sorry for those in the hospital like I feel sorry for people who stick their dicks in beehives.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday October 08 2015, @11:01PM
Let's remember that those beehive-abusing idiots are largely responsible for whatever goodwill we have with the rest of the world and those "shitholes". The fact they keep risking their lives and dying might actually be meaningful to *some* of the savages.
Otherwise, you're saying everything they did was in vain. I don't feel that way at all.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 09 2015, @12:59PM
Medecins Sans Frontieres generates goodwill, but not for America because they are a French organization. The US equivalent would be something like the Peace Corps, but I don't hear too much press these days about how the world loves us for the work those people do.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Friday October 09 2015, @01:08PM
Yeah man! USA! USA!! USA!!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by tathra on Friday October 09 2015, @02:58AM
yup, which makes the US now guilty of violating the geneva conventions [icrc.org]. torturing people was bad enough, now we're actively violating the geneva conventions? everyone involved in this, all the way up to the general who approved the attack, needs to be tried for their war crimes.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @03:50AM
This Isn’t The First Time The U.S. Has Bombed A Hospital [thinkprogress.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday October 09 2015, @12:08PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Thursday October 08 2015, @08:35PM
I think it is of value, since it certainly touches upon information security.
You know -- Trust, but Verify.
Something was lacking here, and someone should be responsible. Neutral parties -- the types you want to keep alive -- were killed due to what appears to be a command level ignorance related event. The pilot would certainly not know better, I would think, but he received orders. Those orders should have been fact checked.
Or, they were -- and the facts were ignored.
Or there was information that justified the decision due to information we are not aware of -- perhaps staff at the hospital had nefarious plans. Who knows.
The fact is, it is a large enough mishap that it should be treated seriously. An apology doesn't prevent mistakes from happening again.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:07PM
Even if a doctor or patient there were planning something nefarious, was bombing the building and murdering innocents the only option? Is it okay now to murder people at random in pursuit of a suspect?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @11:57PM
A lot of people don't seem to understand war zones. I was deployed to Iraq for more then a year, and out on mission daily. Let me clue some of you in.
To start with the call came in from an allied unit. Something along the lines of we need air support, receiving heavy hostile fire from these coordinates.
When you get that sort of call there is no list of "DO NOT BOMB LOCATIONS." there isn't. You depend upon the intel you were given. When you receive the request you send the planes. There is no if ands or butts. It is on the unit who is supplying the intel to ensure that they have sent you to the right location, and usually it is right. I mean you life depends upon it being right. You give the wrong coordinates you can end up calling in an air strike on yourself.
In this situation it was the Afghan unit that called in the strike. Now I cannot speak for the Afghans, but if I were to imagine the IA or IP in that situation I can think of a number of things that could have gone wrong.
1) They were receiving fire and did not know it was a hospital. Usually the units fighting in hotspots have few if any locals.
2) They were receiving fire and they did not care it was a hospital. The IA and IP did not seem to care about rules much.
3) They were receiving fire from elsewhere, and screwed up the coordinates. The local units rarely have excellent training.
Now no matter how inept the locals are I cannot see them calling in a strike if they were not under fire. I also not in my foggiest can I imagine the Americans bombing a hospital on purpose. It is drilled into you starting in basic and continuing throughout your career: You do not fire on places of worship. You do not fire on schools. You do not fire on Medical personnel or buildings. Hell you do not fire at an enemy once you have passed him. Once you pass him he is a pow.
The thing is our enemies know that, and they have NO qualms with breaking the rules of war, after all they are not a signatory to it. While I was deployed from Iraq we were attacked on numerous occasions from mosques and schools. It was always via small arms, we would post up in our vehicles and surround the place. You weren't even allowed to enter and clear the building without permission from the local religious authority. It would honestly not surprise me if the enemy combatants had gone into the compound knowing that no one would touch them. Then you get poorly trained, ambivalent to rules locals and I can see them calling in the air strike.
To top it all off anyways, the fighting had been heavy in the city for a few days, why had the hospital not been evacuated? You don't just stay in a war zone, you evacuate. You cannot help anyone when you get killed because you refused to leave. I am also curious to how the MSF compound was marked. Was the building marked with red crosses or crescents? That is the international symbol of don't fire at me I am medical personnel. I also want to know who they called to stop the bombing? Did they call the coalition headquarters in the capital? I hope that isn't who they called, that would be the slowest way to get that stopped. I can see it now, some doctor/nurse whoever screaming in broken English to call off the attack. I can see the befuddled look on the privates (yes, yes it is the privates tasked with answering the phone) face. Umm what attack, where, who are you, slow down I dont understand, you called the front desk I dont even know where to take this, etc, etc. Hell to top it all off how would the private even know that the person calling is who he says he is? How do I know you aren't an enemy combatant trying to get the bombing called off?
Frankly as far as I am concerned they should have been evacuated, they should of had a working relationship with the local coalition troops, and after the bombing started they should have hightailed it out of there. If you are in a warzone you should not act surprised when you wind up dead.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Friday October 09 2015, @12:28AM
"It is drilled into you starting in basic and continuing throughout your career: You do not fire on places of worship. You do not fire on schools. You do not fire on Medical personnel or buildings. Hell you do not fire at an enemy once you have passed him. Once you pass him he is a pow."
and yet, you spent the opening of your comment saying how you had NO CLUE where/who you were bombing the shit out of, so how do you square that circle ? ? ?
um, did you happen to think that *maybe* Empire has its iron fist so organized such that private nobody has NO EFFECTIVE means of making their OWN MORAL decisions when it comes to matters of who to kill ? ? ? which you claim the military instructs you to to consider humanitarian factors, war krimes law, etc; and i am highly skeptical that 'training' amounts to 1/1000th of the training to kill instinctively and without hesitation under orders from a superior officer (sic)...
again, NO INDIVIDUAL 'moral' decision welcomed or tolerated under those circumstances, which is ALL circumstances...
tell me ONE TIME in the his story of the us military a soldier has been rewarded for refusing orders to kill people he thought not valid targets ? ? ?
ONCE...
AND, if you find that one -or so- times (highly skeptical again), tell me what that paucity reflects...
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Friday October 09 2015, @12:25PM
This is of course why those who are giving the orders are 1000 times as responsible as those who are drilled into obeying orders. Big heads should roll. The guys on the ground probably feel pretty shitty already about their involvement. Ever seen the suicide rates for vet's?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @04:37AM
Your credibility is almost zero. American? Signed up to fight the War on Terra? So you know just as much about the International Law of Armed Conflict as your superiors allowed you to. Thanks for the info on the operational points, that may help the discussion. But then you say:
after all they are not a signatory to it.
Doesn't matter, if enough nations sign on to conventions, they become "customary" law, and even not signatories can be held to it an punished for violations of it. And even in a case where one side in a conflict violated the laws of war, this does not in any way authorize the other side to respond in kind. Retaliation is a war crime. Flat out. No mitigating factors. Yes, in combat, as JEBush says, stuff happens. But if it happens on purpose, like targeting the wounded and medics, it is a war crime. And even if those responsible return to a nice cushy federal job and a military pension and are never prosecuted, they are still war criminals.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @08:02AM
The US has a stated policy of not handing over American citizens to the international court on war crimes.
Tell me, if a US state suddenly made a stated policy of not prosecuting bank robbers, how do you think people with less than perfect morals would feel about all that free money just sitting around in banks?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday October 09 2015, @08:59AM
It doesn't matter whether the other party has signed up to the convention - the US has. You are obliged therefore to follow it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Friday October 09 2015, @09:05AM
Testifying in front of the Senate Armed Forces Committee on Tuesday, General John Campbell admitted for the first time that US Special Forces on the ground called in a strike from an AC-130 gunship, killing 12 medical staff and 10 patients on Saturday. [vice.com]
It wasn't just an 'allied unit' - it was a US unit that called in the strike. The US has signed up to the Geneva Convention, and are obliged to comply with it. This does look like a war crime, but an independent investigation is needed to get at the truth and not the spin being put on it by the Pentagon.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 09 2015, @01:27PM
Yeah, good luck with prosecuting anyone in America for war crimes. Dick Cheney should be rotting in a cell somewhere, but nope, free as a bird. A good chunk of Washington DC should be sitting in cells for Guantanamo alone, but nope, nada. CIA torture sites? Nope.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:23PM
Are you suggesting that we should stop carrying about laws because some criminals get away? Because that would be absurd.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 09 2015, @01:14PM
I wouldn't say it's the direction SN is heading. The vast majority of the article submissions are scientific/technological, with a smattering of lifehacking and political topics. Even most of the political topics are related to technology and science policy (such as net neutrality, government surveillance, telecommunications monopolies, etc). There were a handful of pure political submissions today so it's probably why it felt like a "direction," but that sort of thing is not typical. That, too, is probably driven in large part by a current Presidential campaign season in the US.
That said, I don't mind the occasional pure political discussion because it's the only place I know of where you get people of all stripes chiming in. Every other place I frequent (Drudge, RedState, DailyKos, etc) are echo chambers and there nobody is allowed to express opinions that are outside their particular memespheres. You do get the ideological catchphrases hatched elsewhere and repeated here, but they nearly always draw robust counterargument that withers the weakest parts of their theses. Generally the folks that start out spouting ideological trollish comments return with re-cast, stronger positions because they must. That is as it should be; It is how the agora [wikipedia.org] is supposed to work.
Washington DC delenda est.