Last week the news came out that a hospital in Afghanistan manned by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was bombed-out by the United States military force acting in the middle east. By bombing this hospital 19 people were killed, of which 12 staff members of MSF, and over 50 people are seriously injured. MSF is speaking of the biggest disaster in the history of the organization.
At first the Afghan ministry of foreign affairs stated that there were terrorist hiding in the hospital and therefor it was bombed. The terrorist were supposedly killed and the MSF staff that was killed was collateral damage. Later on the United States admitted that the actual target was a location in the neighborhood of the hospital and not the hospital itself. The GPS location of the hospital was known to all fighting parties in the area.
The first statement made was very strange because the doctors are putting their life on the line by helping every person in need for medical care, irrespective of a patient’s ethnicity, religious beliefs or political affiliation. Which means quit a lot, if you imagine that most wars are being fought over these three subjects. The case where two people who were fighting each other in the battlefield and lie next to each other in hospital beds a few hours later is not unthinkable and does happen on a day to day basis. The fact their lives are accepted as collateral damage is very strange.
The neutral position of MSF in helping patients also means it will not accept any money from governments or government like organizations. This indirectly results in the fact that MSF will not hand over any wounded soldiers who are suspected terrorists. This leads to great irritation of the international military coalition active in the region.
It didn’t take long before the protesters, who are against the Afghan war and always eager in stopping the war, were back on the streets. Everyone was pointing fingers to the US military and soon the general responsible for the Afghan war was accused of war crimes against humanity. The MSF has called in the Fact-Finding Commission to investigate these accusations.
The Afghan war has cost the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians, and is estimated to have cost over 14 million dollar an hour since 9/11. And what does it have to show for, most of the afghan society is still living in poverty, corruption, political strife and women are still be repressed heavily despite the massive effort put into. Needless to say, the country is a big mess.
Taking this all into account the MSF organizations first priority is to get the hospital back up and running, because there are a lot of lives on the line. Before the hospital was bombed it was able to treat over 22.000 patients in one year (2014). The doctors want to go back there as soon as possible, even though the place was just bombed. They value saving human lives over the risk they are taking by being stationed in these conflict areas where they can provide the most help.
The doctors who go back to Kunduz deserve the upmost respect of the whole world for the work they are doing, but isn’t there a bigger picture here. Isn’t this the wakeup call for the United States and the international coalition that this war is useless and not worth the risk of losing more (innocent) lives. Let this be a message to the international community and stop fighting wars which aren’t ours to fight.