Last Wednesday marked the 14th anniversary of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. While officially as old as this year’s high school freshman class, the conflict seems to only be getting worse.
On Oct. 3, a U.S. airstrike leveled a Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The air raid, which "continued in a ‘sustained’ manner for 30 more minutes," killed at least 20 people — doctors, patients and children included — and severely wounded 37 staff and civilians.
Adding insult to injury, over the past week, U.S. officials have done a complete 180-degree spin in their responses.
In the immediate hours after the bombing, senior U.S. military officials stated the airstrikes "may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility."
General John Campbell, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, stated, "An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat, and several innocent civilians were accidentally struck."
Then, officials told The New York Times the Taliban continually fired at Afghan national forces and U.S. soldiers from the hospital, using it as a base.
This narrative developed into a full-on justification of the airstrike in response to the Taliban using MSF staff and patients as "human shields."
In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, MSF International tweeted, "To be clear; not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside #Kunduz hospital compound prior to US airstrikes Saturday morning."
In response, MSF declared the justification of the airstrike as, "admission of a war crime (which) utterly contradicts the initial attempts of the US government to minimize the attack as ‘collateral damage.’"
This air raid is, unfortunately, not the first tragedy we have heard out of Kunduz recently. Three months ago, Afghan government forces raided the exact same MSF-run Kunduz hospital under the pretense that MSF staff treated an al-Qaeda member.
Under international law, MSF, as an independent organization, has no stake in the war and can operate on injured individuals from all sides of the conflict.
Moreover, since April, the Taliban have made developments in the province of Kunduz, slowly surrounding the city, and nearly a week before the hospital bombing, the Taliban launched a full-scale takeover in Kunduz.
As of Oct. 1, Afghan government forces reclaimed the city, with extensive aid from U.S.-led airstrikes.
This begs the question: If the U.S. air force performed successful air raids (no reported civilian casualties) against the Taliban in Kunduz, why was a civilian, MSF-run medical location targeted just days later?
Although we lack empirical evidence regarding the exact motivation behind this specific airstrike, it has all the familiar symptoms of U.S. counter-terrorism operations, which often pay no regard to civilian life. Jeremy Scahill, a top investigative journalist revealed in his documentary "Dirty Wars" the full extent of U.S. night raids in Afghan villages, which, in the pursuit of counter-terrorism initiatives, have resulted in thousands of civilian deaths since 2011.
Furthermore, in 2009, U.S. forces raided an Afghan charity hospital southwest of Kabul in search of Taliban insurgents. During the raid, U.S. soldiers abused hospital staff and disrupted patients, actions a Swedish investigative committee deemed as a "violation of humanitarian principles… (and) went against an agreement between NATO forces and charities working in the area."
All this is to say: We have a depressing human-rights record in the Middle East regarding civilian casualties. Eventually, we are going to have to face the consequences of our actions, or "mistakes."
The first step is to simply honor the request of MSF: permit an investigation by an independent organization.
It would be only appropriate to extend compensation to the devastated families, which U.S. officials have agreed to permit (albeit slowly) and to sustain the revitalization of the hospital.
In the words of Dr. Liu: "Today, we say, ‘Enough.’"
David Hoffman is a UF history and physics sophomore. His column appears on Tuesdays.
