Obama Targets Hospital in Afganistan

[alismith]

As Commander in Chief, responsibility for ANY military action falls squarely on his shoulders. The CMSM is claiming it's a mistake and chalks it up to collateral damage.

My first guess, after I heard the US was doing the bombing, was that the hospital was treating mostly Christians. I could be wrong.

IF this is the case, then it stands to reason that Obama is more than happy with the results.

Even if not deliberate, the US was very slow in stopping it once it was brought to their attention. This kind of reminds me of Benghazi a little.

"Frantic MSF staff phoned military officials at NATO in Kabul and Washington after the attack, and bombs continued to rain down near the medical facility for nearly an hour, one official from the aid group said."

http://news.yahoo.com/hospital-hit-t...VfMQRzZWMDc2M-

Maybe Hussein O is trying to copy Putin and decided to carry out his own agenda while claiming to be hitting Taliban forces.

[Richard Simmons]

Your article doesn't say it was our airstrike but that it might have been. Also if you read the article it says they reported the incident to NATO, not the U.S. Common sense would suggest a lag between the wrong people they called passing the info on to the right people.

What makes you think there would be mostly christians in this particular hospital? Afghanistan has virtually no Christian population outside of foreigners. I think your assumptions are quite a stretch

[alismith]

Your article doesn't say it was our airstrike but that it might have been. Also if you read the article it says they reported the incident to NATO, not the U.S. Common sense would suggest a lag between the wrong people they called passing the info on to the right people.

What makes you think there would be mostly christians in this particular hospital? Afghanistan has virtually no Christian population outside of foreigners. I think your assumptions are quite a stretch

The article, and title, said the US led the airstrikes. The title says it was a US airstrike.

The rest was pure conjecture on my part based on how this administration acts towards terrorists.

I did say I could be wrong....

[FunkyPertwee]

[ltorlo64]

The more I think about drones used for military missions the more I do not like them. They allow us to conduct war without cost (in human terms) to us while exacting high costs on our "enemies". War should cost, on both sides, so that we only engage in it when absolutely necessary. What we are doing with drones allows us to carry on perpetual warfare with no cost as to human suffering but only on economics. I do not buy into the whole "military industrial complex" but in this case I believe this is what is driving this.

[ltorlo64]

I have been hearing some reports about this. I am beginning to wonder if false information was given to our intelligence services to get us to attack that area so that it could then be used against us. With so little information available just now it is hard to know.

[imanaknut]

There are reports on the BBC stating there were Taliban hiding in the hospital. Still killing good people just to get a few bad is wrong in my book.

Other possibility, Taliban bomb in hospital timed to make it look like a hit from an air strike?

[stevelyn]

Don't be going places you don't belong.

[Richard Simmons]

I see it being reported that Doctors Without Borders is claiming the bombing is a war crime. I mean come on, you're in the middle of a war zone and you get accidentally bombed, how is that a war crime? You go to dangerous places and regardless of your mission, shit happens.

[ltorlo64]

I see it being reported that Doctors Without Borders is claiming the bombing is a war crime. I mean come on, you're in the middle of a war zone and you get accidentally bombed, how is that a war crime? You go to dangerous places and regardless of your mission, shit happens.

The liberal mindset is that if non-combatants are killed, no matter what the reason, it is a war crime if the weapons were fired by US or US backed forces. The correct mindset should be to win, as we had in WWII. Civilians were not targeted, but if they were supporting the war effort in some way, their deaths were considered progress towards victory. Again, I go back to the human cost of war. If the only people being killed are the people who volunteer to join the military and fight the nation does not see the cost of war and will all it to go unchecked (for the most part). When the place where fighters are holed up is in the middle of a neighborhood, school, church/mosque, or hospital and the people allow that, they should expect that civilians will be casualties. This is a cost of war. We have come to a point where we are not willing to extract nor pay the cost, and we have found ways around it, which is why we see war perpetuate with no winner or loser, it is only stopped when one side runs out of money.

[alismith]

The liberal mindset is that if non-combatants are killed, no matter what the reason, it is a war crime if the weapons were fired by US or US backed forces. The correct mindset should be to win, as we had in WWII. Civilians were not targeted, but if they were supporting the war effort in some way, their deaths were considered progress towards victory. Again, I go back to the human cost of war. If the only people being killed are the people who volunteer to join the military and fight the nation does not see the cost of war and will all it to go unchecked (for the most part). When the place where fighters are holed up is in the middle of a neighborhood, school, church/mosque, or hospital and the people allow that, they should expect that civilians will be casualties. This is a cost of war. We have come to a point where we are not willing to extract nor pay the cost, and we have found ways around it, which is why we see war perpetuate with no winner or loser, it is only stopped when one side runs out of money.

General George S Patton knew how to fight, and win, a war.

(Paraphrasing his words loosely here.) "You don't win a war by dying for your country; you win a war by making the other poor bastard die for his country."

[imanaknut]

Funny that he has targeted hospitals here in the USofA but he is using this stealth bomber known as obama-care to do it.

[Gunner1558]

o could care less, anyway, it was Bush's fault!

[nfa1934]

Doctors Without Borders is a radical leftist organization, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were providing medical support to the Taliban. By their own policy, they do not turn anyone away. It stands to reason that if you do not turn anyone away and you are operating in a Taliban controlled area, then you are treating Taliban. At a minimum, I believe they are lying about Taliban operating from their hospital. It is very likely they were acting as Taliban medics.

[daemon734]

It wasn't a drone, it was an AC-130.

[daemon734]

The more I think about drones used for military missions the more I do not like them. They allow us to conduct war without cost (in human terms) to us while exacting high costs on our "enemies". War should cost, on both sides, so that we only engage in it when absolutely necessary. What we are doing with drones allows us to carry on perpetual warfare with no cost as to human suffering but only on economics. I do not buy into the whole "military industrial complex" but in this case I believe this is what is driving this.

I disagree. Drones are invaluable for ISR missions and even limited CAS.
I also do not agree on your rationale of it being "necessary" to have a human in the bird. That mindset seems to allude to unmanned drones being "unfair", however there is nothing declaring it as such aside from a marginal interpretation of an ancient "chivalrous code" to warfare. We can't keep our enemies even remotely within the well-defined LOAC, much less arbitrary notions of fairness.

However, contrary to popular belief, the human cost is generally still there with these aircraft as outside of the niche market of CIA and similar OGA use there is almost always a FAC on the ground with a team or unit of some sort calling the shots.

There was a team on the ground at the hospital in question green lighting the strike for whatever reasons they had at the time. I wasn't there, but having been in many seemingly similar situations before I try not to armchair quarterback those type of things. Interpreting these situations is vastly different when being discussed from your living room versus being 300 meters away with machine guns being fired at you.

[stevelyn]

Doctors Without Borders is a radical leftist organization, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were providing medical support to the Taliban. By their own policy, they do not turn anyone away. It stands to reason that if you do not turn anyone away and you are operating in a Taliban controlled area, then you are treating Taliban. At a minimum, I believe they are lying about Taliban operating from their hospital. It is very likely they were acting as Taliban medics.

Exactly. They should have been hit twice.

[ltorlo64]

I disagree. Drones are invaluable for ISR missions and even limited CAS.
I also do not agree on your rationale of it being "necessary" to have a human in the bird. That mindset seems to allude to unmanned drones being "unfair", however there is nothing declaring it as such aside from a marginal interpretation of an ancient "chivalrous code" to warfare. We can't keep our enemies even remotely within the well-defined LOAC, much less arbitrary notions of fairness.

However, contrary to popular belief, the human cost is generally still there with these aircraft as outside of the niche market of CIA and similar OGA use there is almost always a FAC on the ground with a team or unit of some sort calling the shots.

There was a team on the ground at the hospital in question green lighting the strike for whatever reasons they had at the time. I wasn't there, but having been in many seemingly similar situations before I try not to armchair quarterback those type of things. Interpreting these situations is vastly different when being discussed from your living room versus being 300 meters away with machine guns being fired at you.

Thanks for the response, you gave me some angles to think about that I had not considered. I would like to clear up some misconceptions I gave, though. I do not think it is necessary to have a human in each plane or helicopter we use, nor do I think it is unfair. My point is in the way this President is using drones. He claims to be wanting peace and says he is pulling out the military from these areas and then sends in drones because if he loses a drone, no one really cares. If we lose a plane and one or more pilots, we start asking hard questions that he does not want to answer. By using drones the way he is, he has is able to make war without cost, and without most people even noticing that it is happening.

The angle you provided me that I did not know was about the FAC. I bow to your knowledge of this as my expertise is in ocean warfare, both above and below the ocean. Using drones for ISR missions is a great use of them. Using them for CAS when we are fighting is another great use. Using them to target a few people so we don't have to put "boots on the ground" and have to decide whether we should be fighting in an area or not is, I think, much more questionable.

Don't get me wrong, I think we should fight terrorists and defeat them, and that we should use every weapon at our disposal, even drones. The thing I am against is using drones exclusively. It is sort of like having the all volunteer force. It is great that we have people who volunteered to be in the military, but the other 99% of the population that do not serve do not understand what we give up, what we sacrifice, to ensure our freedom. It allows our country to use us in ways they would not if they understood the cost. By using drones almost exclusively to fight "terrorists" we, as a country, forget what it costs.

As for the specific attack, I to am sure that if the hospital was targeted it happened because there was a threat in the hospital, or that we reasonably concluded that there was one there. I have read many reports of the terrorists using schools, mosques, and hospitals as launching and hiding places when they are fighting. It provides great cover and when we, or our allies, attack they can then show how "barbaric" we are in attacking a school, mosque or hospital. I am not arguing against that, I am arguing against using drones so extensively.

With this explanation either I have made myself more clear or I have dug myself a deeper hole. Let me know.

[daemon734]

With this explanation either I have made myself more clear or I have dug myself a deeper hole. Let me know.

We're on the same page, I misunderstood what you meant. The confusion here is really the delineation between military drones and OGA drones. Drones are an everyday part of military campaign now, but what you are referring to is drone use by OGA, or more realistically, the CIA.

The use of drones by the CIA is a tricky one. Technically areas such as Yemen where we use them a lot are legally pre-stated as being areas on conflict on the war on terror, but we have no actual military presence there. It's almost akin to the cold war sneaky assassination bit without the whole "being sneaky" aspect. Im not sure if being more in your face about it is good or bad.

[5.56NATO]

There was a yahoo news piece today that said the taliban were using the hospital as their own, and stored heavy weapons there. Wich makes me wonder why 0bama would attack it, since 0bama supports jihad as jihadster in chief and recently dropped 50 tons of munitions to isis. I can more easily imagine 0bama ordering US forces to attack the enemies of isis rather than those who are fighting isis.

http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2015/10/15...syrian-rebels/