I have a new article up at Stats.org about the US attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz.
After writing this earlier article I found myself still thinking about the incident – hence the second one.
People reading both will wonder why I wrote in the first one that we shouldn’t obsess over the intentionality question and then I turned around and wrote a whole article about exactly this question. The answer is that I penned the second article accidentally.
Seriously, though, I recognize the tension but think they can stand side by side. On the one hand, there should be a serious investigation of the incident that does not pre-judge it as a terrible mistake as the US has already done. On the other hand, if solid evidence does emerge that the attack was unintentional then that revelation should not let the US off the hook for allowing such a mistake to happen.
Watch this space for follow-up posts. I already have new material!
War, Numbers and Human Losses 