by Josh Chambers – Saturday, after a call for help from Afghan allies under fire, the U.S. bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 12 members of the hospital’s staff and 10 patients, including three children. Obviously, this drew much criticism against U.S. targeting procedures and some called it a war crime.
All week long we have heard from numerous Generals and the Pentagon that this was not a war crime and, in fact, they switched their account of the airstrike 4 times in as many days. It’s been quite the difficult story to accurately follow given the changing stories. I’m not going to get into the nuance of what storyline changed because, ultimately, does it matter?
I’m not fluent in legalese, but I do remember hearing somewhere that we don’t bomb hospitals or places of worship. Today, President Obama came forward and personally apologized for the bombing calling it a “mistake” and promised Afghan President Ghani to continue “strengthening the partnership between the United States and Afghanistan and to continuing their dialogue about ways to deepen diplomatic, economic and security cooperation to promote a more stable and secure Afghanistan.”
My question is, why did it take until Wednesday to apologize for an attack that happened on Saturday? Was the POTUS hanging out in the Situation Room with his Generals discussing whether or not the bombing of a hospital was okay?
Clearly somebody fucked up, but why is it so difficult for our government to admit it? Had this happened here, we would’ve lit up whatever country was responsible for it like the 4th of July within hours. Not days.
Basically, Afghanistan gets a, “my bad, bro.” And what other choice do they have, really, but to accept it. At least the Afghan government, anyway. This is exactly the type of event that grows terrorism. It breeds it. Analysts and experts at the Pentagon and White House get paid far more than me to figure out how to stop the growth of terrorism. Here’s an idea: How about we stop killing fucking civilians and making more enemies? It’ll be interesting to see how the “investigation” that the Pentagon performs on itself comes out. I have a guess…