The Pentagon on Friday released the findings of its inquiry into the October 3, 2015, air attack on a Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. If the report was meant to demonstrate that appropriate action had been taken against those responsible, it was a failure. Instead, it highlights both the unlawfulness of the attack and the inadequacy of U.S. military justice. Those responsible received administrative punishment -- and not a single criminal charge was pursued.
The airstrike killed 42 patients, caregivers and medical staff, and injured dozens more. Some patients burned alive in their beds as the U.S.… Seguir leyendo »
Le 3 octobre, l’hôpital de Médecins sans frontières de Kunduz a été bombardé par l’armée américaine pendant les opérations pour reprendre la ville aux Taliban. Les derniers décomptes indiquent une vingtaine de morts - humanitaires et malades, y compris des enfants - et des dizaines de blessés graves. L’hôpital est désormais fermé, MSF ne pouvant plus garantir la sécurité de ses installations, ce qui prive les blessés de la seule antenne chirurgicale efficace dans la région. Il s’agit par ailleurs d’un des incidents les plus meurtriers pour l’ONG, tous terrains confondus, depuis des décennies. Les bombardements américains résultent-ils d’une erreur due au fog of war, incident tragique mais excusable étant donné la confusion inhérente aux combats urbains ?… Seguir leyendo »
Last month, Faisal bin Ali Jaber traveled from his home in Yemen to Washington to ask why a United States drone had fired missiles at, and killed, his brother-in-law, a cleric who had spoken out against al-Qaida. Also killed in the attack was Jaber’s nephew, a policeman who had come to offer protection to his uncle.
Congressional representatives and government officials met Jaber and expressed their condolences, but provided no explanations. Nor has the U.S. admitted that it made a mistake.
A week later, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, did apologize for a drone attack that killed a child and seriously wounded two women in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.… Seguir leyendo »
This is a story of an Afghan wedding gone badly wrong. Or perhaps of “an operation in search of an insurgent leader,” as the official report later said. It is hard to tell which. Probably both.
Meet Abdulrashid, a man with no last name, no profession, no literacy skills and no exact date of birth. He might be in his 30s. I first encounter him as I am interviewing internally displaced people in Afghanistan to highlight their fate, lest the world forget about them after foreign troops withdraw in 2014. Other refugees point him out, ask me to listen to his story: “Tell the world, please.”… Seguir leyendo »
Reports this month that airstrikes are being used to push Taliban leaders toward the negotiation table suggest that the controversial policy restricting airpower in the Afghan war may be ripe for review. Indeed, new data indicate that a reevaluation cannot come soon enough.
Since airstrikes were limited in June 2009, Afghan civilian deaths have skyrocketed -- a staggering 31 percent increase in 2010 over last year's record-breaking numbers. Sadly, casualties among U.S. troops and others in the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) also have reached all-time highs. Notwithstanding the enormous human cost, a U.N. report released in June shows security in the country continuing to deteriorate.… Seguir leyendo »
June was a terrible month for the war in Afghanistan. The milestone of the 300th British death was compounded by the most deadly month for the Nato-led mission since the start of the conflict.
The precise compilation of western casualties contrasts with almost criminal neglect in tracking the numbers of Afghan civilians killed since 2001. If Afghanistan is the "good war" then why are we not demanding to be accurately told how many skeletons there are in the Afghan closet?
In 2005 Donald Rumsfeld famously quipped that "death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war". The US defence department maintains documentation on US military personnel only, while the British ministry of defence "does not maintain records that would enable a definitive number of civilian fatalities to be recorded" – although it did confirm last month that payments to relatives of Afghan civilians killed in error by British forces have trebled over the past year.… Seguir leyendo »
Does the war in Afghanistan keep our streets safe? Both the current and the previous government claim that it does, but the real answer is probably not. Every attack directed at the Taliban and al-Qaida, even precise drone attacks, provides a justification for mobilising more recruits.
But would withdrawal from Afghanistan be any better? That is what critics of the war propose. And again, the answer is probably not. Many Afghans fear that it could mean a return to civil war or a victory for the Taliban – at least in parts of the country – and that, in turn, would mean a base for al-Qaida.… Seguir leyendo »
As the dramatic details of the rescue of the New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell emerged, there will have been both sympathy and anger among soldiers in Afghanistan.
Sympathy for the families of those killed in the operation — Mr Farrell’s interpreter and fellow journalist, Sultan Munadi, and a British soldier, one of his rescuers — but also anger that lives had been lost at all.
Hostage rescue missions are notoriously difficult. While soldiers fight and die, usually for each other, there will be a few who will ask why they have to do so for a journalist who had put himself in harm’s way.… Seguir leyendo »
As civilian casualties mount, American and NATO forces in Afghanistan are facing an erosion of their public legitimacy. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are exploiting this distrust, aiming to transform it into a popular rage against the Afghan government and its foreign allies. Unless the insurgents are denied propaganda tools — in particular, the growing number of images of dead women and children — no number of additional troops will bring success to the American-led mission.
The United Nations, which last month extended NATO’s mandate in Afghanistan for another year, says there were 1,445 civilian casualties from the beginning of the year to mid-September, a 40 percent increase over all of 2007.… Seguir leyendo »
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