Small Wars Journal

Pentagon: 2015 Strike on Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan Was Not a War Crime

Fri, 04/29/2016 - 10:37pm

Pentagon: 2015 Strike on Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan Was Not a War Crime by Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Dan Lamothe, Washington Post

A Pentagon investigation into a 2015 airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan found that the failures that led to the disaster did not amount to a war crime because they were not intentional, Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, said Friday.

The Pentagon said it disciplined 16 service members involved in the attack, which killed at least 30 people, including medical staff and patients. The U.S. troops involved did not know they were striking a medical facility, Votel said, and their punishments ranged from formal counseling to letters of reprimand.

“They were trying to do the right thing. They were trying to support our Afghan partners,” said Votel. “Unfortunately, they made a wrong judgment in this particular case and ended up targeting this Doctors Without Borders facility.”

Five service members, including a general officer, were removed from Afghanistan. None of the 16 service members have faced court-martial…

Read on.

 

Comments

Outlaw 09

Sun, 05/01/2016 - 2:59am

In reply to by Bill M.

This story has not fully played out yet as now ever so quietly there is a mounting push to actually have MFS explain their actions with this hospital as well as other incidents where MSF has been involved in that one has to openly now question MSF on.

Urban warfare is one the hardest fights there is in a war and bad things happen ...but trying to whitewash the senior leadership of both SF and DoD who put them in this spot in time and place needs to be intently also looked at.

If the DoD and SF senior leaders now give the allusion that all command decisions made during a major firefight are going to be reviewed at some time afterwards..if a loud enough public cry and hue is made who is going to take risks that urban warfare demands??

Certainly not me would be the answer in the coming months and years...from those asked again to fight in a similar situation.

Yes no one faced a court martial BUT a letter of reprimand and or official counseling letter is enough in this current Army drawdown to "kill" a career.

Do not forget that....in fact a court martial was specifically avoided IMHO as then the deficiencies of the senior leadership would have been a key defense point and that both the Army and SF wanted to at all costs avoid that showdown...

Difficult for anyone not on the ground or in the AC-130 during the event to comment, and even those individuals were had a partial view based on the limited view from their position, whether it was on a rooftop or looking at sensors in the AC-130. Terrible things happen in the chaos of combat, things individuals already have to carry with them the rest of their lives, but increasingly they have to endure the stress of being tried by individuals in the U.S. who have political agendas.

Admittedly, this incident was especially tragic considering a hospital and NGOs were accidentally targeted, so the incident had to be investigated, and procedures need to be adjusted to avoid this in the future they should be adjusted. What bothers me is that it was determined that no war crimes were committed, yet the military is still compelled to punish those involved for perception reasons. Seems to be a violation of the trust these men placed in their leadership all the way to senior civilian leadership.

The enclosed article provides the most detailed account I have seen. They were put in a tough situation, there was the fog of war, and individuals tried to do the right thing, and sadly it didn't work out.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/04/us-blames-tech-hospital-st…

US Blames Tech for Hospital Strike. But There’s More To The Story