THERE may be many acts of bravery in every conflict but there is one courageous group of individuals who are so often overlooked. In the midst of raging battles, they carry no guns. When people are seeking to kill each other, they are seeking to do the exact opposite. They are trying to save lives. Paramedics, ambulance drivers, doctors, nurses and surgeons all working slap bang in the middle of raging conflict regularly display a courage and a dedication and a selflessness which is remarkable. As is the case in the barrel-bomb blasted cities of Syria, the medics are also assisted by volunteers who have charged into the rubble of a new outrage, seeking to drag free the dead and injured. And the bravery and the toughness of these heroic people has another dimension that is rarely remembered. They are having to try and help people with the most horrific injuries. Moreover, with multiple casualties, they are having to decide on the spot, who is to be treated first, because these injured have the best chances of survival. This triage process often leaves the nightmare thought that maybe the life-and-death choices made under extreme pressure were the wrong ones. The medics at all levels who seek to treat and heal the wounds of war, deserve the most profound respect and consideration. They do not deserve to be targeted by any combatants. The Medicins Sans Frontieres hospital in Kunduz came under aerial attack for an hour in the early hours of Saturday and 12 brave staff and ten of their patients were killed. US warplanes were supporting Afghan troops in their drive to retake the city from the Taliban. MSF says that not only did the Americans know the coordinates of the hospital but once the attack on the compound began, MSF people were calling US officials telling them they were making a mistake. Yet the air assault continued. MSF describes the slaughter as a war crime. There have been rumors, denied by MSF, that Taliban fighters were in the hospital. But even if these reports are true, international law still does not permit a hospital to be targeted. It seems pretty clear that there has been the most horrific error here. It seems inconceivable that the Americans would deliberately blast a hospital. President Obama has expressed his deepest regrets and said that the US Department of Defense is mounting an immediate investigation. Unfortunately an internal inquiry is not going to be enough. MSF has rightly said that in terms of producing an objective report into what went wrong, the American military investigating itself, is completely inadequate. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has echoed the call for an independent enquiry and it seems clear that it should be the UN that will set up this investigation. The problem is that Washington will almost certainly block such a move, if for no better reason than sensitive operational information would likely be revealed. Yet, unless the Defense Department rapidly produces a convincingly thorough report that sets out precisely how the US military got it so disastrously wrong and produces solid changes to engagement rules, the demand for an independent enquiry will remain extremely strong. The tragic truth displayed once more, this time in Kunduz is that smart bombs are only as clever as the people who drop them.
