By David Axe
SHOOT FIRST: The U.S. Gunship that Slaughtered Doctors and Patients in Kunduz
The crews of the AC-130, a low, slow plane bristling with guns, don’t have to follow the same rules as those in other U.S. warplanes.
The American warplane that apparently struck a Doctors Without Borders clinic in the embattled city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan on October 3, killing 22 people, was probably an AC-130 gunship — a lumbering, four-engine transport modified to carry a powerful arsenal of side-firing guns.Maybe the gunship’s crew knew exactly where the clinic was in Kunduz, maybe it didn’t. Maybe there were Taliban fighters nearby, maybe there weren’t.
Regardless, the AC-130 blasted the vicinity of the clinic for more than an hour, repeatedly striking the medical facility. And the U.S. military’s lax rules allowed it to happen.
Packed floor to ceiling with high-tech sensors and radios and boasting a wide range of weaponry including 25-millimeter and 40-millimeter cannons plus a 105-millimeter howitzer, the AC-130 is supposed to be more accurate than other warplanes — and thus safer for innocent civilians in the line of fire.
But the Pentagon’s rules for using the gunships actually make them less safe.
Read more at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/05/how-a-u-s-gunship-slaughtered-doctors.html
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