{"id":13156,"date":"2015-10-08T07:08:09","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T12:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13156"},"modified":"2015-10-08T07:08:09","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T12:08:09","slug":"why-is-the-u-s-refusing-an-independent-investigation-if-its-hospital-airstrike-was-an-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=13156","title":{"rendered":"Why Is the U.S. Refusing an Independent Investigation If Its Hospital Airstrike Was an \u201cAccident\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Why Is the U.S. Refusing an Independent Investigation If Its Hospital Airstrike Was an \u201cAccident\u201d?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In Geneva this morning, Doctors Without Borders (MSF)\u00a0demanded<\/a>\u00a0a formal, independent investigation into the U.S. airstrike on its hospital in Kunduz. The group\u2019s international president, Dr. Joanne Liu (pictured above, center), specified that the inquiry should be convened pursuant to war crime-investigating procedures established by\u00a0the Geneva Conventions and conducted by\u00a0The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cEven war has rules,\u201d Liu said. \u201cThis was just not an attack on our hospital. It was an attack on the Geneva Conventions. This cannot be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liu emphasized that the need for an \u201cindependent, impartial<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/em>investigation is now particularly compelling given what she called \u201cthe inconsistency in the U.S. and Afghan accounts of what happened over the recent days.\u201d On Monday, we\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0the multiple conflicting accounts offered in the first three days by the U.S. military and its media allies, but the story continued to change even further after that. As\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>headline yesterday noted<\/a>, the U.S. admission that its own personnel called in the airstrike \u2014 not Afghan forces as it claimed the day before \u2014 meant that \u201cU.S. alters story for fourth time in four days.\u201d\u00a0All of this led Liu to state the obvious today:\u00a0\u201cWe cannot rely on internal military investigations by the U.S., NATO and Afghan forces.\u201d<\/p>\n