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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 10/8/15

Why a US Congressional Special Investigative Committee (CSIC) must be created to investigate the MSF hospital bombing

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The Special Investigative Committee will also have many substantive and procedural evidentiary options at its disposal that no other investigative body would possess. Such a committee is the best way the American people and global community can make informed decisions about the reforms needed to prevent this crime from recurring.

Medecins Sans Frontieres is recommending waking up a never-used body The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) to investigate the US bombing of its hospital at Kunduz. MSF cogently explained that it frankly does not trust internal military inquiries into the bombing that killed at least 22 people and wounded at least 37.

Neither do most of the rest of us.

But the IHFFC, which was set up in 1991 under the Geneva Conventions as a fact gathering agency that submits recommendations only has never conducted a single hearing during its 24 year history. The IHFFC's president, Gisela Perren-Klingler told the media on 10/7/2015: "We are not an accountability mechanism, so we are different from the ICC [International Criminal Court]." We much demand accountability which IHFFC can't deliver.

Frankly IHFFC is not up to this serious investigation that MSF recommends and this noble humanitarian association and its millions of admirers would surely be disappointed. What the IHFFC eventually would very likely produce is a long drawn out generalized findings and recommendations. The IHFFC only has 76 signatories who do not include either the US and Afghanistan, the two suspects in the war crime at Kunduz. Importantly, before the IHFFC can even begin its work the US and Afghanistan would have to consent to its jurisdiction. They will not. No country ever has. Moreover, the IHFFC 15 members panel, comprised of diplomats, military officers, medical doctors and legal academics, have full-time jobs in their own countries of origin around the world, and their involvement -- if a mission ever did go ahead, which is not at all likely would depend on their availability. Moreover the IHFFC report will be confidential, and not released to the public. It will go only to the two culpable governments concerned. Where presumably it will be filed away somewhere. The investigation of the horrendous events must be very public with media and the public monitoring it every day.

So in this observer's 2-cents worth opinion, the proposal to turn this egregious war crime case over to the IHFFC is faulty in that IHFFC will not deliver justice or the full independent transparent investigation that we all owe the victims. It cannot in fact achieve much of anything at all anytime soon, if ever.

But a US Congressional Special Investigative Committee with vast powers and multiple sources of information including the 16 Agency US Intelligence Community would not be the "internal military inquiry" that MSF and most of us reject. And many members of Congress are furious with the slaughter at Kunduz and are in no mood for a Pentagon whitewash according to two Senatorial congressional staffers interviewed in the past two days. Neither reportedly is President Obama.

Both long-time Congressional aids agree that the CSIC would be bipartisan, consist of selected Intelligence and Judiciary committee members from both parties, and have full subpoena powers. After Watergate, Congress created the Church Committee to investigate illegal actions committed by the intelligence community. What it found was staggering and it released the report and changes happened. The American people demanded change and they will also in this case to prevent the slaughter of innocents in their name. Congress has the ability to conduct the most thorough investigation and release the full results globally much better and faster than any other investigative body domestic or international.

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Since 2013, Professor Franklin P. Lamb has traveled extensively throughout Syria. His primary focus has been to document, photograph, research and hopefully help preserve the vast and irreplaceable archaeological sites and artifacts in (more...)
 

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