Reuters: U.S. to make payments to families of Kunduz air strike victims: Pentagon
The U.S. Department of Defense will seek to make "condolence payments" to families of victims of a U.S. air strike that mistakenly hit a Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 22 people, the Pentagon said on Saturday.
"The Department of Defense believes it is important to address the consequences of the tragic incident at the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan," spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement, adding the United States would also pay to repair the charity hospital.
"U.S. Forces-Afghanistan has the authority to make condolence payments and payments toward repair of the hospital. USFOR-A will work with those affected to determine appropriate payments. If necessary and appropriate, the administration will seek additional authority from the Congress," he said.
WNU Editor: This blood money is not going to satisfy anyone. This is a big story in Afghanistan and elsewhere .... people are angry and they want answers ... Afghan president orders investigation into fall of Kunduz, US airstrike (FOX News/AP).
4 comments:
Payment such as these have been made since WW2 in North Africa.
Weren't payments also made to US corporations that had their concerns bombed in Europe?
Anyway,
People want answers but they should have been asking questions about Afghanistan decades ago.
I was there and grew to wonder, for instance, what circuits the opium money flowed through.
The info on the payments of money in North Africa during WW2
comes from the book "Dirty Little Secrets of WW2" by Nofi and Dunnigan (who are considered zen masters by some people.).
I am not sure what we did in Europe.
Part of the point in pointing this out was to show there was a precedent going back 1/2 a century.
There was a pay scale. It did not give examples of who was at fault. But in Morrocco or Algeria, if a tanker accidently ran over your donkey/ass you got paid I think regardless of fault.
A good one the mentions what was done in Europe is the Myth of the Good War by Jaques R Pauwels
What they're doing in Afghanistan is more like hush money.
Regarding N. Africa, I was not aware that people were indemnified like that.
Post a Comment