What in God's Green Goodness Are We Up To In Afghanistan?

They have given so many different stories, I can't keep track of what they are claiming.

Is the "mistake" meant to be bombing a hospital at the request of the Afghans without the Americans on the ground and in the air paying enough attention to realise it was a hospital or are they claiming it was hit accidentally as part of an attempt to bomb something else?

i can't glean a rational cover story from the several put forth.

‏@ggreenwald 5 hours ago
It was an accident & they're investigating & will tell you what happened when they're ready. Be content. #Accident

@ggreenwald
Those who claim to know Kunduz hospital attack was an "accident" have to ignore all this

https://theintercept.com/2015/10/07/why-is-u-s-refusing-an-independent-investigation-if-its-so-clear-its-hospital-airstrike-was-an-accident/

The IHFFC is now awaiting the agreement of the United States and Afghanistan governments to proceed.

"We have received apologies and condolences, but this is not enough," said Dr. Joanne Liu, MSF International President. "We are still in the dark about why a well-known hospital full of patients and medical staff was repeatedly bombarded for more than an hour. We need to understand what happened and why."

MSF cannot rely only on the ongoing internal investigations by parties to the conflict and remains firm in its call for an independent and impartial investigation by the IHFFC.

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/kunduz-us-afghan-consent-needed-ihffc-investigation-commence

why a well-known hospital full of patients and medical staff was repeatedly bombarded for more than an hour.

because the army fucks up on the regular? mystery solved.

it hasn't been established that this wasn't an intentional targeting, and hence not a 'fuckup'

I can't really fathom what military goal the army would think they were accomplishing by blowing up a hospital. Is the implication supposed to be that the army just hates MSF and thus bombed them out of spite? I mean, I suppose that's possible and not entirely surprising but... well what do you do with that information even if it could be proved (which it won't be)

the Afghan army we are 'training' apparently feels that way about MSF, at least the leaders

Ah, yeah that makes sense

all these middle east adventures just turn me into an isolationist - we gain nothing by being involved, withdraw troops/funding and let them all kill each other if that's what they want imo

otm

I cut my education budget to the bone and all I got was this crappy stream of foreign interventions tshirt

I recall an Afghan army we trained in the 80s, spent hundreds of millions of dollars on them, wonder what ever happened to those nice chaps...

all these middle east adventures just turn me into an isolationist - we gain nothing by being involved, withdraw troops/funding and let them all kill each other if that's what they want imo

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, October 14, 2015 12:37 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

killing each other with guns we provided

this whole MSF thing makes me so bad, not least because of the empty rhetoric of "accepting responsibility" coming from the US military. what does that phrase mean, if the military isn't going to subject their actions to outside scrutiny and allow their officers to be subject to international law? the answer is, it means nothing. absolutely nothing. hillary clinton is "good" at this too; "i accept responsibility" intoned as though it makes everything better when it has absolutely no ramifications for her.

makes me so *MAD

yeah it's just an empty apology

i see that thing filter down (?) to my students, who will "accept responsibility" for something like plagiarizing an assignment, but get indignant if that actually means they fail the class.

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Frandomactsofreading.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F07%2Fim-sorry-mercer-mayer.jpg%253Fw%253D600&f=1

honestly in many contexts i just don't care to hear an apology at all. just know what you did, accept the consequences, and go away.

Sucks that the number one candidate for the left is a career arms dealer.

Just imagine what we would think if other countries were randomly blowing up hospitals and going "Oops." The tepid/de-sensitized response is chilling. At least the GOP goes overboard with the language, turning war boring is a dangerous thing.

other countries were randomly blowing up hospitals and going "Oops."

this is a p common thing where bombs are getting dropped tbh

the only way to stop a good guy w a gun is take the gun away

The Kunduz attack underscored an ugly reality: After nearly a decade and a half of war, more than 2,300 American lives lost, and an estimated 26,000 Afghan civilians killed, the nature of combat in Afghanistan is entering a new, potentially bloodier, phase. In August, the United Nations reported that civilian casualties in Afghanistan “are projected to equal or exceed the record high numbers documented last year.” While most civilian casualties in the first half of 2015 were attributed to “anti-government” forces, 27 deaths and 22 injuries were attributed to airstrikes “by international military forces,” a 23 percent increase over last year, most of them, unlike the air raid in Kunduz, carried out by drones.

Despite the rise in civilian casualties and the well-documented failure of drone strikes to achieve the military’s broader objectives, there is every indication that unmanned airstrikes will play an increasing role in U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan, as they have in war zones across the world. Less than two weeks after the U.N. issued its report, Foreign Policy revealed that JSOC has drastically reduced the number of night raids it conducts in Afghanistan, while dramatically increasing its reliance on airstrikes, and is currently “on pace to double the rate at which it kills ‘high-value individuals’ using kinetic strikes, compared to how many it was killing that way five years ago.”

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/manhunting-in-the-hindu-kush/

It wouldn't surprise me if some US military commander had it in for MSF, even if it doesn't go all the way to the top. Who knows why -- they're a lefty organization, maybe they reported abuses or were going to, maybe they were seen as "interfering" or "providing comfort to the enemy" etc.

they treat the enemy (on all sides)

American special operations analysts were gathering intelligence on an Afghan hospital days before it was destroyed by a U.S. military attack because they believed it was being used by a Pakistani operative to coordinate Taliban activity, The Associated Press has learned.

No evidence has surfaced publicly suggesting a Pakistani died in the attack, and Doctors without Borders, the international organization that ran the hospital, says none of its staff was Pakistani.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/5e20fcd92aee49e699149aef93595e49/apnewsbreak-us-spec-ops-knew-afghan-site-was-hospital#

None of the damage appears due to guided bombs (which even in the smallest operational sizes would leave craters and blow out walls), but it is consistent with a SOCOM AC-130 orbiting overhead, peppering the building with 105 mm rounds (ea. w/ ~5 lb HE).

Depending on the fabric dyes used, the 9 ft Red Cross flag affixed to the the roof may not have been visible in the passive IR typically used for nighttime targeting (there's a few reports on problems with this). The aircrew may not have known it was a hospital, so responsibility would fall to the ground personnel familiar with the area and calling in the strike.

‏@ggreenwald 3h3 hours ago
Kunduz: US military refused independent investigation, "investigates" itself, finds it was just a mistake, leaks it

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNITED_STATES_AFGHAN_HOSPITAL_ATTACK

MSF reacts: "more questions than answers"

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/msf-initial-reaction-us-military-investigation-kunduz-attack

haha wait what how did we fuck Afghanistan in the 80s, by not fighting WWIII w/the USSR after they invaded?

We trained the motherfuckin' mujahadeen and fought a proxy war against the Soviets, Shakey, you ignorant person. Might wanna read Charlie Wilson's War (skip the crap Mike Nichols movie).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jan/17/yemen.islam

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/ghost_wars_how_reagan_armed_the

I've come to think the significance of the US in Afghanistan in the 80s has become greatly exaggerated. Bin Laden and his little Abraham Lincoln brigade-like band of foreign fighters didn't make much of a difference in the Afghan war against the Russians. The US did not create the taliban.

yep

I mean, otm

I'd figure miscalculating the US backing of the Shah was a bigger foreign policy blunder in the long run than any misadventures in proxy war in Afghanistan. Fall of the Shah in some ways was the first domino that perhaps led to the USSR taking the step to invade Afghanistan and then later the Iraq/Iran war.

Recent documents showed that Carter basically gave the go ahead to depose the Shah so it's not like the US even stood much in the way of the revolution.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36431160

Sheesh, that was only a month and a half away from the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace accords.

I've come to think the significance of the US in Afghanistan in the 80s has become greatly exaggerated. Bin Laden and his little Abraham Lincoln brigade-like band of foreign fighters didn't make much of a difference in the Afghan war against the Russians. The US did not create the taliban.

― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Monday, June 13, 2016 11:16 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken;[2] funding began with $20–$30 million per year in 1980 and rose to $630 million per year in 1987. Funding continued after 1989 as the mujahideen battled the forces of Mohammad Najibullah's PDPA during the civil war in Afghanistan (1989–1992).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

$630 million buys a lot of "misadventures"

There's a lot of blame to go around in Afghanistan. The Soviets first and foremost, probably, but the British as well. The last anglo-afghan war was in 1919. Oh, and Pakistan! Btw, Afghanistan was also ruled by a Shah, who was also deposed in a coup. (thanks, wiki!) I can't figure out who backed him, and who did not, though. The middle-east is complex, as is central asia.

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Afghanistan-called-the-Graveyard-of-Empires

Obligatory Adam Curtis documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbq63r7rys

For the lack of anything positive about the Current Situation, here's a picture of a record store in Kabul in the 50s. Maybe some day...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/1950s_Afghanistan_-_Records_store.jpg

You still get records shops there...

http://gdb.voanews.com/FAEBBC66-0AAE-437E-9749-4F8AF6ADB452_w640_r1_s.jpg

... not very popular with certain of their compatriots though.

The fact that the US played a role/was involved in some conflict does not always mean that the US is the driving or sole force shaping the conflict. Geopolitics are messier than that.

holy shit there's a lot of denial going on here. in this case the islamic reactionaries were going to lose, and the u.s. armed and funded and trained and supported them and then they didn't lose.

i have no idea what "blame to go around" or "messy geopolitics" have to do with that. the cause and effect is obvious and immediate.

Should the US have known what these rebels were planning next and what their goals would be, beyond pushing out the Russians? Should the US have foreseen that Pakistan would serve as a base of operations for what became the Taliban?

It wasn't only US support either, it was also Saudi and Pakistani support.

we'll get this whole funding and arming of freedom fighters thing right one of these years

And the war was against a foreign invasion. It's not as if the US funded right wing reactionaries to take down a popularly elected leader (that time...)