US forces alledgedly bombed MSF Hospital.

[The Romulan Republic]

What about the tens of millions of Americans who voted against George Bush? Do they bear responsibility for reelecting him? What about those like myself who were too young to legally vote at the time (the first Presidential election I was eligible to vote in was the 2008 election)?

More broadly/historically, would you argue that only people who had full rights as citizens (which as I recall, in early America, was basically wealthy white men) were responsible for America's actions at that time? Do you think that America women, who could not vote, bear no responsibility or less responsibility for slavery, for example?

Honest question. I'm trying to pin down where you draw the lines, and its quite interesting to me, even though I don't entirely agree with where you draw those lines.

[Thanas]

What about the tens of millions of Americans who voted against George Bush? Do they bear responsibility for reelecting him?

Yes. You can't pick and chose what you want to be guilty for or not. You are the sovereign. Act like it. Once that decision is made, you are responsible for it, whether you agreed with it or not, unless you chose to take measures to make sure you are not connected to it and take actions to make sure you do not profit from it. Like emigrating. But if you don't do it besides complain about it on the internet, you are still a part of the sovereign (as you still enjoy the benefits of it).

What about those like myself who were too young to legally vote at the time (the first Presidential election I was eligible to vote in was the 2008 election)?

Then you were not a citizen. So no.

More broadly/historically, would you argue that only people who had full rights as citizens (which as I recall, in early America, was basically wealthy white men) were responsible for America's actions at that time? Do you think that America women, who could not vote, bear no responsibility or less responsibility for slavery, for example?

They do not bear as much responsibility, for they could not vote. That does however not bar them from having accumulated individual guilt, like profiting from slave trade.

[Simon_Jester]

Legally, there's a pretty firm division between how we handle crimes committed by the state, and how we handle (or are supposed to handle) crimes committed by individuals.

Invading a country is a decision made on the level of national policy; it is reasonable to picture it as an act committed by the nation.*

Within the context of a large war, many specific actions are taken by individual soldiers. Some of these actions are good, many are neutral, and some are profoundly, utterly evil.

However,

For instance, there was a time when the war in Iraq would have won the support of the American people as a whole, had a popular plebiscite been held on the war.

However, there is no evidence that a similar plebiscite would ever have endorsed helicopters strafing a journalist and then shooting up the van that came to help the wounded journalist.. This is not to say that the American public reacted appropriately after the incident was revealed (a lot more trials and protests were in order). But nonetheless, there is no particular evidence that the American public endorsed or desired the killings; most people I've spoken to would have voted for 'no, don't shoot the journalist and van' if they'd gotten a choice.

So, do we argue that collective responsibility for the war entails collective responsibility for all details of how the war was prosecuted? Do we adopt something like the Soviet 'vertical stroke' approach toward discipline, in which ALL layers of command are responsible for a crime committed at any level, and then extend this vertical stroke all the way up to the collective body of the national electorate?

This then creates the question: what is the appropriate level of action for an individual citizen to take, in order to avoid 1/300000000th of a share in the responsibility for a massacre of civilians by soldiers acting under loathesome rules of engagement? We know what someone has to do in order to avoid being an accessory to a specific murder they are personally involved in... but this level of collective responsibility complicates matters.

____________________________

*Although the notion that citizens "profit" from such a war is... interesting, in the context of modern wars, which result in massive expense of wealth for little or no financial gain. Very few Americans are economically better off because Bush invaded Iraq. Very few if any Americans are noticeably safer because Obama has constantly launched drone strikes in Middle Eastern countries. It is hard to understand how I might accuse someone of "profiting from" an action by their country, purely because they are a citizen of their country, when the action has in fact been to the detriment of their country.

[Thanas]

However, there is no evidence that a similar plebiscite would ever have endorsed helicopters strafing a journalist and then shooting up the van that came to help the wounded journalist.. This is not to say that the American public reacted appropriately after the incident was revealed (a lot more trials and protests were in order). But nonetheless, there is no particular evidence that the American public endorsed or desired the killings; most people I've spoken to would have voted for 'no, don't shoot the journalist and van' if they'd gotten a choice.

And yet, the same public overwhelmingly glorifies soldiers and resists any attempt at responsibility for actions committed. The same public overwhelmingly voted for the president who invaded a foreign country based on lies. Known lies too. They chose to reelect him despite knowing that he lied to their faces and that shady shit was going down.

One does not need to know every little detail of what went on to be responsible. I cannot give consent to a known torturer and war criminal and then be surprised that his forces commit more criminal acts. "Oh noes, who knew the guy who tortured people would committ other crimes? Shocking."

So, do we argue that collective responsibility for the war entails collective responsibility for all details of how the war was prosecuted?

Yes. It is a given that in any war shady shit will happen. That is the very nature of war. If you make the conscious decision to go to war then you better make sure that it is worth it - i.e. no wars of aggression. As soon as the public is complicit in a war of aggression, then it is also complicit in every thing that happens as a result of the war of aggression.

*Although the notion that citizens "profit" from such a war is... interesting, in the context of modern wars, which result in massive expense of wealth for little or no financial gain. Very few Americans are economically better off because Bush invaded Iraq. Very few if any Americans are noticeably safer because Obama has constantly launched drone strikes in Middle Eastern countries. It is hard to understand how I might accuse someone of "profiting from" an action by their country, purely because they are a citizen of their country, when the action has in fact been to the detriment of their country.

This goes back to "you don't get to pick and choose". Your existence is shaped by the deeds of your nation (though in retrospect profit was a bad word choice because it invites this very nitpicky, insipid handling over whether an action constitutes a profit or not). If you vote for a president, then you are responsible for what he does, even more so when you know what he was up to and continue to support him.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Would it be bad form for me to point out that my fellow Americans (I sound presidential as fuck right there) are proving Edi's point beautifully? Because they really are.

You don't have to be in favor of something to help it perpetuate. The average American may say that it's bad to gun down innocent civilians, yet when it happens they aren't pushing for the people who did it to face charges. When mass torture programs get set up, you don't have nearly enough people who want them ended. People buy the "enhanced interrogation" line in much the same manner as a pacman frog swallows anything that will fit in its mouth.

Even if you don't buy into the notion of shared responsibility, certainly you can acknowledge that the American public as a whole doesn't really give a fuck about all the intentional human rights abuses that continue to go on? Can you admit that the media isn't really doing their due diligence to expose atrocities? Can any of my countrymen admit that known shitstains get continually reelected? On both sides? Edi never said anything about Americans being "evil." Thanas has never said Americans as a whole are awful. He's never been shy about calling out bullshit, but I really can't say that's a bad thing.

Fuck's sake, guys. Nobody is saying that the average American should be tried for war crimes. They aren't putting you or me on the same level as the people ordering this shit, or the people who actually do those things. They're saying that as a whole, Americans vote in the fuckers that put us into such situations. That Americans reelect people that start illegal wars based on lies and set up mass torture and surveillance programs. They aren't saying you're a baby killer.

Given the nature of elections in this country, I'm not sure just how much you can blame people for who gets elected. Getting your name out there, generally speaking, requires that you have some pretty wealthy backers. So it's often a repeat of the same assholes over and over. But even still, when there's a substantial portion of this country that considers negotiating to be a sign of weakness... There's a problem with our culture, too.

[Prannon]

What about the tens of millions of Americans who voted against George Bush? Do they bear responsibility for reelecting him?

Yes. You can't pick and chose what you want to be guilty for or not. You are the sovereign. Act like it. Once that decision is made, you are responsible for it, whether you agreed with it or not, unless you chose to take measures to make sure you are not connected to it and take actions to make sure you do not profit from it. Like emigrating. But if you don't do it besides complain about it on the internet, you are still a part of the sovereign (as you still enjoy the benefits of it).

I want to chime in here, because I think Thanas makes a good point and I think that this is one of the things that keeps the US from behaving more responsibly in its various actions.

I get the sense that a lot of people in any country, but especially in the US, disown the government that they don't elect/disagree with. Not just ideologically, but also materially. It becomes that no action that their disowned government takes reflects on them at all. "I didn't vote for him, therefore I'm not responsible for any action he takes. I voted for the other guy!"

What this does, to my view, is it encourages citizens to believe that they are not responsible for the horrible things that their country does. They either never own the government that does the things, or they continue to fully support those things. Or they feel that it's all beyond them anyway and why are they responsible for things that they have no part in?

And in the end, this creates a culture of irresponsibility where the government gets away with horrible shite cuz most folks don't think that they own it when they actually do.

[Gandalf]

The difference is this: those millions of guilty individuals may all be guilty, but they do not necessarily comprise the entirety of their nation/people. Ie, if their is a nation of 100 million, and fifty million of its people are guilty (by whatever standard you use to measure guilt), that does not make the other fifty million guilty as well.

This is, of course, a simple hypothetical, and these numbers should not be taken as representing my idea of the ratio of guilty to innocent people in any actual nation.

Isn't that missing the whole point of democratic elections? The citizenry votes on their leader, as a collective. If you don't vote for the winner, do you still have to pay their tax increases or such? If Obama raised taxes, could the McCain/other voters declare that they're not responsible, therefore it's not up to them?

Don't try to be cute.

Of course I understand the concept of collective guilt for Germany, you condescending twit. I don't know why anything I said would lead you to believe otherwise.

I was not, after all, expressing incomprehension or incredulity at the concept of collective guilt for Nazi Germany. I was questioning its relevance to this discussion.

I argued that Americans (and others) should not be collectively condemned. You argued in favour of collective guilt, using the Nazis as an example. In other words, you used pretty much the most extreme possible example, which isn't really equivalent to the situation I am debating.

Hence, straw man. Got it yet?

Oddly, I didn't use the most extreme example, which to me would be the continual occupation of native people's land in countries that were colonies. I picked it because of its prominence and general acceptance. I was trying to use your rationale in a different scenario. I had no idea it would offend you so, and I apologise for that. Hence my new taxation example above.

[Vympel]

Relevant:

US journalists who instantly exonerated their government of the Kunduz hospital attack, declaring it an accident

Excerpt:

What possible motivation would the U.S. government have for submitting to an independent investigation when — as usual — it has an army of super-patriotic, uber-nationalistic journalists eager to act as its lawyers and insist, despite the evidence, that Americans could not possibly be guilty of anything other than a terrible “mistake”? Indeed, the overriding sentiment among many U.S. journalists is that their country and government are so inherently Good that they could not possibly do anything so bad on purpose. Any bad acts are mindlessly presumed to be terrible, uintended mistakes tragically made by Good, Well-Intentioned People (Americans). Other Bad Countries do bad things on purpose. But Americans are good and do not.

They cling to this self-flattering belief so vehemently that they not only refused to entertain the possibility that the U.S. government might have done something bad on purpose, but they scornfully mock anyone who questions the official claim of “mistake.” When you’re lucky enough as a government and military to have hordes of journalists so subservient and nationalistic that they do and say this — to exonerate you fully — before knowing any facts, why would you ever feel the need to submit to someone else’s investigation?

[Simon_Jester]

And yet, the same public overwhelmingly glorifies soldiers and resists any attempt at responsibility for actions committed.

The former may be unrelated to public attitude toward war crimes; the latter is related and is highly relevant.

The same public overwhelmingly voted for the president who invaded a foreign country based on lies. Known lies too. They chose to reelect him despite knowing that he lied to their faces and that shady shit was going down.

Here's my problem with this.

Picture two Americas. One reelected Bush in 2004 with a 50.3% majority (to Kerry's 48.7% of the electorate). In the alternate-historical America, Kerry wins by the same narrow majority.

[Assume for the sake of argument that Kerry would not just do exactly the same things Bush did. If you want to argue that this is the case, fine- but it is beside the point of this thought-experiment]

Based on the kind of logic I'm seeing here, Bush!America is explicitly embracing the torture and war crimes and wars of aggression committed during Bush's first term in office, and his second term in office. And every American citizen is collectively responsible for all the evils involved, barring perhaps a handful who take extreme measures to divorce themselves from the crimes.

Conversely, Kerry!America has repudiated these things. Presumably, the collective responsibility resulting from "you reelected Bush knowing what he had done" would then not apply.

The problem is, there is almost no difference between the two Bush!America and Kerry!America. All that is required would be for 0.7% of the American voting public- roughly one million people- to have flipped their vote from Bush to Kerry. Suddenly, Bush's popular majority vanishes, he loses. Or to take it to greater extremes than that- had roughly 2% of the population of Ohio, specifically, flipped their votes, Kerry would have won the election. Roughly one hundred thousand people in the right place changing their minds would have changed the outcome.

In statistical terms, Bush!America and Kerry!America have nearly identical distributions of political opinions, core values, attitudes toward civil liberties and so forth. And yet one of them is ruled by a war criminal... and the other is not.

So trifling changes in public opinion, far smaller than we routinely see as a result of minor, specific tactical changes in electioneering strategy, could have altered this outcome. How, then, do we treat these two very similar hypothetical Americas, one ruled by a war criminal and one not, as being morally different when they are clearly very similar in terms of actual moral content and values?
_______________________

One way to resolve this issue is to say that just because your pet war criminal lost the election, that doesn't mean you are exempt from responsibility for the actions he would have committed. You are judged on the consequences of the actions you desired and supported, not on the consequences of the actions which actually took place.

But if wanting a war criminal in office makes you worse even if there isn't actually a war criminal in office...

It would seem to follow that not wanting a war criminal in office makes you less bad even if there is a war criminal in office.

We can't call people in Kerry!America who wanted Guantanamo to stay open 'worse' without also calling people in Bush!America who wanted it to close 'better,' at least in relative terms that impact the level of collective blame.
________________

Now, I can think of other ways to address this.

But I can't think of a way to address this, which supports "Americans are uniformly collectively responsible for all American war crimes, with at most a small scattering of exceptions," that also produces coherent results when faced with the reality that election results can be a close-run thing and that there isn't necessarily much difference between a country that re-elects a war criminal and one that kicks him out of office.

Yes. It is a given that in any war shady shit will happen. That is the very nature of war. If you make the conscious decision to go to war then you better make sure that it is worth it - i.e. no wars of aggression. As soon as the public is complicit in a war of aggression, then it is also complicit in every thing that happens as a result of the war of aggression.

I honestly feel that this mindset somewhat diminishes the responsibility of the individuals 'on the ground' or at middle levels in the chain of command who often order the war crimes. Because you're taking the idea that these acts are caused by specific criminals whose intentions and behavior is somehow deviant compared to the overall nation from which they spring... and replacing it with the idea that "shit happens, so it's your fault when shit does happen."

Now, I actually agree with the observation that evils happen in war and therefore aggressive war should be avoided, simply because violent means will predictably result in violent (bad) ends.

I just don't think we can use the principle and generalize it to a justification for collective responsibility for war crimes that would not have been endorsed in advance by the public in whose name they were committed.

*Although the notion that citizens "profit" from such a war is... interesting, in the context of modern wars, which result in massive expense of wealth for little or no financial gain. Very few Americans are economically better off because Bush invaded Iraq. Very few if any Americans are noticeably safer because Obama has constantly launched drone strikes in Middle Eastern countries. It is hard to understand how I might accuse someone of "profiting from" an action by their country, purely because they are a citizen of their country, when the action has in fact been to the detriment of their country.

This goes back to "you don't get to pick and choose". Your existence is shaped by the deeds of your nation (though in retrospect profit was a bad word choice because it invites this very nitpicky, insipid handling over whether an action constitutes a profit or not). If you vote for a president, then you are responsible for what he does, even more so when you know what he was up to and continue to support him.

The problem with this is that identical actions on your part may result in very different outcomes depending on which way a close-run election tips. This makes it problematic to say that you are responsible for the outcome of a binary scenario where you have little or no direct influence.

It's much less problematic to say that if you wished an evil outcome, then you are responsible for the evil, than to say that if you opposed an evil outcome and resisted it but narrowly lost then you're still responsible for the evil because in theory you could have fought harder.

[Thanas]

Simon, answer me this - do you believe people are ever collectively responsible? Because under your argument, I could pretty much applie it to everything else and then decide there is no collective responsibility ever.

]Here's my problem with this.

Picture two Americas. One reelected Bush in 2004 with a 50.3% majority (to Kerry's 48.7% of the electorate). In the alternate-historical America, Kerry wins by the same narrow majority.

[Assume for the sake of argument that Kerry would not just do exactly the same things Bush did. If you want to argue that this is the case, fine- but it is beside the point of this thought-experiment]

Based on the kind of logic I'm seeing here, Bush!America is explicitly embracing the torture and war crimes and wars of aggression committed during Bush's first term in office, and his second term in office. And every American citizen is collectively responsible for all the evils involved, barring perhaps a handful who take extreme measures to divorce themselves from the crimes.

Yes. However, do note that legal punishment is always based on individual responsibility. However, collective responsibility is needed otherwise every war death is always a war crime.

The problem is, there is almost no difference between the two Bush!America and Kerry!America. All that is required would be for 0.7% of the American voting public- roughly one million people- to have flipped their vote from Bush to Kerry. Suddenly, Bush's popular majority vanishes, he loses. Or to take it to greater extremes than that- had roughly 2% of the population of Ohio, specifically, flipped their votes, Kerry would have won the election. Roughly one hundred thousand people in the right place changing their minds would have changed the outcome.

In statistical terms, Bush!America and Kerry!America have nearly identical distributions of political opinions, core values, attitudes toward civil liberties and so forth. And yet one of them is ruled by a war criminal... and the other is not.

Yes. That is the result of elections. So what? You can make the same argument about Nazi Germany. Heck, Hitler never even got a majority. 43.91% is the highest he reached in a popular vote. And yet, there is no problem ascribing collective responsibility to the German electorate. Your train of thought would lead to the German people having no responsibility for Hitler whatsoever. They didn't even give him a majority (unlike Bush).

So trifling changes in public opinion, far smaller than we routinely see as a result of minor, specific tactical changes in electioneering strategy, could have altered this outcome. How, then, do we treat these two very similar hypothetical Americas, one ruled by a war criminal and one not, as being morally different when they are clearly very similar in terms of actual moral content and values?

We treat them by the actions of their representatives. That's it.

One way to resolve this issue is to say that just because your pet war criminal lost the election, that doesn't mean you are exempt from responsibility for the actions he would have committed. You are judged on the consequences of the actions you desired and supported, not on the consequences of the actions which actually took place.

...that is not how a republic works and you know it.

But I can't think of a way to address this, which supports "Americans are uniformly collectively responsible for all American war crimes, with at most a small scattering of exceptions," that also produces coherent results when faced with the reality that election results can be a close-run thing and that there isn't necessarily much difference between a country that re-elects a war criminal and one that kicks him out of office.

But there is one crucial difference - one reelected him and the other did not. That difference may appear small to you, but it is not an insignificant one. You cannot delegitimize election results by claiming the other guy only won with a narrow margin. Fact is, he won. He is the duly elected leader of the nation.

Are you saying that is not the case? Are you saying that we now should arbitrarily dismiss election results because they don't mean anything? That is a very slippery slope.

I honestly feel that this mindset somewhat diminishes the responsibility of the individuals 'on the ground' or at middle levels in the chain of command who often order the war crimes.

It does not, they still bear individual responsibility.

I just don't think we can use the principle and generalize it to a justification for collective responsibility for war crimes that would not have been endorsed in advance by the public in whose name they were committed.

Remind me again how many % of US citizens felt enhanced interrogations were just ok and that the war against Saddam was justified?

The problem with this is that identical actions on your part may result in very different outcomes depending on which way a close-run election tips. This makes it problematic to say that you are responsible for the outcome of a binary scenario where you have little or no direct influence.

It is not a problem. You are responsible for your vote.

It's much less problematic to say that if you wished an evil outcome, then you are responsible for the evil, than to say that if you opposed an evil outcome and resisted it but narrowly lost then you're still responsible for the evil because in theory you could have fought harder.

Again, you are confusing individual guilt with collective guilt.
1. You are a citizen of nation X, a democracy. Thus, you are the sovereign. Thus, you bear collective guilt simply because you are a citizen of Nation X. This, for example, is why it is ok if reperation would be paid that they would be paid from tax dollars - and thus, you would pay reperations as well. This is also why the enemy may do things that harm you like blockade your ports, seize your business or even kill you in some cases.
2. Individual guilt, aka the "Person A is a bad man, thus we hang him" is determined on the level of your individual involvement. The Allies didn't put every German up against the nearest wall at the end of WWII, they conducted trials. Flawed and hypocritical in some cases they were, but still, the trials were conducted in order to find out who should actually be punished.

Do you see the difference here?

[K. A. Pital]

With the reparations - the Germans who survived the war had to pay them, too. Even those who opposed Hitler and had to rot in KZs and death camps until the Allies got them out had to pay - they remained in Germany and their productive efforts in the form of taxes and direct contribution went to the damaged parties.

I think that ignoring responsibility breeds a culture of irresponsibility. If you feel what your nation is doing is horrible, get out. I did so and I think it is impossible to keep your conscience at least partially clean if you remain there and know your efforts contribute to the nation's wars of aggression and imperialism.

[The Romulan Republic]

Of course Germans who opposed Hitler still had to pay tax money for reparations. That's not necessarily the same thing as saying they bore equal responsibility morally as an SS thug, or that they bore any responsibility at all for Hitler's actions. Its just the unpleasant practical reality of taxation- everyone pays taxes, regardless of their political allegiances.

As to leaving one's country, one could take the view that it is irresponsible to simply leave your country and not try to work to bring about reform.

But on the flip side, one's ties to one's country don't magically disappear because you step outside its borders. Take me- I'm a duel citizen of the US and Canada, currently living in Canada. I still have voting rights in the US, but on the flip side, I still had to sign up for the fucking selective service just in case a draft ever took place.

[K. A. Pital]

Nobody said they bear equal responsibility: but they bore some collective responsibility, including material responsibility, for the actions of their state. Even if they themselves were the victims.

It is irresponsible to leave? But it is also quite irresponsible to remain there and say you are not in the least responsible for America's wars just because you personally did not vote for Bush the second time. It feels more like a cheap indulgence.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Of course Germans who opposed Hitler still had to pay tax money for reparations.

Good job contradicting your own position.

That's not necessarily the same thing as saying they bore equal responsibility morally as an SS thug

If you cannot refrain from strawmen, dont type.

...........

I will reframe the argument for you, my fellow americans. You exist in a social contract. Even though you voted for The Other Guy, even though you opposed Bush, even actively campaigned against him, you still consented to being governed by him because you did not--for whatever reason--vote with your feet and move to Germany, or Sweden etc. That consent, which could have been withheld and from which all governmental legitimacy derives in a democracy or republic, means you bear collective responsibility for the actions taken in your name. There are gradations of collective responsibility. It is not a binary. Someone who voted for Bush actively desired his governance while you merely acquiesced to the group decision. So did I.

Thanas' rhetoric might on occassion be overbroad with respect to How Americans Are And How They Think, but it is correct with respect to collective responsibility. It is not correct to say (for instance) that Americans support torture committed by our government. It is correct to say we are responsible for torture committed by our government.

[The Romulan Republic]

Nobody said they bear equal responsibility: but they bore some collective responsibility, including material responsibility, for the actions of their state. Even if they themselves were the victims.

It is irresponsible to leave? But it is also quite irresponsible to remain there and say you are not in the least responsible for America's wars just because you personally did not vote for Bush the second time. It feels more like a cheap indulgence.

Well, I think we can both agree that a responsible citizen will do more to affect their country's policies than simply doing nothing, at least.

I just don't like the idea of blaming people based on their nationality, without taking into account individual factors. This is part of a more general philosophy that stereotyping, collective guilt, and guilt by association are wrong, and that each individual should be judged on their own beliefs and actions or lack thereof.

I would also say that being guilty of inaction to stop atrocities is not quite the same thing as being guilty for those atrocities yourself. I mean, the bystander didn't actually take part in any destruction (except maybe very indirectly through taxes or some such). They simply didn't do all they could to stop it. Neither is positive, but I consider them different offences- sort of like the difference between first degree murder and negligence that indirectly results in someone's death, to use a legal analogy.

[K. A. Pital]

Gross neglience is also a punishable crime if it leads to someone's death or injury. There is a difference, but both imply responsibility. When talking about collective responsibility (national responsibility), the level of accountability is also different from individual responsiblity - you cannot go to jail for Bush's and Cheney's actions, though you can theoretically lose a part of your income to possible future reparations claims, etc. and you can (theoretically!) face economic hardship due to sanctions against your nation for its behaviour on the international stage.

It is only because the US itself is the world overlord of sorts and aggressor at the same time that the prospect of facing sanctions or reparations is very unlikely. But you should remember that had it been some other nation, there are always consequences to actions and screaming that you or someone voted "the other way" does not absolve one from this type of responsibility.

[Grumman]

The Pentagon has released their report.

Cliff's notes version:
There was a government compound and a hospital compound 400 meters apart. Taliban forces had overrun the government compound, so the gunship was diverted from a different mission to provide fire support. When it got there it misidentified the hospital compound as the government compound it had been directed to attack, and did so.

Because the gunship was not originally supposed to perform this mission and because the mission occurred at 2AM, the crew did not know there was a MSF hospital close to the target. Because the gunship's computers initially gave the target coordinates as an open field, they used a physical description that lead them to believe the hospital compound was the government compound, and continued to believe that that physical description had directed them to the correct target after the computers started giving the correct target.

[Gandalf]

So they'll blame their equipment, and everyone walks?

[Edi]

So they'll blame their equipment, and everyone walks?

Of course everyone walks. What the hell did you expect, an actual trial, never mind convictions? When two US pilots deliberately violated standing orders regarding flight paths in northern Italy, resulting in the death of over a dozen people (the cable car incident) AND were later caught red-handed trying to falsify evidence and cover it up, they walked. Well, got a dishonorable discharge, but in that situation it was the same as walking away scot free.

You could see the same shit in action at Abu Ghraib, where an internal US investigation (the Taguba report) flat out said there were systematic war crimes and the trail led right to the top, and only a few lowest level flunkies got convicted. I could keep going on in this vein, but I think you get the point.

[Dominus Atheos]

I suppose the best question to ask is, how often does american targeting equipment (allegedly) give coordinates hundreds of meters away from the actual target, and why doesn't the US military seem more concerned about that (alleged) possibility? Because this time it was an MSF hospital but how many times has it been an apartment complex who didn't have a twitter account?

[AMX]

So they'll blame their equipment, and everyone walks?

Actually, they blame human error, with equipment failure only a contributing issue.
BTW, here's the official source:
http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-Vie ... e-accident
Has some "interesting" bits the NPR article omitted, like this:

The report found that, under the circumstances, the U.S. SOF commander lacked the authority to direct the aircrew to engage the facility,

Or that:

Another chance to catch the mistake was missed when the aircrew transmitted to their operational headquarters at Bagram Airfield that they were about to engage the building. “They provided the coordinates for the [Doctors Without Borders] trauma center as their target,” the general said. “The headquarters was aware of the coordinates for the ... trauma center and had access to the no-strike list, but did not realize that the grid coordinates for the target matched a location on the no-strike list or that the aircrew was preparing to fire on the hospital.”

[Purple]

I suppose the best question to ask is, how often does american targeting equipment (allegedly) give coordinates hundreds of meters away from the actual target, and why doesn't the US military seem more concerned about that (alleged) possibility? Because this time it was an MSF hospital but how many times has it been an apartment complex who didn't have a twitter account?

Why should they be concerned about it than? Like seriously, if they know they can get away with bombing a prominent target like this that people will actually care about in the west why should they care about hitting a random apartment block filled with people who nobody cares about anyway?

(Note: This post is meant to reflect my view of their way of thinking. It does not reflect my personal view of the situation but my view of their view.)

[Raw Shark]

They should be concerned about it if the constituents of the congress critters who hold their purse strings become outraged and organize to demand answers or vote the bastards out.

[Purple]

They should be concerned about it if the constituents of the congress critters who hold their purse strings become outraged and organize to demand answers or vote the bastards out.

My point is that from their point of view nobody is going to know or care if they kill a bunch of random civilians in a country half way across the globe. And to some extent they are right. After all, do we even have any idea how many civilians they did kill by now?

[Simon_Jester]

I suppose the best question to ask is, how often does american targeting equipment (allegedly) give coordinates hundreds of meters away from the actual target, and why doesn't the US military seem more concerned about that (alleged) possibility? Because this time it was an MSF hospital but how many times has it been an apartment complex who didn't have a twitter account?

Why should they be concerned about it than? Like seriously, if they know they can get away with bombing a prominent target like this that people will actually care about in the west why should they care about hitting a random apartment block filled with people who nobody cares about anyway?

They might be concerned for the simple reason that a military would rather hit their target than miss their target.

Even if you were a complete sociopath committed solely to harming the enemy of the day, one of the side-effects of the gunship being so busy shooting holes in the hospital is that the Taliban in the government complex did NOT get any holes shot in THEM. And shooting up the Taliban in the government complex was the thing that was supposedly important enough to justify diverting an AC-130 at two in the morning in the first place!

So this bombardment not only couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, it couldn't hit the broad side of an entire complex of barns, instead landing on an entirely different complex that literally no one had any reason or desire to want bombed.

Even if all the bombardment had landed in a random wheat field and harmed nobody, this would still count as a mission failure. The fact that it hit a hospital makes it tremendously worse, horribly, atrociously worse- but it would still be a bad thing.

The armed forces do a lot of very strange things to make sure that information about targeting and fire control is transmitted accurately. This event indicates they aren't doing enough, though.
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If the Pentagon is outright lying, of course, all this is irrelevant- but if they are not, then this remains in play.