About that Airstrike on Hospital...

[kham]

From Brad's

It's bad in sense that they called in a Spectre to pound the shit out of the place; but Brad makes some very good points; DWB may very well do good, but if you start becoming the de facto health care provider for the enemy, then you are fucked in every sense of the word. You lose all protections under the Rules of War. Plus, why wasn't the roof properly marked with the appropriate symbols?

[MadMax359]

i don't disagree with the thrust of this message

but i am curious: when a member posted a Tarot Card reading of Donald Trump, it was called "political" and thus inappropriate
isn't this political too? and since i think it's a topic that is worth discussing, should we relax the Avoid the Political concept for Off Topic posts?

[Mynock]

Can't argue with the article. Armed guys in the building = target. DWB makes a habit of lying down with the dogs, now they're crying about the fleas........

[dlodoski]

i don't disagree with the thrust of this message

but i am curious: when a member posted a Tarot Card reading of Donald Trump, it was called "political" and thus inappropriate
isn't this political too? and since i think it's a topic that is worth discussing, should we relax the Avoid the Political concept for Off Topic posts?

This is not necessarily political. Donald Trump is, Tarot cards notwithstanding - especially when the OP is/was a known troll.

Wars are driven by politicians, no doubt. But the original post is about the application of politics, not the politics themselves.

Shades of grey? Yea. That's life.

But I do stand by the 'No Political Topics' rule. There are plenty of other venues for that.

[Green Heart]

Im kind of surprised that anyone would support bombing a hospital of a humanitarian organization.

You don't beat Terrorism or insurgencies by blowing up Hospitals. That just gives them more ammo to use against you in Propaganda.

[kham]

If the 'hospital' is housing the enemy, and treating their wounded, see above. But what we dont know for certain, but strongly suspect, is that the Af forces were taking fire from it. Now you got TWO strikes against your protected status which just got flushed down the toilet. This sort of thing is not new to warfare. It happened in Vietnam with the NVA putting AAA on the roofs of hospitals and inside the compounds. It happened in WW II by just about every side sadly in one way or another. It is part of war. You want a shiny, nice war? Play Risk

[jadokast98]

Im kind of surprised that anyone would support bombing a hospital of a humanitarian organization.

You don't beat Terrorism or insurgencies by blowing up Hospitals. That just gives them more ammo to use against you in Propaganda.

It's not that anyone is cool with bombing a hospital; I'm not and that was one of our first tasks when getting to certain locations in Iraq, Kabul and Kandahar. But looking at Open Source photos and videos the building is a non-descript single story building. There were no markings to indicate as such. Laws of War, simply stated say that protected sites (Hospitals and religeous sites) can not be used to used for military pruposes. Example; An ambulance transporting weapons, ammo and fighters has violated the Laws of War, and is a lagitimate target. Outgoing small arms fire was reported from that building, and fires were called.

Time will tell what the final reports will say, but it appears that the US is falling on the sword too soon. I have not seen any dead children or women being thrust into cameras like the "Baby Milk Factoryies" from the 91 Iraq campaign.

[Tim Kelly]

I seem to recall that the US Army made a habit during the Korean War of siting ammunition dumps next to MASH units "So the Commies don't bomb them", and claimed that the Germans had done the same during WW2; "M*A*S*H" (the tv show) repeated the claim in the episode "Five O'Clock Charlie", which produced the following response:
"Weren't they the bad guys?"
"Not to mention the fact that they lost!"
AND it still didn't work; the "Commies" response was to send the most inaccurate bomber in North Korea (the infamous "Five O'Clock Charlie") to drop mortar bombs by hand; he never hit the ammo dump once, but the Anti-aircraft crew the army sent to shoot him down managed to drop a shell into the middle of the dump; with predictable consequences!

[Tim Kelly]

Thought you might like to know...
In England, Pick-TV (formerly Sky-3, one of Murdoch's tv channels here in UK) re-scheduled "24: Live Another Day" from its usual 9pm slot to a midnight one, because the latest episode featured a drone strike (by a US drone hijacked by cyber-terrorists) on a hospital in London!