An Unfortunate Incident? Yes. A War Crime? No.

Doctors Without Borders, or the much hipper name Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has accused the United States of war crimes for the probably inadvertent bombing of their lone hospital in Northern Afghanistan. Obviously all the facts are not available to anyone, including the hyperbolic MSF spokesmen. It is entirely possible that the Taliban were firing from positions near or perhaps in the hospital so that the well known rules of engagement of the US military would protect them. Or someone had bad aim, or got flawed targeting information.

But the leap to “WAR CRIME!” is reckless and irresponsible on the part of MSF, who admittedly do  fine work and are quite obviously brave men and women. And yes, they are also a reliably leftist organization that is clearly not above playing the media game to gain international attention for themselves and perhaps further their political ends. For instance their stance on Arab terrorism in Israel is reliably anti-Zionist: Clashes, raids and arrests damage Palestinians’ psychological health is the title of one of their reports from 2014. Interestingly, I couldn’t find any reports on how the constant demonization and dehumanization of Israel and Jews on the part of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas is damaging their psychological health. Or that those raids and clashes are a direct result of terrorist action originating in Gaza and the West Bank.

Less reflexive anti-Western, anti-American and anti-Israel pronouncements from this organization is in order. Politicizing the delivery of medical care is the first step on a very ugly road. If they are so reliably anti-Western, how much of a stretch is it to assume that those Taliban terrorists who may have been firing from the hospital were there with permission from Médecins Sans Frontières?

4 comments to “An Unfortunate Incident? Yes. A War Crime? No.”
  1. When combat takes place in populated areas, civilians are as likely to die as noncombatants, sorry to say. That’s a story that’s older than gunpowder.

    Saw a bit of the outrage! from the DWB (forget that cutesy French stuff) crowd on teevee. They had nothing to say about what the Taliban may have been doing to draw fire, only that the American Criminals were wantonly attacking innocent medical-types. Who, though they would never admit it, were fools to stick around when combatants (from either side) started moving in.

    We’ll probably never know if the U.S. attacks crossed some sort of line. It’s certainly possible. But subjecting oneself voluntarily to being in an area where combat is going on is equal parts Noble and suicidal.

  2. Wouldn’t it be awesome to see Obama hauled before the court in the Hague? He keeps talking about how we must subordinate American sovereignty to international organizations, right?

    Right . . . ?

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