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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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Ignorance is bliss.
-- Thomas Gray
Fortune updates the great quotes, #42:
BLISS is ignorance.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by jmorris on Thursday October 08 2015, @08:58PM
Yea we should always try to avoid these sort of incidents and the record demonstrates we do a pretty darned good job of avoiding these sort of clusterfscks. But they are going to happen. When you are operating in a war zone you kinda have to accept that war might happen. The military will eventually sort out what went wrong, if anything[1], and learn from it. That is what we do. And we don't need some international gang of misfits in the way to do it.
[1] Remember we aren't dealing with civilized enemies who respect the Rules of War here, we are dealing with people who routinely operate out of hospitals, mosques and civilian areas with the goal of being targeted and then using the dead as propaganda weapons. And the 'International Community' knows this and lends enthusiastic support because they share common goals.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:24PM
That is what we do. And we don't need some international gang of misfits in the way to do it.
A. Hitler, 1939
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @10:09AM
Be careful with that. The western world is having an aneurysm about killing a handful of civilians. The other side is waging genocide on multiple fronts with multiple armies. When we were fighting off Hitler and a target needed to be taken out, we would send 250 bombers and turn the whole area into a moonscape, kill hundreds of civilians to hit one building, and call it the cost of war.
We created smart munitions to stop that from being necessary. The fact that we are having a discussion about this shows the massive progress we have made. Still, nothing is perfect and if we activity try for perfection then we would simply be forced to let ISIS run over whatever they want while they use their usual tactics of hiding in civilian areas and using human shields.
Those millions of Syrians are running away from something. I think we should do something to stop that something, even if we aren't perfect.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday October 09 2015, @11:05AM
> When we were fighting off Hitler and a target needed to be taken out, we would send 250 bombers and turn the whole area into a moonscape, kill hundreds of civilians to hit one building, and call it the cost of war.
Yup. And immediately afterwards, that self-same "we" went and wrote & signed the 1949 Geneva Convention in an attempt to prevent that kind of shit from ever happening again. You don't get to claim the WWII generation for your side of the argument. Quite the opposite, in fact.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday October 09 2015, @12:16PM
no, we're having an aneurysm over the deliberate commission of a war crime - the a direct bombing of a hospital, which is a violation of the Geneva Conventions [icrc.org] no matter how you look at it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RedBear on Friday October 09 2015, @01:58AM
If anything? If anything?!? What went wrong is quite clear and has already been admitted, we bombed a hospital full of doctors and non-combatant patients, doing immeasurable damage to our international reputation and violating the established Rules of War which we have sworn to follow.
It doesn't matter how (un)civilized you think the enemy is. Everyone involved in a conflict always makes that claim anyway, so it's frequently meaningless. But even if it's completely true, it's still meaningless. The only thing that matters in a conflict is how civilized _we_ are. We don't get a free pass to commit war crimes in violation of the Geneva Convention just because our enemy might be violating the Geneva Convention. We have to follow the rules that we have agreed to and accept the consequences of violating those rules or we end up just as lacking in honor as the supposed enemy. And don't give me that crap about, "No war has been officially declared so the Geneva Convention doesn't apply." That's just juvenile sophistry of the highest order.
If it is in fact the enemy's goal to operate out of protected civilian bases for the specific purpose of being targeted so they can use the end results for propaganda, it seems to me that's a perfect observation of exactly why those facilities should never be targeted under any circumstances. Because it doesn't matter if that hospital was chock full of "terrorists" and completely devoid of non-combatants, what matters is that the whole world now knows you just bombed a goddamn hospital. And it was full of civilian doctors this time.
As a former Marine and son of a Marine, and an American-born citizen descended from I don't even know how many generations of Americans, it never ceases to amaze me how the conservative war-hawk mind can't seem to comprehend how stupid, dishonorable and completely counterproductive it is to commit any sort of violations of things like the Geneva Convention, or argue that they are somehow justified under some specific set of circumstances. You're just descending to the level of the opposition forces and playing right into their hands, acting as willing participants in their campaign to show how their enemy has no honor or moral authority. You wrestle with the pig, you get covered in stinky mud to the point where nobody can tell the two of you apart by sight, sound or smell.
(I don't even have the slightest clue what you meant by the last sentence (in either paragraph), unless it was, "The whole world is out to get 'Murica 'cuz we're the Good Guys[TM]!" "International gang of misfits"? I can't even.)
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @10:19AM
That's cute. You think honor exists. Let me guess and say you never actually saw an active warzone. The greenhorns always talk about honor until they see what war looks like for themselves.
It's the job of service members to go out and kill enemy soldiers, innocent of any crimes. Don't talk about juvenile sophistry when you hang the rule of law against murder in favor of your profession. That is what we do. Kill people. That is what the armed forces is. You clearly are naive.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Friday October 09 2015, @02:45PM
nope, the job of service members (i'm assuming you mean infantrymen specifically here), per FM 7-8: [globalsecurity.org]
killing is neither a requirement nor recommended during combat, since killing a person only takes that one person out of combat, but wounding him takes out him, and the 2-3 more guys that will have to take care of him. or at least thats what they taught us at Infantry AIT. and there are legitimate justifications for the use of deadly force, such as self-defense (which a firefight is by definition), but so long as you don't go outside the bounds of your ROE [wikipedia.org] and other laws of war [wikipedia.org] like the geneva conventions [wikipedia.org] there's no problem and you're not a murderer, but if you go outside of the ROE and laws of war, such as murdering innocent civilians or doctors or enemies that have surrendered, then you're the same kind of scum as the nazis.
your gross oversimplification tries to gloss over the complexities involved in warfare in order to push one specific, biased viewpoint. once bullets start flying all that temporarily goes out the window, but once that firefight is over, you're still responsible for all of your actions. "they were shooting at me a minute ago" does not justify murdering or torturing them after they surrendered, or abusing any of their corpses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @03:13AM
Thats the best justification you have for committing war crimes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @10:13AM
What justification do you have for the rule of unenforcable law being relevant in war?
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Friday October 09 2015, @12:14PM
Looking at your posting history in this thread, it is becoming more and more apparent to me that you have well and truly lost your argument and are now firing off broadsides at anyone else who cares to post.
If you don't like the law that your country has signed up to, then you ought to be working at getting that law changed or having your country withdraw from it. You don't get to pick and chose which laws you comply with and which you don't based on recent events which just happen to not be in your favour. This is partly what makes the 'civilised' world civilised. We aspire to do decent things and to treat others humanely and with decency - yes, even during war to the degree that it is possible under such conditions. Your enemy may not have your ideals and values, that doesn't mean you discard them to lower yourself to his level. You fight to promote them, and to bring the same ideals and values to others so that they can enjoy the freedom that you yourself do. If you cannot see that, then you are no better than the enemy you are criticising.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @12:20PM
Because nobody is ever tried for war crimes [wikipedia.org] right?