The leadership of the US Department of Defense will not punish the American military involved in the August airstrike in Kabul, which killed ten civilians, including seven children. This was announced at a briefing by Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. According to him, this decision was made by the head of the US Central Command, General Kenneth Mackenzie (CENTCOM) and the head of the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), General Richard Clark, following an investigation conducted by the US Air Force Inspector General Sami Said. They presented their recommendations to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
“The Minister of Defense reviewed their recommendations.
I will not dwell on all of them - some of them are classified for obvious reasons, but he approved their recommendations.
So I do not foresee that there will be questions of personal responsibility regarding the August 29 airstrike, ”Kirby said.
According to him, this decision was made due to the fact that the investigation did not reveal any acts of criminal negligence.
“Here we saw a failure in the procedural sense and in the implementation of the procedure, and not the result of negligence, malfeasance or ineffective leadership,” the spokesman said.
He also stressed that the incident was considered in the context of the events that unfolded in Kabul at the end of the summer.
“But in this case and in the context of this particular strike, which took place just days after we lost 13 troops (as a result of the attack. -
RT
) at Abby's gate, and just days before our complete withdrawal from Afghanistan , in the context of the very real threats that we faced - I must say, the very real threat that ISIS poses in Afghanistan * - all this was taken into account when it was decided that yes, some procedural changes are required, and they will be brought in and the process will definitely be modernized, ”Kirby explained.
In this regard, he noted that the report Mackenzie and Clark presented to Austin contained mainly proposals for "procedural changes" that would have to be implemented in the process of making appropriate decisions on air strikes.
At the same time, the Pentagon spokesman emphasized that if the minister found it necessary to prosecute anyone in connection with the incident, he would have taken all the necessary steps for this.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby
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© Lisa Ferdinando / Dod / Keystone Press Agency
According to the laws of war
Recall that on August 29, the United States hit a car in Kabul using a drone. As explained in the US Central Command, the attack was undertaken in self-defense, since, according to their intelligence, the car posed a threat to the Hamid Karzai International Airport from the ISIS unit Vilayat Khorasan. Central Command also stressed that significant secondary explosions in the vehicle following the impact indicated that it contained a significant amount of explosives. Meanwhile, the victims of this strike were 10 civilians, including seven children.
Later, after an investigation, the Pentagon admitted that the airstrike was a mistake.
As General Kenneth Mackenzie noted at a briefing on September 17, the Ministry of Defense considers it unlikely that as a result of this operation, persons associated with the terrorist group were eliminated.
He also noted that the department is studying the possibility of paying compensation to the relatives of the victims.
However, Mackenzie added that it will be very difficult to do this due to the fact that the American contingent has left Afghanistan.
The head of the Pentagon himself, Lloyd Austin, issued an apology, promising that the appropriate lessons would be learned from this "terrible mistake."
However, he noted that no army is working harder to avoid civilian casualties.
However, already in November in the United States they started talking about the fact that there were no specific culprits in what had happened.
In particular, this statement was made on November 3 by General Sami Said, Inspector General of the US Air Force, who was checking the data of the investigation.
According to him, there were no violations during the decision-making on the strike.
“The investigation did not reveal any legal violations, including the rules of waging war.
However, it did reveal or accompanying errors of execution, confirmed by perception bias and communication disruptions, which, unfortunately, resulted in civilian casualties, ”Said said at the briefing.
He also stressed that all participants in the process were "sincerely convinced" that the car posed a threat to the US military.
“This is a regrettable mistake.
This is a random error.
I understand the consequences, but this is not criminal behavior, accidental act or negligence, ”the general added.
"Shock" interests
According to experts, this is not the first time that the United States has evaded responsibility for the deaths of civilians at the hands of the American military.
This was the case in Syria, Libya and Iraq.
In particular, in March 2017, airstrikes by an international coalition led by the United States in Iraqi Mosul resulted in the deaths of at least 200 civilians, according to media reports.
The commander of the anti-IS operation in Iraq and Syria, General Stephen Townsend, then acknowledged the coalition's responsibility for the attack.
However, the Pentagon later adjusted the death toll downward, stating that the incident killed 105 civilians and 36 were missing.
In addition, the ministry “shared” responsibility for the victims with IS, expressing confidence that the main cause of the tragedy was the detonation of ammunition planted by the militants.
Iraqi city of Mosul, 2017
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© ZUMAPRESS.com / Claire Thomas
At the same time, as noted by RT correspondent Murad Gazdiev, who was at that time in Mosul, the scene was promptly cordoned off by the Iraqi pro-American military, who did not allow the media to shoot in the area and took away mobile phones even from the rescuers who got the injured and dead from under the rubble.
In Syria, the international human rights organization Amnesty International stated that the coalition forces did not take adequate measures to minimize the damage to the civilian population.
So, in August 2017, the Syrian media reported the deaths of 78 civilians in the city of Raqqa under the attacks of Western bombers.
The coalition command then promised to investigate what had happened, but no results of the investigation were presented later.
At the same time, the coalition admitted that from 2014 to 2017, 624 civilians were killed under its bombs.
And this despite the fact that during this period there were more than 1,100 reports of civilian deaths as a result of Allied bombing.
However, one of the most resonant US “mistakes” in targeting air strikes was the attack on the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz on October 3, 2015.
Then 22 people died - employees of an international organization and patients.
Despite the call of the head of the organization, Christopher Stokes, to investigate this air raid as a war crime, the United States limited itself to only apologizing and applying administrative punishments to a narrow circle of people.
“I can say that the people most closely associated with the incident were removed from their duties and subjected to administrative penalties.
Some were removed from the theater of war, ”said Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood.
In addition, the Pentagon said that the Afghan military asked them to open fire on the object due to the fact that Taliban members were hiding there **.
American mission
Experts note that the current decision of the Pentagon not to name those responsible for the erroneous airstrike has become quite expected.
“What has the American military ever been punished for?
In any case, definitely not for the actions that have affected the civilian population of those countries where the Americans brought the light of freedom and democracy with their bayonets.
The incident in Kabul is far from the only case when American intelligence incorrectly indicated targets, and then it turned out that innocent people were injured or killed during their destruction, ”Vladimir Batyuk, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada, told RT in a commentary on RT.
At the same time, he noted that Washington very rarely admits its responsibility for any sacrifices, because otherwise its image of the bearer of democracy will suffer.
US military in Afghanistan
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© ZUMAPRESS.com / Ahmad Massoud
“If recognized, the myth that the United States brings freedom and democracy will be destroyed.
Therefore, they will continue to keep silent and justify such egregious facts.
No one has yet been punished for Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, or many other human rights violations or even war crimes.
I think that Americans are unlikely to ever abandon their "traditions" - said the analyst.
In turn, Sergei Sudakov, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military Sciences, noted that any attempts to find those responsible for specific crimes will invariably lead to those who sent American troops into Afghanistan in 2001.
“If you look at the retrospective, those responsible for the recent events will be found among those who unleashed this bloody carnage 20 years ago.
Thus, the United States is trying to avoid any comments about what happened, "Sudakov explained in an interview with RT.
He also stressed that in fact, the Americans are using their military not to eradicate terrorism in a particular country, but as a political tool.
“The US uses the formula military strength equals political strength.
Therefore, the country's authorities deny the concept of "human sacrifice", recognizing only the existence of a political interest.
They can only talk about the humanitarian situation in relation to other countries.
Using the model of its own superiority, the United States has assumed a kind of “divine” function - to decide the fate of people, ”the expert said.
In this regard, he noted, few countries, with the exception of Russia and China, dare to point out to the United States of their mistakes.
“Until there are international institutions not controlled by the United States, this situation will continue.
In addition, the United States now has several trump cards in its hands - the UN veto, nuclear weapons with a significant potential for their delivery, and the printing of world currency.
Under the current conditions, the United States can infinitely expand its capabilities without looking back at international law.
In this regard, the world desperately needs structures that can curb US expansion and hold them accountable, "summed up Sudakov.
* "Islamic State" (IS, ISIS) - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014.
** "Taliban" - the organization is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.