John Sifton’s rebuttal of Pentagon report on October attack on Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan
John Sifton’s rebuttal of the Pentagon’s report on the October attack on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan 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.” John Sifton is the Asia Policy Director of Human Rights Watch.
“Not all laws of war violations are war crimes — only serious violations committed with criminal intent or recklessness. Yet two of the report’s findings make clear that serious violations occurred. First, the attack was unlawfully indiscriminate because “neither commander distinguished between combatants and civilians nor a military objective and protected (civilian) property.” Second, even if the commanders reasonably believed they were carrying out an attack on a lawful target, the report found that the attack was unlawfully disproportionate to the expected military gain of the attack.”
Source: Pentagon hospital attack report falls short (Opinion) – CNN.com
Read more in the NY Times’ coverage which states: “In a heavily redacted report, which runs more than 3,000 pages, military investigators described a mission that went wrong from start to finish. Even after Doctors Without Borders informed American commanders that a gunship was attacking a hospital, the airstrike was not immediately called off because, it appears, the Americans could not confirm themselves that the hospital was actually free of Taliban.”
Pentagon Details Chain of Errors in Strike on Afghan Hospital
General Director of Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Christopher Stokes said, “Some public reports are circulating that the attack on our hospital could be justified because we were treating Taliban. Wounded combatants are patients under international law, and must be free from attack and treated without discrimination. Medical staff should never be punished or attacked for providing treatment to wounded combatants.”