{"id":3206,"date":"2015-10-12T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thediplomaticenvoy.com\/?p=3206"},"modified":"2015-11-17T13:33:39","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T18:33:39","slug":"airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/thediplomaticenvoy\/2015\/10\/12\/airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani\/","title":{"rendered":"Airstrike on MSF Hospital Does No Favors For Obama, Ghani"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/thediplomaticenvoy\/staff\/#buenofel\">Felipe Bueno<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><i>Staff Writer<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the afternoon of\u00a0October 3, a Doctors Without Borders (<em>Medecins Sans Frontieres<\/em>)<em>\u00a0<\/em>hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan was hit during an airstike,\u00a0claiming the lives of 22 and injuring over 30. The airstrike was\u00a0carried out by the United States, and\u00a0is currently being investigated\u00a0by the United States, NATO, and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of MSF, issued a statement, saying, \u201cThe U.S. attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz was the biggest loss of life for our organization in an airstrike. Tens of thousands of people in Kunduz can no longer receive medical care now when they need it most. Today we say: enough. Even war has rules.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The attack occurred after the Taliban drove U.S. forces out of the city of Kunduz on September 28, after which the U.S. launched a counterstrike to remove rebel forces\u00a0from the city.<\/p>\n<p>MSF claims that they warned United States personnel of\u00a0the exact coordinates\u00a0of their medical complex. As Dr. Liu stated, doctors were forced to treat one another and were unable to save their co-workers, with perhaps the most devastating incident was that six people in the intensive care unit were burned alive in their beds. With the destruction of the MSF hospital,\u00a0victims of the standoff\u00a0in Kunduz\u00a0will now be unable to receive medical care.<\/p>\n<p>The Guardian reports that MSF is\u00a0calling for an independent inquiry under the Geneva Conventions. Dr. Liu stated that because the Geneva Conventions were made to protect civilians caught in the midst of war (i.e., patients, medical workers and facilities), there are legal repercussions for what the MSF has claimed\u00a0to be a war crime.<\/p>\n<p>Steven Gordon, associate professor of law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a war crimes prosecution expert, told CNN, &#8220;You cannot, under the laws of war, attack sites such as hospitals, schools, religious buildings,&#8221; but went on to say that \u201cthe hospital as a building can lose its immunity if it&#8217;s being used by the enemy for military attacks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Voice of America reports that U.S. President Barack Obama personally apologized to Dr.\u00a0Liu through a phone call, and sent his condolences via phone to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Times reports that this incident has called Obama&#8217;s declaration of an end to the war in Afghanistan further into question. From the onset, there was no clear definition of what constitutes the end of a war, and two months before\u00a0President Obama&#8217;s announcement, the U.S. and Afghanistan signed a bilateral security deal.<\/p>\n<p>The Afghan government has\u00a0pointed to the deal as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/world\/asia\/la-fg-afghanistan-ashraf-ghani-20150927-story.html\">a sign of &#8220;progress,&#8221;<\/a> according to the Los Angeles Times, compared to strained Western relations under President Ghani&#8217;s predecessor, Hamid Karzai.<\/p>\n<p>However,\u00a0stability in Afghanistan does not rely only on foreign\u00a0relations. The Los Angeles Times reports that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/world\/asia\/la-fg-afghanistan-ashraf-ghani-20150927-story.html\">the Afghan passport office\u00a0has seen thousands <\/a>lining up in the past few months, indicating the desperation of\u00a0Afghans to emigrate due to the unimproved\u00a0economy and insecurity in the country, especially after the recent resurgence of the Taliban.<\/p>\n<p>According to CNN, the Taliban <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2015\/10\/09\/asia\/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-robertson\/\">takes advantage of Afghanistan&#8217;s weak economy<\/a> by offering locals high compensation\u00a0in exchange for joining their forces.\u00a0The\u00a0taking of Kunduz at the end of September\u00a0was the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/taliban-situation-kunduz-afghanistan-379667\">Taliban&#8217;s largest gain in more than a decade<\/a>, Newsweek reports.<\/p>\n<p>Four days before the\u00a0MSF hospital attack, President Ghani\u00a0implored the public on television to trust the Afghan army, who had dealt &#8220;heavy casualties&#8221; on the Taliban. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/ghani-announces-successes-in-afghan-fight-for-kunduz\/a-18748071\">Deutsche Welle<\/a>, the Taliban resurgence came after NATO scaled back its presence in favor of training the local armed forces.<\/p>\n<p>Ghani&#8217;s critics include former President Hamid Karzai, who decries Ghani&#8217;s\u00a0attempts to reestablish relations with Pakistan. Karzai also criticizes Ghani for allowing the president&#8217;s authority to be divided through\u00a0the creation of an extra-constitutional position for Abdullah Abdullah, Ghani&#8217;s rival in the 2014 presidential election who now serves as Afghanistan&#8217;s Chief Executive Officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four days before the MSF hospital attack, President Ghani implored the public on television to trust the Afghan army, who had dealt \u201cheavy casualties\u201d on the Taliban. According to Deutsche Welle, the Taliban resurgence came after NATO scaled back its presence in favor of training the local armed forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3078,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[382,383,388],"tags":[453,565,566,567,568],"class_list":["post-3206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","category-us","category-mid-east","tag-afghanistan","tag-taliban","tag-kunduz","tag-doctors-without-borders","tag-geneva-conventions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Airstrike on MSF Hospital Does No Favors For Obama, Ghani - The Diplomatic Envoy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/thediplomaticenvoy\/2015\/10\/12\/airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Airstrike on MSF Hospital Does No Favors For Obama, Ghani - The Diplomatic Envoy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Four days before the MSF hospital attack, President Ghani implored the public on television to trust the Afghan army, who had dealt \u201cheavy casualties\u201d on the Taliban. According to Deutsche Welle, the Taliban resurgence came after NATO scaled back its presence in favor of training the local armed forces.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/thediplomaticenvoy\/2015\/10\/12\/airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Diplomatic Envoy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-10-12T14:00:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-11-17T18:33:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Felipe Bueno\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Felipe Bueno\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.shu.edu\\\/thediplomaticenvoy\\\/2015\\\/10\\\/12\\\/airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.shu.edu\\\/thediplomaticenvoy\\\/2015\\\/10\\\/12\\\/airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Felipe Bueno\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.shu.edu\\\/thediplomaticenvoy\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/900963b1996b13e72901977693892c98\"},\"headline\":\"Airstrike on MSF Hospital Does No Favors For Obama, Ghani\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-10-12T14:00:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-17T18:33:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.shu.edu\\\/thediplomaticenvoy\\\/2015\\\/10\\\/12\\\/airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":666,\"commentCount\":2,\"keywords\":[\"Afghanistan\",\"Taliban\",\"Kunduz\",\"Doctors Without Borders\",\"Geneva Conventions\"],\"articleSection\":[\"International News\",\"U.S.\",\"Middle East\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.shu.edu\\\/thediplomaticenvoy\\\/2015\\\/10\\\/12\\\/airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.shu.edu\\\/thediplomaticenvoy\\\/2015\\\/10\\\/12\\\/airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.shu.edu\\\/thediplomaticenvoy\\\/2015\\\/10\\\/12\\\/airstrike-on-msf-hospital-does-no-favors-for-obama-ghani\\\/\",\"name\":\"Airstrike on MSF Hospital Does No Favors For Obama, Ghani - 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