Another US war mistake

US President Obama has personally apologised for the deadly US airstrike on a hospital in Kunduz run by Doctors without Borders. The charity group, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, is a famous Western institution providing medical care in the most dangerous parts of the world; it is devastated at losing 12 medical staff members and 10 patients, including three children.

It is usually not the practice for those in the highest places to accept a gigantic error of this nature. In earlier eras, particularly in the reign of George W. Bush, the US would simply have dismissed such civilian deaths as “collateral damage” in the dismissive language of field commanders and generals. For President Obama to acknowledge the work of MSF while rendering his apology directly to the head of the organisation made for an unusual act of contrition.

The hospital was under attack even as efforts were made from within to convey to the authorities that bombs were raining on a place of healing. Accounts of the incident kept changing, leading to the suspicion that the Afghans may have deliberately misled the operations.

There is no knowing if the Afghans, who may have considered the MSF a fair target because they would treat anyone, including injured Taliban fighters, had acted so deviously as to promote the strike against what was clearly a medical facility. “A transparent, thorough and objective accounting of the facts and circumstances” has been promised by President Obama. The principles of humanity have been breached once again in the garb of military action and a magnanimous apology cannot compensate for that.