This airstrike will be hard to attribute to "whoops we made a mistake". Back in the days of LBJ during the Viet Nam war a decision such as this came from the white house. But I get the feeling that the current POTUS isn't so interested in the day to day management of the troops. I'm guessing some poor Major or Col. will get hung out to dry.

Sorry, but dictators micro-manage the second-to-second freaking management of everything they freaking can.

This airstrike will be hard to attribute to "whoops we made a mistake". Back in the days of LBJ during the Viet Nam war a decision such as this came from the white house. But I get the feeling that the current POTUS isn't so interested in the day to day management of the troops. I'm guessing some poor Major or Col. will get hung out to dry.

In the army it's called "chain of command".

This airstrike will be hard to attribute to "whoops we made a mistake". Back in the days of LBJ during the Viet Nam war a decision such as this came from the white house. But I get the feeling that the current POTUS isn't so interested in the day to day management of the troops. I'm guessing some poor Major or Col. will get hung out to dry.

Sorry, but dictators micro-manage the second-to-second freaking management of everything they freaking can.

Meh, during LBJ it was necessary to micro manage, although they may have overdone it a little. But really, leaving it to the Joint Chiefs would have made the whole thing even more nasty, given their preference of just carpet bombing North Vietnam into the stone age and potentially starting a nuclear war with China.

Also, why would the White House be involved in this? The Taliban attacked a city, the Afghan security forces counter attacked and then asked for air support from the Americans, relaying targets to the American military. Why would the President get involved in that?

This airstrike will be hard to attribute to "whoops we made a mistake". Back in the days of LBJ during the Viet Nam war a decision such as this came from the white house. But I get the feeling that the current POTUS isn't so interested in the day to day management of the troops. I'm guessing some poor Major or Col. will get hung out to dry.

Sorry, but dictators micro-manage the second-to-second freaking management of everything they freaking can.

Meh, during LBJ it was necessary to micro manage, although they may have overdone it a little. But really, leaving it to the Joint Chiefs would have made the whole thing even more nasty, given their preference of just carpet bombing North Vietnam into the stone age and potentially starting a nuclear war with China.

Also, why would the White House be involved in this? The Taliban attacked a city, the Afghan security forces counter attacked and then asked for air support from the Americans, relaying targets to the American military. Why would the President get involved in that?

Involved or not....

A late former President of the USA (a Democrat, by the way) had a sign on his desk. 'The Buck Stops Here'.

Involved in the decision, maybe... maybe not.

Responsible? Yes. Him and everyone between him and (including) the military people that fired the weapons/dropped the bombs.

Will anything be done about it as far as the upper echelons go? Almost certainly not.

I agree with one of the above quoted posts. It will likely be some Major or Colonel that 'takes the fall'.

Involved or not....

A late former President of the USA (a Democrat, by the way) had a sign on his desk. 'The Buck Stops Here'.

Involved in the decision, maybe... maybe not.

Responsible? Yes. Him and everyone between him and (including) the military people that fired the weapons/dropped the bombs.

Will anything be done about it as far as the upper echelons go? Almost certainly not.

I agree with one of the above quoted posts. It will likely be some Major or Colonel that 'takes the fall'.

Yeah thats a nice sentiment but also a little unfair and unrealistic. What is the point of holding people responsible for something they didn't do or weren't even involved with? Look, if its (un)official policy to bomb hospitals then yeah it makes sense you take this to the highest echelons of power. But something which sounds like a mistake on a tactical level made during an active battle, its not something that involves the president or higher levels of command and it makes no sense to go after them.

If some major or colonel 'takes the fall' it should simply be because he or she was the person making the mistake or being directly responsible for the people that made the mistake. If you want to hold the president responsible for every mistake the US army ever made, well then you might as well get rid of the army entirely because it becomes unworkable to have one.

First off it is a tragedy no doubt. But...

I would venture to say that if the US Military had targeted that compound/building it would have been flatten with most in and around it killed. From the few photos it looks like some of the return fire strayed off a near by target. An AC-130 gunship has massive fire power. If it was an AC-130. 105mm, 40mm, 20mm rounds to start with. One stray 105mm round would do the damage seen.

The compound/building with flammable liquids & gases is in a combat zone. There is no weapon that is 100% accurate every time including computer drive. One quarter of a degree of MOA (moment of angle) is how far off target from airplane flying one kilometer away? There will always be collateral damage. It is a tragedy but the price of combat/war.

Just some things I think about here.

---

...

I agree with one of the above quoted posts. It will likely be some Major or Colonel that 'takes the fall'.

With the extreme use of computers I suspect the logs will show some Lt. will have failed to enter the coordinates into the system and given an okay. Only way this goes up the chain is if there wasn't a standing order to check coordinates against a master no fire list. Of course if there was an error in the no fire list, some different Lt. will be in the hot seat. For all we know right now someone could have made a transpose error in the coordinates and people are dead.

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The bad guys have been hiding in schools and hospitals since the invention of warfare, especially if they have no regard for the safety of the students or patients or doctors. DWB says there were no hostile forces inside the hospital grounds but they have their own agenda. It is curious that the only building inside the compound that was hit was the main building. I think that rules out the possibility of attributing the strike to a misentered set of coordinates. Somebody thought there were high value taliban leaders on site and the risk was worth taking. They can probably chalk it up to bad intelligence from an unreliable source.

Oddly it has been called a bombing but the AC-130 carries no bombs, just some very big high powered guns. I have seen videos of the 105 hitting an individual truck from several miles out.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

The bad guys have been hiding in schools and hospitals since the invention of warfare, especially if they have no regard for the safety of the students or patients or doctors.

Terrorists hiding in schools and hospitals are quite common in the middle east.
I have met a teacher from Iraq.
He said they had many military in his school there cooking something in the basement.
It was not the school lunch...

I think in this case it was no terrorists in the proximity.
http://www.msf.org/article/gallery-patients-and-stories-msfs-kunduz-hospital

Oddly it has been called a bombing but the AC-130 carries no bombs, just some very big high powered guns.

Only one article says it was an AC-130, so I put that down to reporter error. An AC-130 would not need to have four waves at fifteen minute intervals.

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I come to the politics board and I find a long thread about the Oregon shooting. That was expected and that's ok because that's something that should be discussed.

But I wonder, where's the thread about the bombing of a MSF clinic in Kundunz, where 22 ppl (10 MSF workers and 12 patients, three of 'em children) have been killed by US military?

Maybe I couldn't find it because it has some strange title (like my thread here). If that's the case, pls give me a link.
But if not, then I'm curious: Why is something like that not discussed here?

In the Hospitals thread.

A thread on this subject hasn't been started because the main news outlets and those who support the current POTUS (same thing) are not continuously talking about it. They know he's ultimately responsible and everybody in this group is just hoping it gets forgotten as soon as possible because they don't want him in any negative light.

A thread on this subject hasn't been started because those who don't support the current POTUS are just rolling our eyes because if one of us brings it up, most of you in here will most likely pick someone in the chain of command somewhere between the pilot and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and blame them and not the POTUS.

Now, if it were a republican in the white house, it would be 24/7 news coverage and people would be picketing everywhere to impeach him because he's a war monger and a baby/woman killer and he's wasting tax payer money on needless wars.

That's a bunch of horse manure and you ought to know it.
My cable TV has been out a MONTH (no, not because I didn't pay the bill!) and I know about this.
So, should the U.N. investigate this as a war crime?

I'm still awaiting Guy's ... I'm sorry, Brutus' response ... to this.

A thread on this subject hasn't been started because the main news outlets and those who support the current POTUS (same thing) are not continuously talking about it. They know he's ultimately responsible and everybody in this group is just hoping it gets forgotten as soon as possible because they don't want him in any negative light.

A thread on this subject hasn't been started because those who don't support the current POTUS are just rolling our eyes because if one of us brings it up, most of you in here will most likely pick someone in the chain of command somewhere between the pilot and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and blame them and not the POTUS.

Now, if it were a republican in the white house, it would be 24/7 news coverage and people would be picketing everywhere to impeach him because he's a war monger and a baby/woman killer and he's wasting tax payer money on needless wars.

That's a bunch of horse manure and you ought to know it.
My cable TV has been out a MONTH (no, not because I didn't pay the bill!) and I know about this.
So, should the U.N. investigate this as a war crime?

I'm still awaiting Guy's ... I'm sorry, Brutus' response ... to this.

Oh. Sorry. Answer:

I don't care. They can if they want. They don't have to if they don't want to. This incident has already been forgotten by the majority. And the POTUS has already closed this issue by going around and saying "sorry." After all, if a liberal says he's "sorry," that's all that's needed, right?

What is it with people redefining the main thrust of a point these days?
I swear, UnCommon Core, as pushed the ideologue Right, has made a mess of reading comprehension!
Brutus, you claimed it wasn't being discussed because of it being covered up by liberal media. Just like Worm/Dull/whatever-his-screen-name-is-now claimed a week ago that the media was covering up the shooter in Oregon asking about his victims' religions. I provided him a link disproving his cover up claim, and I dispute your claim as well.

You asked the question, "should the U.N. investigate this as a war crime?"

I answered, "I don't care."

Then you claimed that I redefined the main thrust of a point and implied my reading comprehension is a mess.

I'm raising my THREATCON from ALPHA to BRAVO with anything you post directed at me now.

READ!
LEARN TO FREAKING READ!!!

Screw screw SCREW!!! your Alpha, Bravo and Charlie.
We ALL know it is a deflection.

I did not NOT!!! post what I posted to ask if the U.N. should investigate.

Learn to READ more than one post per thread.
I already stated why I posted that last line: as more proof to (main thrust of post) DISPUTE YOUR FREAKING BOGUS CLAIM!!!

Read my debunking of the claim that reports of refugees are rioting in Europe are being blocked in the U.S., in the MET Two thread. And find my debunking of Dull's claim that the media is also blocking out reports of the Oregon shooter asking the religions of his victims.

Learn to read READ!!! more than one thread, get the context, get the spirit of the debunking (catch the mystery, catch the spit, today's Tom Sawyer, trampling over YOU!).

Most of all, please ... just ... Learn to read READ!!!!!!

A thread on this subject hasn't been started because the main news outlets and those who support the current POTUS (same thing) are not continuously talking about it. They know he's ultimately responsible and everybody in this group is just hoping it gets forgotten as soon as possible because they don't want him in any negative light.

A thread on this subject hasn't been started because those who don't support the current POTUS are just rolling our eyes because if one of us brings it up, most of you in here will most likely pick someone in the chain of command somewhere between the pilot and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and blame them and not the POTUS.

Now, if it were a republican in the white house, it would be 24/7 news coverage and people would be picketing everywhere to impeach him because he's a war monger and a baby/woman killer and he's wasting tax payer money on needless wars.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/10/03/doctors-without-borders-killed-afghanistan/73271370/ posted 8:09 p.m. EDT October 3, 2015, 4 days before this thread was started. And a bunch more to be found. Not a lot of coverage? Blacked out? LIAR?

WOW!

WOW!

+1

Brutus: every lie you tell that is recognizable and demonstrable as a lie will be confronted. If you're not deliberately lying, please, get yourself help.