For those who may have forgotten

NEW YORK, APRIL 29, 2016 -- The United States military today released its investigative report on the attack on the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan on 3 October 2015. The attack killed 42 people, including 14 MSF staff members, and wounded dozens more.

“Today’s briefing amounts to an admission of an uncontrolled military operation in a densely populated urban area, during which U.S. forces failed to follow the basic laws of war,” said Meinie Nicolai, MSF President. “It is incomprehensible that, under the circumstances described by the U.S., the attack was not called off.”

The hospital was fully functioning at the time of the airstrikes. The U.S. investigation acknowledges that there were no armed combatants within – and no fire from – the hospital compound.

“The threshold that must be crossed for this deadly incident to amount to a grave breach of international humanitarian law is not whether it was intentional or not,” said Nicolai. “With multinational coalitions fighting with different rules of engagement across a wide spectrum of wars today, whether in Afghanistan, Syria, or Yemen, armed groups cannot escape their responsibilities on the battlefield simply by ruling out the intent to attack a protected structure such as a hospital.”

Now back to the title

I remember being in a distinct minority opposing the war in Afghanistan after 9-11 and as Obama later proved it wasn't needed at all. I was in a minority over the Iraq war, a war based on so many lies. The suspension of habeas corpus and the imprisonment without trial. I remember with disgust the justifications of torture and then the pardoning of their actions. I watch the almost daily summary killings of those who we deem to be terrorists around the globe by drone, no torture , trial or imprisonment is necessary, no international border respected. Governments overturned at a whim, with no respect or respite for the citizens of these countries in the bloody chaos that inevitably ensues.

Now Kunduz sticks out in all of this simply because of the reaction or lack thereof, the resulting minimal slaps on the wrist to those involved were also insulting. What struck me the most was the attitude of many democrats simply because there was a Democratic Administration, it started off as refusal to believe the event even happened and then MSF were immediately blamed for treating terrorists and even being a command center. The refusal to take the facts on display at face value was extraordinary. When the results slowly came out they were greeted with a meh and then ignored entirely. I wrote about this extensively and was always surprised by the almost numb response. I think this is finally what opened my eyes, any objection to our militaristic world view is tempered by party allegiance, as long as the other side is doing it you can righteously object.

You know what the truth is, but one event can crystallize that truth and Kunduz did it for me.

Just a thought this evening