Independent probe needed in US airstrike in Kunduz: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Phyllis Bennis, a member of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, about the US airstrike on the MSF clinic in Afghanistan’s Kunduz and Washington’s potential attempt to hide evidence of war crimes.

Following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Certainly this seems almost like a conspiracy to destroy evidence, doesn’t it?

Bennis: It seems like this is one more piece of evidence of why we need an independent investigation; why we cannot rely on investigations carried out by the same military agencies of the US, NATO, in Afghanistan that are involved in this attack.

I do not know that it was a conspiracy. We do not know enough yet. What we do know is that it is not possible for the militaries to investigate themselves. So there needs to be an independent investigation.

The announcement yesterday from President Obama that he intends to keep troops in Afghanistan past the end of the year - violating his long-standing promises - gives us a context within which the urgency of such an independent investigation becomes even more clear.

The US war in Afghanistan has failed for 14 years. There is no particular reason to think it is going to succeed in year 15 or 16 or 17, unless we count success as being killing more Afghans.

Press TV: And obviously in the aftermath of that airstrike, the MSF had in fact called for a very rarely used commission to be set up in fact as an independent investigation as you have called it as well. Are there any signs, do you think, that will genuinely occur because this is the US we are speaking about. It does not really go for independent investigations that often, does it?

Bennis: It does not, and I do not know that the independent commission that the MSF has identified, which would make a lot of sense, it has never been used before. It was created in the context of the 4th Geneva Convention special protocol in the 1970s but there has never been one actually convened, and one of the restrictions of it is that it requires the approval of the countries involved.

So in this case the US and Afghanistan would both have to agree, their governments would have to agree, and the US has not signed on to that protocol, so there is no indication that it would.

I do not know that that is the only possibility of an independent investigation. I think there could be other contexts for an independent investigation in which the US would not have to approve if the Afghan government were willing to approve.

The problem is, of course, the Afghan government itself is dependent on the United States for military, political and, crucially, economic support, so the likelihood that it would take a position different from or in opposition to the US position is pretty unlikely as well.

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