In a surprise move that followed days of excuse-making and altered narratives, the White House today confirmed that President Obama called Doctors Without Borders president Dr. Joanne Liu to formally apologize for the Saturday US attack against one of their hospitals near Kunduz, killing 12 staff members and 22 overall.
Dr. Liu’s office issued a statement confirming the apology, but reiterating Doctors Without Borders’ position that the attack on the hospital requires a full, independent investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to figure out exactly what happened and why.
The US appears to be spurning that call, and keeps reiterating simply that the Pentagon is conducting its own investigation into the matter, and Gen. John Campbell has announced intentions to hold additional training for special forces troops on the importance of not bombing hospitals.
Interestingly, the White House noted that Obama also called and expressed “condolences” to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, a surprise since the Ghani government hasn’t been particularly critical of the attack, and indeed the Defense Ministry had referred to the slain staff and patients as “armed terrorists” in their own statements.
“Condolences” have been extremely common throughout America’s assorted recent wars, a common way of shrugging off major civilian death tolls, but formal apologies have been extremely rare, and suggest that the White House, in this case, was feeling pressure from the mounting criticism.
"There he goes again, apologizing for America!"
I've heard this said about Obama by the NeocoMs so many times in the past. I just couldn't resist saying it now.
Yeh right.., another crocodile tears while swimming in a blood river. USG needs to apologias 4 million times to Syrians that USG made them to become homeless. If USG really cared, they would have stopped their diplomatic and economic relation with those who support Taliban and other terrorists.
Disgusting. It's insane that heads don't roll after an incident like this, "mistake" or not. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but how did this level of aggression become even vaguely kosher? What possible threat did this hospital present to the USA? Jesus motherloving Christ.
Psychological warfare? Remember the bomb shelters, hospitals, power plants, etc. getting bombed in Iraq. And, let's be bipartisan and recall Clinton's butchery in the Balkans…Sudan as well.
Perfectly said…Thank you, Mike.
Wonder if he did it with a straight face?
the Pentagon is conducting its own investigation into the matter, and Gen. John Campbell has announced intentions to hold additional training for special forces troops on the importance of not bombing hospitals
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They have to be 'trained' not to commit war crimes? Really!? Is that kind of like how you train a dog not to pee on the rug? Tell me again one more time how the Russian attacks on ISIS (who we are pretneding to be at war with, but are really arming and supporting) risks collateral damage. Tell me again.
"They have to be 'trained' not to commit war crimes? Really!?"
Yes, they do have to be trained not to commit war crimes, if for no other reason than in order to not commit war crimes they have to know what constitutes a war crime. When you're handing a bunch of guys deadly weapons and sending them out to kill each other, if you don't specify the boundaries they'll just set their own.
The good news is that every person who enters the US armed forces receives basic instruction in the internationally applicable laws of war.
The bad news is that that instruction is somewhat cursory, that it does not receive enough periodic refreshing, that it's often given with a wink and a nudge, and that the troops can see by example that when the laws are violated, the US immediately goes into denial mode and protects the violators instead of making examples of them.
I find it hard to believe that anyone, even those the US is enlisting under the new, lower standards, needs to be trained to not bomb/attack a hospital. Have we sunk so low?
Every soldier from every country has to be trained in what is and what is not permissible on the battlefield. It's not a matter of "sinking so low." It's a matter of soldiers either knowing the laws that pertain to war, or not knowing the laws that pertain to war.
perhaps, but I was talking specifically about a hospital – and I was stating my opinion.
And you're entitled to your opinion, of course. But while you and I might think that "don't attack a hospital" is obvious, it's important not to leave "I didn't know that was against the rules" out there as an excuse or exculpatory factor. Because governments — and especially the US government — will seize on anything they can find to excuse the crimes their troops commit.
agreed – just find it hard to conceive.
How about the laws that pertain to morality, decency, and respectibility?
This time I will support Obama , Clinton never apologized to Serbia for hitting more hospitals than Serbian tanks . To some people Obama never does anything right . This is another time Obama is right .
1. What were the orders given to the crew of the AC-130?
2. Why did the commander of that plane decide to bomb that specific target?
It should not be difficult nor should it take long for our CiC to get the answers to these questions which are at the core of this event.
“We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong.” US government agent
See, just say 'sorry' and it's all better now. Obama the compassionate! Now back to our regularly scheduled global mayhem.
I doubt any of us would get away with an apology if we murdered someone.
"I'm sorry, I just killed your whole family"
yeah, that'll work.
An independent international investigation would actually be quite useful. MSF doesn't have a very good reputation and could easily have set up the attack by, for example, simulating an attack from their site and hoping that the military for have launched the attack before they realised their mistake. The US government might perhaps fear that a useful intelligence "asset" might have to be compromised to defend themselves. Also, sooner or later, one of Putin's planes will do something similar in Syria and the precedent of an international investigation would be useful (could you see Putin submitting to such an investigation?).
Should be a law against such hierocracy, words without a sincere act of undoing the damage done.
I recall in the war in Yugoslavia cornered terrorists tried to hide in hospital beds in the hospital .
Many leaders are planning a huge march in Kunduz in solidarity and support of the people of Afghanistan.
If it had been Putin, he would have said, "Our forces will destroy and kill anyone, in any hospital, school or mosque who who fires at or threatens the security of our forces"…..They are not into pacifying a hostile population, they are into destroying a hostile population,,,,,Chechnya is a good example.
Russians reportedly have hit some hospitals now, of course, this won't be reported on "prowar.com".