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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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(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.