Patterico's Pontifications

10/8/2015

After Several Days of Careful Consideration, Man Issues Apology for Mass Killing of Innocents

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:33 am



A man responsible for a mass killing has decided, after several days of reflection, to issue an apology to the survivors of the completely innocent people he killed, the New York Times reported yesterday.

Little is known about the victims, other than many of them were not only innocent, but among the most selfless and brave members of the human race. But a survivor described the attack as “absolutely terrifying,” describing seeing one victim “covered in blood, with wounds all over his body.” The witness added: “There are no words for how terrible it was.” She said:

Tome of my colleagues were in too much shock, crying and crying. I tried to encourage some of the staff to help, to give them something to concentrate on, to take their minds off the horror. But some were just too shocked to do anything. Seeing adult men, your friends, crying uncontrollably—that is not easy.

. . . .

These are people who had been working hard for months, non-stop for the past week. They had not gone home, they had not seen their families, they had just been working in the hospital to help people… and now they are dead. These people are friends, close friends. I have no words to express this. It is unspeakable.

The organization whose people were killed has said that the killings were unnecessary, as they had repeatedly warned the man, through his subordinates, of their location so that they would not be killed.

The Times reported that the decision to apologize for killing anywhere from 22 to 46 completely innocent people represented a “difficult and sensitive decision” that took “several days” to reach. The man’s last apology was for the burning of “several copies of the Quran,” according to the paper of record, and it was initially determined that the killing of several dozen innocent people did not quite rise to the same level. Accordingly, the man initially extended his “deepest condolences” to families of the innocent victims, calling it a “tragic incident.” After several days of reflection, however, the killer determined that it was “appropriate for him to offer an apology.”

Critics criticized the killing, noting that the killer, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, had killed other Nobel Peace Prize winners. The critics attempted to label this unprecedented, until someone reminded them about Yasser Arafat.

Today the man plans to travel to Roseburg, Oregon, to meet with families of people killed by someone besides himself. At least one of the families of a survivor from that attack has declined to attend, calling the trip “exploitative.” As of today, this blogger can find no mention of any plans by the man to meet with family members of those he is responsible for killing himself.

39 Responses to “After Several Days of Careful Consideration, Man Issues Apology for Mass Killing of Innocents”

  1. All of the facts in this post are true.

    Patterico (fecd9b)

  2. Remember that when some rouge soldiers decide to humiliate prisoners at Abu Ghraib then it is a direct indictment of the incompetence and venality of the Bush/Cheney Administration, but when some clueless military planners forget to exempt the coordinates of a hospital from their arial attack plans then that has nothing to do at all with the leadership of the Obama/Biden Administration. Because we said so.

    JVW (ba78f9)

  3. Have the names been changed “to protect the innocent?”/snorf!

    felipe (b5e0f4)

  4. Critics criticized the killing, noting that the killer, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, had killed other Nobel Peace Prize winners. The critics attempted to label this unprecedented, until someone reminded them about Yasser Arafat.

    Recall that the European Union — the whole damn kit ‘n caboodle — won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, so every time an EU citizen kills another EU citizen it is a Nobel Prize winner killing a fellow Noble Prize winner. So actually it is fairly commonplace.

    JVW (ba78f9)

  5. But your point is still pretty awesome about the 2009 prize winner slaughtering the 1999 prize winners.

    JVW (ba78f9)

  6. But he did say that the chairman’s office was the same office to which Doctors Without Borders had provided GPS coordinates for the hospital on Sept. 30. The group also provided the same GPS coordinates to the American-led coalition in Afghanistan on Sept. 29.

    Mr. Cone could not say who or what office at the American-led coalition in Afghanistan was contacted during the attack.

    “All we know is that our one hospital was struck repeatedly after we told them where we were located, and called them in desperation to stop the attack,” he said.

    Whoops!

    Well, stuff happens.

    Patterico (51b0a5)

  7. And yet no outrage by the Left. In fact, they defend the behavior and the masses cheer and vote Obola.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ab8c0d)

  8. food stamp should be arrested for his war crimes i think

    arrested and tried by the ICC

    food stamp’s lame apology is not enough it does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  9. Remind me: How many people were actually killed at Abu Ghraib?

    JVW (ba78f9)

  10. 10.Remind me: How many people were actually killed at Abu Ghraib?
    JVW (ba78f9) — 10/8/2015 @ 8:48 am

    I know! I know! Too few were.

    Or is that a trick question?

    Virginia SoCon (8eb3c5)

  11. President “I’m good at killing people” said we should politicize the Oregon shooting. Somehow I doubt he’d want us to politicize how he killed a bunch of innocent people.

    tops116 (d094f8)

  12. So, can we say that that TFG has killed more people this year than Ebola?

    felipe (b5e0f4)

  13. DWB incident was a long time ago.

    felipe (b5e0f4)

  14. #6: Giving this administration your GPS coordinates is playing with fire.

    BobStewartnotatHome (a52abe)

  15. The Russian’s are using (cheap) unguided munitions (cluster bombs, etc.) to blow the hell out of Assad’s opponents, particularly those with our support. This has outraged our JAGed military. When confronted with “collateral” damage the Russians will shrug their shoulders and say “that’s war … choose your friends wisely.” Should the LHMFM decide to cover this story, the upshot will be the court martial of some data entry clerk who entered the GPS coordinates in the wrong column, and a shrug of the shoulders by a man who closes with “that’s war … that’s why we’ve outlawed it.”

    BobStewartatHome (a52abe)

  16. It’s a war crime. Can’t some Spanish prosecutor file charges?

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  17. Recall that the European Union — the whole damn kit ‘n caboodle — won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, so every time an EU citizen kills another EU citizen it is a Nobel Prize winner killing a fellow Noble Prize winner. So actually it is fairly commonplace.

    Commonplace, JVW? It’s actually a competition. I’m sure Rodney King’s Spirit would agree with me that if I were a prez candidate I’d be out there screaming at the top of my lungs, with color pictures, about the mass slaughter of these “innocents” and be demanding Obomber’s Nobel be rescinded. Turn it back on the lousy, lying libs. Show the world their compassion and humanitarianism.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  18. yes, it was a regretable accident, those alleging a war crime, are on thin ground, while everybody from the governor in Kunduz, to the air crews, have been thrown under the bus,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  19. Of course it’s not a war crime ,narciso. It would have had to be done by Bush to rise to war crime level.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  20. This evil woman has her boney fingers in everything. They’ve never done anything constructive business-wise in their lives and today they’re worth about what, 50 million?

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  21. It really amazes me how so many leftists, who hate capitalism, manage to amass huge fortunes with absolutely no marketable skills then sit around and pontificate about how to tax the small businessman’s money away.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  22. 2. …when some clueless military planners forget to exempt the coordinates of a hospital from their arial attack plans then that has nothing to do at all with the leadership of the Obama/Biden Administration. Because we said so.

    JVW (ba78f9) — 10/8/2015 @ 7:48 am

    Yet, the current parasite infesting the Oval Office is the Nobel Peace Prize Winner who brags about personally selecting targets for assassination from his kill list. How is his excuse making supposed to work?

    Also, the AP’s Matt Lee destroyed the DoS’s spokesweasel by pointing out the glaring double standard that this administration holds itself to, as opposed what standards it holds Israel to. This administration immediately accused Israel of committing an “appalling” war crime, and that the suspicion that insurgents were operating near civilian areas was no excuse for targeting those areas. Yet this administration wants everyone to think this was just an accident.

    In case you haven’t seen the video:

    http://lidblog.com/aps-matt-lee-exposes-state-departments-anti-israel-hyporcrisy/

    The United States is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which at least ten more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed. The coordinates of the school, like all UN facilities in Gaza, have been repeatedly communicated to the Israeli Defense Forces. We once again stress that Israel must do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties. UN facilities, especially those sheltering civilians, must be protected, and must not be used as bases from which to launch attacks. The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians. We call for a full and prompt investigation of this incident as well as the recent shelling of other UNRWA schools.

    …When Matt Lee of the Associated Press asked State Dept. deputy spokesman Mark Toner if the Afghan bombing was a change in policy, Mr. Toner was totally lost for words. What he couldn’t say was the admonishment of Israel wasn’t policy the Obama administration looks for any excuse to criticize Israel and that Matt Lee had exposed their hypocrisy.

    Below is a transcript of Lee’s questioning of Toner (and below that a video of the exchange). Notice the look on Toner’s face each time the AP reporter pressed the question. The poor guy looked like a deer frozen by a car’s headlights (he never did answer Lee’s question).

    Just to inject some facts into this, since the UNRWA-run schools were complicit in Hamas’ terrorism, allowing them to use their facilities as both warehouses for Hamas rockets and missiles AND providing human-shields for Hamas, the Law Of Armed Conflict is quite clear. It was Hamas and the UN that committed the war crime by militarizing a protected site. Not Israel, as by turning UNRWA schools (it isn’t the first time the UN has cooperated with Palestinian terrorists) they turned the site into a valid military target.

    But the Obama klown kar administration accused the Israeli government of deliberately committing war crimes in contradiction to the facts on the ground and what is explicitly provided for in the LOAC. Once again, this administration has one set of rules for the Joooooz, another for the rest of the world including itself. I don’t see how this administration gets away with claiming they aren’t a bunch of Jooooo haters.

    In Kunduz there is not evidence, as of yet, to believe the MSF hospital was similarly being used in the same fashion by the Taliban.

    If anyone is the war criminal, it isn’t Bush or Bibi. It’s Prom Queen.

    Steve57 (d94282)

  23. …It was Hamas and the UN that committed the war crime by militarizing a protected site. Not Israel…

    I should add that both Hamas and the UN committed a war crime by violating the principle of disinction. Yes, Israel (and the US) are supposed to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. But when combatants refuse to bear arms in uniform or at least wearing insignia and deliberately mingle with the civilian population to make distinction impossible then it’s the side mingling with the civilian population that is committing the ware crime. And that is what Hamas did, aided and abetted by the UN as its accomplice.

    Steve57 (d94282)

  24. the Nobel Peace Prize Winner who brags about personally selecting targets for assassination from his kill list. How is his excuse making supposed to work?

    It occurs to me that Nixon, for all of his faults, only had an enemy list. It takes someone like Obama to have a kill list.

    egd (1ad898)

  25. I’m really vague on the killing of civilians since the side that wins usually kills a crap load of civilians. I think the idea here is that the United States can’t kill civilians ergo, the United States won’t win. Matter of fact the last war we decisively (or actually?) won we wiped out entire cities of civilians. As far as I’m concerned when one country declares war on another it’s not just on their army and navy, it’s on all the bastards. If they don’t like it, don’t declare war. Hell, it would seem to me the more civilians you kill the more the enemy becomes demoralized and the more they would want to quit. The object of winning a war is to have something and somebody to come home to otherwise it ain’t worth fightin’.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27)

  26. 27. I’m really vague on the killing of civilians since the side that wins usually kills a crap load of civilians…

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 10/8/2015 @ 1:08 pm

    There is nothing in the LOAC that says that killing civilians is illegal. You can, in fact, kill a lot of civilians* and never run afoul to the LOAC. You just have to apply the four basic principles to your calculus.

    http://loacblog.com/loac-basics/4-basic-principles/

    Distinction– “In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” [Additional Protocol 1, Article 48] The only legitimate object of attack in an armed conflict is military personnel or property. This does not mean that civilians cannot be legally harmed or killed under the law only that civilians and civilian property should not be the object or the purpose of the attack. **Protects non-combatants **

    Proportionality – “Loss of life and damage to property incidental to attacks must not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be gained.” [U.S. Army Field Manual FM27-10: Law of Land Warfare]. The key here is the word incidental, meaning outside of the military target. This means that when considering a target the damage to civilians and their property cannot be excessive in relation to the military advantage gained. Proportionality is not a requirement if the target is purely military. This principle brings with it an obligation to consider all options when making targeting decisions: verify the target, timing (is there a time when fewer civilians will be around?), weapons used, warnings and evacuations for civilian populations.**Protects Non-combatants **

    This is one area in particular the anti-Semites demand the Israelis play by a different set of rules than everyone else. They insist that if Hamas uses the metaphorical equivalent of a knife, then the Israelis can’t respond with a gun. That is not what proportionality means. When Israel is destroying Hamas’ (or other terrorist groups’ ability to attack Israel) then Israel can use all necessary force to achieve that military objective, but no more.

    Military Necessity–“…[E]very injury done to the enemy, even though permitted by the rules, is excusable only so far as it is absolutely necessary; everything beyond that is criminal.” – Napoleon [Solis, Law of Armed Conflict p 258]. The principal of military necessity prohibits things such as wounding or permanently injuring an opponent except during the fight, torture to exact confessions and other activities simply used to inflict additional damage on the enemy that does not future the military objective. The Liber Code defines the prohibited activity as, “in general, … any act of hostility that make the return to peace unnecessarily difficult. **Protects Combatants**

    Unnecessary Suffering: “It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and materials and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” [Additional Protocol I, Article 35.2] **Protects Combatants**

    Actually these latter two principles protect non-combatants as well.

    *Former Croatian General Ante Gotovina was accused of various crimes against humanity as well as various violations of the laws and customs of war due to his conduct during the Croation War of Independence following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Essentially he was accused of “ethnically cleansing” Croatia of Bosnian Serbs by deliberately targeting them, resulting in the deaths of hundreds and the displacement of over 90000 Serbian civilians. Apparently the theory was any artillery shell that landed 220 yards or further from a military target constituted the deliberate targeting of civilians. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted him, but his convictions were overturned on appeal as that does not constitute the deliberate targeting of civilians, although no one denies that his conduct of operations had exactly that effect on the civilian population.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/9682855/Croatian-hero-Ante-Gotovina-acquitted-of-war-crimes.html

    Steve57 (d94282)

  27. Steve@24/25

    Are you aware that DwB was shilling for Hamas in Gaza before the last war? And I am sure you know Hamas was using hospitals as well as schools.

    Karma is a b—-h sometimes.

    kishnevi (31ba4e)

  28. Yes he is fully aware, as the ircc has skilled for gitno detainees

    narciso (ee1f88)

  29. Hell, it would seem to me the more civilians you kill the more the enemy becomes demoralized and the more they would want to quit.

    How demoralized do you think the enemy was by our attack on Doctors Without Borders?

    As I grow older I am less and less enthusiastic about the notion that we have the right to kill innocent people because they live in a country whose rulers do things we disagree with.

    I still think we needed to go into Afghanistan, so this is not easy. But in my opinion people invoke the “this is war” attitude far too easily, the better to shrug off things that really ought not be shrugged off.

    Patterico (fecd9b)

  30. Well this was not a deliberate attack, but what does one do with a faction that refuses to abide by the laws of war.

    narciso (ee1f88)

  31. if failmerica were advancing freedom liberty and national security in afghanistan i think we’d know by now

    effing losers

    happyfeet (831175)

  32. My guess is some traitorous Afghan called in the coordinates for a PR victory, or the enemy actually was using the hospital for cover.

    Of course there’s nothing Obama likes more than apologizing for our brutal, racist nation; however, DwB are more left wing than he and so will never let him off the hook.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  33. kishnevi, narciso @30 is correct. I’m fully aware of those facts and more. I am very familiar with how Hamas (as well as Hezbollah; let’s not forget about them) operate.

    But to stick to Hamas in Gaza, they’re worse than animals (I hate comparing terrorists to animals; it’s an insult to animals). And nobody can stand them. Israel gets blamed by the left of turning Gaza into a “prison” (it isn’t; there are too many high end malls, waterparks and luxury beachside resorts in Gaza to call it a prison). But while Israel controls the Gazan coast and two of Gaza’s three land borders, Egypt controls the third. And not even Egypt wants those savages crossing into their territory.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34288465

    Egypt ‘starts flooding Gaza tunnels’

    18 September 2015

    The Egyptian military has begun flooding tunnels used by Palestinian militants and smugglers under the border with Gaza, reports say.

    It is the latest move by Egypt to destroy the tunnels, part of an offensive against insurgents.

    Excavators have been digging there for weeks to turn the area into what authorities say will be fish farms.

    Egypt has destroyed thousands of homes and evicted families from the border, where it is creating a buffer zone.

    Hundreds of tunnels were operating until Egypt began to eliminate them in recent years, but some remain functional and others have been rebuilt.

    Then follows a couple of of the usual lefty hand-wringing paragraphs about how the poor, put-upon, victimized Gazans need those tunnels as their “economic lifeline,” to which I say screw them. They wanted a terrorist organization as their government, they can live with the consequences. Then we get to the consequences the Egyptians refuse to live with, and oddly enough they’re the same as the ones Israel refuses to live with.

    …Scores of Egyptian soldiers and civilians have been killed in an insurgency which has intensified, especially in the Sinai, since the overthrow of Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

    It isn’t as if the Gazans are living in a cage. But if the Joooo hating left wants to b***h as if they were, I’ll point out all day that if the Gazans don’t like it they should stop behaving worse than animals.

    Speaking of animals, some of the reports out of the ME say that the Egyptians may be using the word “fish” for their supposed fish farms as a euphemism for crocodiles to discourage any more tunneling. All credit to Barack Obama for once. He ridiculed conservatives with the straw man argument that they wanted to build a wall and a moat filled with crocodiles on our southern border. And the Egyptians apparently decided that was the one good idea he’s had during his entire presidency.

    Steve57 (d94282)

  34. Just the sauds have fenced off the hadramaut, because their antipathy to the Zaydi is remarkable.

    narciso (ee1f88)

  35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_fP6mlNSK8

    NDTV exclusive – how Hamas assembles and fires rockets

    Alternate headline:

    Foreign film crew captures Hamas committing a war crime on video, and unlike most foreign “journalists” doesn’t bury the truth in order to propagandize on behalf of Palestinian terrorists.

    Steve57 (d94282)

  36. It may well be that the MSF hospital in Kunduz had been militarized by the Taliban, and the MSF executives are screaming “war crimes” to cover for the Taliban.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/7/inside-the-ring-doctors-without-borders-afghanisst/

    Were Taliban holed up in the Doctors Without Borders hospital?

    It makes perfect sense. I can’t see how the MSF continued presence in Kunduz would be tolerated by the Talliban unless MSF agreed to cooperate as a condition to remain. And it’s not like like the Taliban would have to twist any MSF arms too hard to gain their willing cooperation. But still, before striking a protected site like a hospital you need evidence in each specific case that combatants have militarized the site. We don’t have hard evidence yet that was the case in Kunduz.

    We do have that hard evidence justifying the IDF strike on the UNRWA schools in Gaza last summer.

    So regardless of how the search for evidence turns out, the hypocrisy of the of the Obama administration still couldn’t be any more glaring, as this jaw-dropping display of Marie Harf’s stupidity (but I repeat myself) in defense of the US state department’s (and by extension Barack Obama’s) rush to judgement to declare the Israeli action in Gaza a war crime makes perfectly clear.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/07/marie-harf-explains.php

    …In the video below, Harf speaks up for the United Nations organization whose good works in Gaza include the return of Hamas missiles found in UN schools to Hamas authorities. The Times of Israel reports that more missiles were found in another such school yesterday. What are they teaching them in those schools anyway?

    AP State Department reporter Matthew Lee grills Harf on the internal contradictions of Harfism.

    The administration knew that Hamas was using UNRWA schools to hide arms caches and as launch sites. Alarmingly no one in this administration, especially Harf, was embarrassed to say in front of God and everybody that the UNRWA didn’t know about it, or that the US government doesn’t know that turning the rockets over to “local authorities” in Gaza means turning them back to Hamas, who put them there in the first place, since Hamas are the local authorities. Regardless this misadministration still insisted that the Israeli strikes were unjustified and disgraceful.

    1. So if even hard evidence of a terrorist group militarizing a protected site, and thus committing a war crime by turning that protected site into a legitimate target can’t justify actually striking said target, then no amount of evidence can possibly justify the US strike on the MSF hospital in Kunduz.

    2. It’s not at all certain that we will ever have any hard evidence that the Taliban had militarized the MSF site. Thus making the US action even more appalling and disgraceful, to use the terms with which the Obama administration condemned Israel.

    Steve57 (d94282)

  37. Governor danishi who defended the strike will get the general loan treatment or worse.

    narciso (ee1f88)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0951 secs.