Doctors Without Borders Enraged Over 'Deliberate' Kunduz Hos

[koshergrl]

I appreciate doctors without borders. But if they start whining that they aren't safe in WAR ZONES seriously, maybe they should just stay home.

No you don't. At least show your support instead if chastising them. They dedicated their lives to serve humanity and they have my utmost respect and admiration.

If they think their mere presence is going to stop ongoing battle, they're dangerously (for the med teams, anyway) naive, and they need chastised.

 

[Disir]

You mean chastised in a mean mommy voice?

 

[koshergrl]

You mean chastised in a mean mommy voice?

Pretty much.

I admire their willingness to put themselves at risk to help people, that's praiseworthy. Pissing and moaning about it later...not so much.

 

[waltky]

But no criminal charges...

More than a Dozen Punished for Mistaken Afghan Hospital Attack
Mar 16, 2016 | WASHINGTON — More than a dozen U.S. military personnel have been disciplined — but face no criminal charges — for mistakes that led to the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital that killed 42 people in Afghanistan last year, U.S. defense officials say.

The punishments, which have not been publicly announced, are largely administrative. But in some cases the actions, such as letters of reprimand, are tough enough to effectively end chances for further promotion. The military has previously said some personnel were suspended from their duties but has given no further details. The disciplined include both officers and enlisted personnel, but officials said none are generals. The officials, who were not authorized to discuss the outcomes publicly and so spoke on condition of anonymity, said the disciplinary process is nearly complete. It is derived from a military investigation of the Oct. 3, 2015, attack, the results of which are expected to be made public in a partially redacted form in coming days.

An employee of Doctors Without Borders walks inside the remains of the organization's hospital after it was hit by a U.S. airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan​

Sandra Murillo, a spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders, said the charity would not comment on disciplinary actions until the Pentagon communicates its decisions directly to the group or makes a public announcement. The hospital, run by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders in the northern city of Kunduz, was attacked by a U.S. Air Force special operations AC-130 gunship, one of the most lethal in the U.S. arsenal. Doctors Without Borders called the attack "relentless and brutal" and demanded an international investigation, but none has been undertaken. Army Gen. John Campbell, who was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan at the time but has since relinquished command, has called it a "tragic but avoidable accident caused primarily by human error."

The attack was unleashed as U.S. military advisers were helping Afghan forces retake Kunduz, which had fallen to the Taliban on Sept. 28. It was the first major city to fall since the Taliban were expelled from Kabul in 2001. Afghan officials claimed the hospital had been overrun by the Taliban, but no evidence of that has surfaced. The hospital was destroyed and Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym, MSF, ceased operations in Kunduz. President Barack Obama apologized for the attack, which was one of the deadliest assaults on civilians in the 15-year war. The U.S. command in Kabul said in February that it has expressed condolences and offered payment to more than 140 families and individuals affected by the attack.

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[Rustic]

Shit happens

 

[WildBillKelsoe]

But no criminal charges...

More than a Dozen Punished for Mistaken Afghan Hospital Attack
Mar 16, 2016 | WASHINGTON — More than a dozen U.S. military personnel have been disciplined — but face no criminal charges — for mistakes that led to the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital that killed 42 people in Afghanistan last year, U.S. defense officials say.

The punishments, which have not been publicly announced, are largely administrative. But in some cases the actions, such as letters of reprimand, are tough enough to effectively end chances for further promotion. The military has previously said some personnel were suspended from their duties but has given no further details. The disciplined include both officers and enlisted personnel, but officials said none are generals. The officials, who were not authorized to discuss the outcomes publicly and so spoke on condition of anonymity, said the disciplinary process is nearly complete. It is derived from a military investigation of the Oct. 3, 2015, attack, the results of which are expected to be made public in a partially redacted form in coming days.

An employee of Doctors Without Borders walks inside the remains of the organization's hospital after it was hit by a U.S. airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan​

Sandra Murillo, a spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders, said the charity would not comment on disciplinary actions until the Pentagon communicates its decisions directly to the group or makes a public announcement. The hospital, run by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders in the northern city of Kunduz, was attacked by a U.S. Air Force special operations AC-130 gunship, one of the most lethal in the U.S. arsenal. Doctors Without Borders called the attack "relentless and brutal" and demanded an international investigation, but none has been undertaken. Army Gen. John Campbell, who was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan at the time but has since relinquished command, has called it a "tragic but avoidable accident caused primarily by human error."

The attack was unleashed as U.S. military advisers were helping Afghan forces retake Kunduz, which had fallen to the Taliban on Sept. 28. It was the first major city to fall since the Taliban were expelled from Kabul in 2001. Afghan officials claimed the hospital had been overrun by the Taliban, but no evidence of that has surfaced. The hospital was destroyed and Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym, MSF, ceased operations in Kunduz. President Barack Obama apologized for the attack, which was one of the deadliest assaults on civilians in the 15-year war. The U.S. command in Kabul said in February that it has expressed condolences and offered payment to more than 140 families and individuals affected by the attack.

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They didn't commit a crime.

 

[waltky]

Negligent homicide is a crime.

 

[Rustic]

Negligent homicide is a crime.

Shit happens... Deal with it
Lol

 

[waltky]

A lethal chain of mistakes...

'Fog of War' Led to Deadly Kunduz Hospital Strike
Apr 29, 2016 | A lethal chain of mistakes by U.S. air and ground forces in the "fog of war" led to the relentless AC-130U gunship attack on the Kunduz hospital that killed at least 42 last October, but the tragic errors did not rise to the level of war crimes or court-martial offenses, U.S. Central Command said Friday.

"They were trying to do the right thing," Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the CentCom commander, said of the U.S. Special Forces on the ground who called in the strike and the gunship crew, but a combination of human error and equipment failure resulted in their unleashing a 30-minute rain of cannon and gatling gun fire on the wrong target. At a Pentagon briefing summing up the 3,000-page CentCom investigation of the Oct. 3 incident, Votel said "the personnel involved did not know they were striking a medical facility," although the coordinates of the Medicins Sans Frontiere (Doctors Without Borders) Trauma Center in Kunduz were given to U.S. commanders well before the attack.

MSF officials also frantically called and e-mailed U.S. commanders in Kabul and Washington pleading for the attack to be called off by the AC-130U "Spooky II" aircraft and its side-mounted .105mm and .40mm cannons. After consulting with legal advisers, Votel said he had concluded that "the fact that this was unintentional -- the unintentional action takes it out of the realm of being considered a war crime" or a potential court-martial offense. "The comprehensive investigation concluded that this tragic incident was caused by a combination of human errors, compounded by process and equipment failures," Votel said.

An employee of Doctors Without Borders walks inside the remains of the organization's hospital after it was hit by a U.S. airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan.​

Votel also noted that the Special Forces team on the ground been fighting for five days in support of Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to repel Taliban fighters who had taken over north-central Kunduz -- the first time the Taliban had overrun a provincial Afghan capital. "This was an extreme situation we were dealing with," Votel said. The investigation report said that "fatigue and high operational tempo also contributed to the incident. These factors contributed to the 'fog of war' which is the uncertainty often encountered during combat operations." "The investigation found that this combination of factors caused both the ground force commander and the air crew to believe mistakenly that the air crew was firing on the intended target, an insurgent-controlled site approximately 400 meters away from the MSF Trauma Center," the CentCom report said.

Army Gen. John Campbell, the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan commander at the time, found in November that "certain personnel failed to comply with the rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict," but the CentCom investigation "did not conclude that these failures amounted to a war crime." "The label 'war crime' is typically reserved for intentional acts" but "none of the personnel knew that they were striking a medical facility," the investigation said. Votel said that a total of 16 members of the ground and air personnel, and others up the chain of command, including a general officer, had been singled out for discipline. He said the names of the 16 were being withheld for security reasons.

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[ABikerSailor]

Latest on this story is that there are going to be 13 people who will face non judicial punishment, with one of them to be publicly named and charged.

I'd like to know who it was that screwed the pooch and targeted this hospital. Even the crew of the gunship said that they had second thoughts because they thought it was a hospital.

 

[koshergrl]

Latest on this story is that there are going to be 13 people who will face non judicial punishment, with one of them to be publicly named and charged.

I'd like to know who it was that screwed the pooch and targeted this hospital. Even the crew of the gunship said that they had second thoughts because they thought it was a hospital.

You have information that's more current than today?

How did you swing that?

 

[Anathema]

Unless they can PROVE the facility and its employees are not and haven't been aiding ISIS fighters and/or people supporting ISIS, they're a legitimate target in my mind. International Law BE DAMNED.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Latest on this story is that there are going to be 13 people who will face non judicial punishment, with one of them to be publicly named and charged.

I'd like to know who it was that screwed the pooch and targeted this hospital. Even the crew of the gunship said that they had second thoughts because they thought it was a hospital.

You have information that's more current than today?

How did you swing that?

I heard it on the news yesterday. Only they said it was 13 but the actual number is 16 people who were disciplined. And, unlike you, I link to my claims. Here's the link:

16 found to be at fault for Doctors Without Borders hospital strike in Kunduz

 

[koshergrl]

Latest on this story is that there are going to be 13 people who will face non judicial punishment, with one of them to be publicly named and charged.

I'd like to know who it was that screwed the pooch and targeted this hospital. Even the crew of the gunship said that they had second thoughts because they thought it was a hospital.

You have information that's more current than today?

How did you swing that?

I heard it on the news yesterday. Only they said it was 13 but the actual number is 16 people who were disciplined. And, unlike you, I link to my claims. Here's the link:

16 found to be at fault for Doctors Without Borders hospital strike in Kunduz

I always link to my claims, faggot.

 

[waltky]

Aircrew had misgivings about Kunduz hospital strike...

Aircrew Had Doubts in Kunduz Airstrike; Ground Team Said 'Engage'
Apr 29, 2016 | The crew of the AC-103U gunship circled the target for more than an hour, disbelieving that this was the building they were supposed to hit and repeatedly asking for confirmation from the Special Forces team on the ground.

The difference was that the aircrew could see the building, which turned out to be the Medecins Sans Frontiere (Doctors Without Borders) Trauma Center in Kunduz, and the Joint Tactical Air Controller (JTAC) with the Special Forces could not. The target was out of their line of sight. The aircrew's commander finally relented and ordered the strike. For 30 minutes and nine seconds, the AC-103U unleashed a torrent of 105mm and 40mm cannon fire, and gatling gun fire, on the hospital and its grounds, according to the 3,000-page U.S. Central Command investigation.

The report said that a total of 211 shells were fired, but the types of shells were redacted. The final casualty toll, which was still in dispute, was believed to be at least 42 dead and at least 128 wounded. In the clinical and acronym-laden wording of the report, the tragedy was "due to several leaders' decisions or failures to act," but neither the U.S. aircrew nor the ground team were aware that they were "firing on a hospital throughout the course of the engagement." The aircrew, however, had its doubts. The target the JTAC wanted hit was a building about 400 meters away from the hospital. He called up coordinates to the gunship, but the crew member operating the TV sensor determined that it was an open field.

After some back and forth communications, the aircrew then "identified a large complex 300 meters southwest from the grid location (the open field) and asked for confirmation" that it was the intended target. Fifteen seconds later, the aircrew was told that "the large complex was the correct compound" to be attacked, the investigation said. For the next 10 minutes, the aircrew discussed the mission among themselves while observing the compound. They saw nine individuals walking about, not carrying weapons. They asked again for confirmation. They were told that "compound is under the control of the TB (Taliban)" and the individuals seen walking about were "hostile."

Still, the aircrew hesitated. After discussions about a "T-shaped building" and the shape of an arch on the wall of the compound, the aircrew sought confirmation one last time: "Looking again for clarification on the last. Break. Also looking for clarification on the building to be struck. Confirm it is the T-shaped building." The response from the ground was: "You are clear to engage," the investigation said. "Before the impact of (redacted) final round on the MSF Trauma Center, several echelons of command were aware that the wrong compound was engaged, resulting in civilian deaths and the destruction of the main trauma center building," the investigation said.

Aircrew Had Doubts in Kunduz Airstrike; Ground Team Said 'Engage' | Military.com

 

[jillian]

A top U.S. commander said Tuesday that the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in northern Afghanistan was accidental -- but the humanitarian group, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, claims otherwise.

The hospital, the only one of its kind in the region, was "deliberately bombed," according to a statement released Tuesday by Dr. Joanne Liu, MSF's international president. "The attack was unacceptable."

Doctors Without Borders Enraged Over 'Deliberate' Kunduz Hospital Bombing

they feel it was mishandled. i'm not quite sure where you're getting that they think it was 'deliberate"

what they think is that if there was that much confusion the op should have been aborted. i'm pretty sure that people were disciplined over this.

 

[jillian]

Latest on this story is that there are going to be 13 people who will face non judicial punishment, with one of them to be publicly named and charged.

I'd like to know who it was that screwed the pooch and targeted this hospital. Even the crew of the gunship said that they had second thoughts because they thought it was a hospital.

You have information that's more current than today?

How did you swing that?

I heard it on the news yesterday. Only they said it was 13 but the actual number is 16 people who were disciplined. And, unlike you, I link to my claims. Here's the link:

16 found to be at fault for Doctors Without Borders hospital strike in Kunduz

I always link to my claims, faggot.

it is easy to find things to support almost any delusional opinion. but what you post isn't made fact by posting another winger's opinion piece.

the fact that your sources aren't legitimate might be the larger part of the problem

 

[waltky]

Lessons learned from Kunduz fiasco to be taught to all commands...

All Commands to Teach Lessons Learned from Kunduz Airstrike Tragedy
May 02, 2016 | Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has ordered the military to teach the lessons learned from the Kunduz airstrike that destroyed a hospital and killed at least 42 to all units before they deploy, with an emphasis on what to do when their technology breaks down.

"I am committed to ensuring that similar incidents do not occur in the future," Carter said in a memo to the service secretaries and combatant commanders that went out last Friday after the release of the 3,000-page U.S. Central Command investigation of the tragic incident in the early morning hours last Oct. 3. Carter called on leaders to "incorporate the Kunduz scenario into pre-deployment training as an example of the complex environment into which units are deploying." He also ordered them to "establish a standard operating procedure to address contingencies when systems fail."

Carter's directive urged the leadership to "identify incompatible technological systems and generate solutions to enhance interoperability among operational forces." In a Pentagon briefing last Friday on the investigation, Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the new CentCom commander, said, "The investigation ultimately concluded that this tragic incident was caused by a combination of human errors, compounded by process and equipment failures," that resulted in the devastating attack on the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) Trauma Center. The 3,000-page investigative report itself called the 30-minute and eight second attack a "disproportional response to a threat that didn't exist."

Votel singled out the failure of the TV sensor aboard the AC-130U gunship which carried out the airstrike on the north-central Afghan city. The sensor was supposed to transmit and receive images of the target for relay to the JTAC (Joint Tactical Air Controller) and the ground forces commander with the Special Forces team calling for the strike. "This was a failure at that point of this -- this specific radio system and antenna that is designed to receive data and transmit data to the ground," Votel said. "They were absolutely trying to do the right thing," Votel said of the aircrew and the Special Forces team. "There was no intention on any of their parts to take a short cut, or to violate any rules that were laid out for them."

"Unfortunately, they made a wrong judgment in this particular case, and ended up targeting this Doctors Without Borders facility," Votel said. The actual target was an Afghan National Directorate of Security building about 400 meters away from the MSF compound that had been taken over by the Taliban. "The first equipment failure we talked about was the radio system, the antenna system that prevented them from receiving digital information that would have told them of no strike areas and other things, and then would have been able -- allowed them to send a picture to the ground," Votel said.

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See also:

Survivors Call for US Troops to Face Trial over Afghan Hospital
Apr 30, 2016 - Survivors of a U.S. air strike on a hospital in Afghanistan have called for those responsible to go on trial and dismissed an American military investigation that said the bombardment did not amount to a war crime.

The Pentagon on Friday published a report of their investigation into the air strike saying the troops involved in the raid would not face war crimes charges. The attack on the hospital run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders in the city of Kunduz last October left 42 people dead and triggered global outrage, forcing President Barack Obama to make a rare apology. "They should be publicly put on trial," Hamdullah, a 27-year-old who lost his uncle in the attack and worked in the laundry at the hospital, told AFP. "This was a deliberate bombardment by the American forces, and we are not satisfied that they have said this was not a war crime. This is unacceptable for us," Hamdullah, who goes by one name, said.

General Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, said an investigation had found those involved made a series of mistakes and hit the clinic in error. "It's a joke that the US said the incident was not a war crime," Zahidullah, 24, who lost a cousin in the attack and worked as a cleaner at the hospital, told AFP. "It is unacceptable to all of us", he added. "What we saw that night is difficult for us to express in words," he said, calling for compensation for victims and their families as well as adequate medical care. The hospital -- the only health facility in the province -- was forced to close after the attack.

The Afghan government in a statement welcomed the publication of the report. "The Afghan government is satisfied that the investigation was done carefully and comprehensively, and believes measures were taken to ensure accountability," it said in a statement. "The government of Afghanistan supports measures for preventing such attacks," it added. The bombing last October came as NATO-backed Afghan forces clashed with insurgents for control of the northern provincial capital. Doctors Without Borders branded the strike a war crime, saying the raid by an AC-130 gunship left patients burning in their beds with some victims decapitated and others requiring amputations.

Survivors Call for US Troops to Face Trial over Afghan Hospital | Military.com

 

[waltky]

Is the least they can do to make reparations...

Medical charity MSF urges US to pay Afghan hospital victims
May 17,`16 ) -- A leading medical charity that suffered massive losses when U.S. helicopter gunships mistakenly struck its clinic in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz is criticizing the United States for failing to pay compensation to the wounded and families of the Afghans killed in the assault last October.

Doctors Without Borders says Washington should "urgently address" the issue - even as the Afghan government prepares to rebuild the hospital with millions of dollars donated by the U.S. military. The U.S. military has, in fact, paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to wounded survivors and relatives of those killed in the Kunduz attack, with payments of $6,000 for each person killed and the wounded receiving $3,000. However U.S. officials have said the payments were not compensation, but condolence gestures, and representatives of the victims have said the payments were inadequate to make up for their losses. The payments that Doctors Without Borders is urging Washington to make are separate from that, the charity said.

The organization, known by its French initials MSF, has decided - at least for now - not to resume operations in Kunduz, where it ran the only trauma hospital in an increasingly violent part of the country, said Guilhem Molinie, the MSF representative for Afghanistan. The Pentagon said the sustained attack was a mistake caused by human error. After a months-long investigation, the United States dismissed allegations by MSF that the incident amounted to a war crime, and exonerated all involved of any criminal action. President Barack Obama apologized for the attack, which was one of the deadliest assaults on civilians in the 15-year war in Afghanistan.

U.S. soldiers walk into the charred remains of the Doctors Without Borders, MSF, hospital in the northern city of Kunduz, Afghanistan. The leading medical charity that suffered massive losses when U.S. helicopter gunships mistakenly struck its clinic in Kunduz is criticizing the United States for failing to pay compensation to the wounded and families of the Afghans killed in the assault last September. MSF said Washington should "urgently address" the issue -- even as the Afghan government prepares to rebuild the hospital with millions of dollars donated by the U.S. military.​

But while the Pentagon report, released on April 29, said no criminal charges had been leveled against U.S. military personnel for mistakes that resulted in the attack, about 16 American military personnel, including a two-star general, were disciplined. A dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press since the Oct. 3 assault on the MSF hospital - which treated wounded Taliban and government fighters alike - are convinced the bombing was no accident. They have said that the attack was sustained and focused on destroying the main hospital building. Doctors Without Borders has said it provided the GPS coordinates of the Kunduz clinic to all parties in the conflict in Afghanistan.

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[/CENTER]
[/quote]

 

[waltky]

Rules of engagement tightened after Kunduz hospital strike...

US Tightens Air War Rules of Engagement after Kunduz Hospital Strike
May 26, 2016 | The lessons learned from the airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan have reverberated through U.S. Central Command and led pilots to pay even closer attention to the already strict rules of engagement, the top general for the Iraq-Syria air war said Thursday.

The bottom line was that "if you have any doubt, don't drop" to avoid civilian casualties, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, said in a video briefing from the Mideast to the Pentagon. Brown also echoed concerns voiced earlier by Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh about a potential shortage of precision-guided bombs for the air war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Since the air campaign began in August 2014, about 38,000 munitions have been dropped or fired in Iraq and Syria, according to Air Force statistics. "It's still a concern, we have to balance that," as the air campaign accelerates in the effort to assist local forces in retaking Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa, the main ISIS stronghold in Syria, Brown said.

The Air Force was moving to buy more precision-guided munitions, but "those weapons are about two years away," Brown said. "The other piece is we have stocks around the world" for use by other combatant commands, but "we have to do some analysis before we take risks," he said. "What I mean by that is -- where do we pull weapons from and do we use them now or save them for later? It's something we pay close attention to," Brown said. The use of GPS-guided weapons and close coordination between aircrews and the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid airbase in Qatar has led to what Brown called the "most precise air campaign in history, but those methods and procedures failed in the attack last October by an AC-130 gunship on a Doctors Without Borders Hospital in the provincial capital of Kunduz, Afghanistan, that killed at least 42.

In releasing a 3,000-page CentCom report on the incident last month, Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the CentCom commander, said, "The comprehensive investigation concluded that this tragic incident was caused by a combination of human errors, compounded by process and equipment failures." "They were trying to do the right thing," Votel said of the U.S. Special Forces on the ground who called in the strike and the gunship crew, but a combination of errors resulted in their unleashing a 30-minute rain of cannon and gatling gun fire on the wrong target. Referring to the hospital strike, Brown said that "the real takeaway from something like that as it applies to us here" was to "make sure we are going with the rules of engagement," and to focus on "communications of all elements" involved in a mission. "We spend a lot of time talking about it," Brown said, and "if they have any doubt, they do not drop."

Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter ordered the military to teach the lessons learned from Kunduz to all units before they deploy, with an emphasis on what to do when their technology breaks down. "I am committed to ensuring that similar incidents do not occur in the future," Carter said in a memo to the service secretaries and combatant commanders. Carter called on leaders to "incorporate the Kunduz scenario into pre-deployment training as an example of the complex environment into which units are deploying." He also ordered them to "establish a standard operating procedure to address contingencies when systems fail."

US Tightens Air War Rules of Engagement after Kunduz Hospital Strike | Military.com