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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoctors Without Borders wants a never-before-used mechanism of the Geneva Conventions to investigate
the U.S. airstrike
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/calls-for-an-international-investigation-into-kunduz-airstrike/409369/
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Doctors Without Borders (MSF) wants a never-before-used mechanism of the Geneva Conventions to investigate the U.S. airstrike on its medical facility in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that killed 22 people.
The U.S. attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz was the biggest loss of life for our organization in an airstrike, Dr. Joanne Liu, the groups international president, said in Geneva on Wednesday. Tens of thousands of people in Kunduz can no longer receive medical care now when they need it most. Today we say: enough. Even war has rules.
MSF wants the airstrike to be investigated by an International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commissionestablished in the Additional Protocols of the Geneva Conventions. The commission, which was set up in 1991, is the only permanent body that specifically investigates violations of international humanitarian law.
The tool exists and it is time it is activated, Liu said.
The bodys rules state one of 76 signatory states must sponsor an inquiry. But for one to get formally underway, it must be endorsed by the parties to the conflict, in this case the U.S. and Afghanistan. Neither country is likely to support such a move.
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Why would they not support such a move???
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)Afghanistan on the other hand will probably refuse to cooperate.
Solly Mack
(90,762 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Repeated sorties by the same American bomber over a clearly marked from the sky Red Cross marked hospital.....as patients and staff fled....repeatedly....think about that and how given grid coordinates were not verified??
There is only one conclusion.
A great crime has been committed.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)Quackers
(2,256 posts)This shouldn't have happened and we need to know where the breakdown in communication happened.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Doesn't Doctors Without Borders trust the U.S. military to investigate its own actions? For no good reason!
malaise
(268,949 posts)Would you blame folks on the planet for wondering if the Geneva Convention applies to the US since 9/11??
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)MasonDreams
(756 posts)I think Robert McNamara said it best in his confession documentary, The Fog of War. I can't quote him, but he said, in reference to the fire bombing of Japan, that, had we lost the war, we would have been prosecuted for war crimes. He wasn't happy about this sad state of affairs and hoped that humans would do better.
Oh, I know its just one little hospital and it was an accident and we're sorry. It just upsets me deeply to see a man, wearing the uniform of the USA, just like the one I wore; glossing over, correcting, changing the story 3 times. BS the military knew exactly what happened a few hours after it happened. Man up, show some character, make me proud to be an American. My country right or wrong? Hell no, that's stupid. My country mature and intelligent enough to own up to and learn from its mistakes.
Maybe msm cut it out, maybe I missed it, but I haven't heard:
Its not gonna happen again
We're gonna fix everything so it doesn't
We deeply regret any loss of innocent life and
our heart goes out to the friends and family
of those who were lost and we wish to express
our deepest condolences.