War crime

Will justice be done for the collateral damage of US-led wars around the world? In October last year, 42 people were killed as a US gunship attacked a hospital operated by the medical charity Doctors without Borders in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The attack was widely condemned by the international community, with international aid organisations expressing anger over being directly targeted in a war zone. Doctors Without Borders insisted that the attack was a war crime. On Friday, the unequal nature of the law was exposed to the world. A Pentagon investigation into the attack called it the product of a series of mistakes. These sixteen ‘errors’ included human errors, process errors, equipment failures and sheer ignorance. The result? These ‘errors’ mean that the attack cannot be called a ‘war crime’. Among those ‘disciplined’ for the attack are 16military personnel, including a two-star general. But, crucially, none of the military personnel involved will either be court-martialed or face criminal charges. Apparently, despite the fact that the hospital was on a ‘no-strike’ list, the list was not available to the crew.

The investigation is a sham. With 211 shells fired at the hospital compound over 29 minutes, according to the official report, surely this was more than just a series of mistakes. If, for one moment, we buy the official investigation report, it confirms that such mistakes are not rare but rather routine events. The inability of the US military to rectify the issues in its chain of command must be seen as criminal. Under this logic, the decision not to charge the military officials involved is correct. It is the entire US war machine that is guilty for not being able to find an accurate way of figuring out who is a legitimate and who is an illegitimate target during warfare. But we must also ask that if the US investigation into the attack does not qualify the Kunduz hospital attack as a war crime, then what is a war crime? The US report has confirmed that there were no Taliban present at the hospital at the time of the attack. This deviates from earlier claims and makes the cause for prosecution more serious. Doctors Without Borders has been calling for an independent investigation from the start. The US report only confirms why its concerns were well-founded.