Yesterday's vile attack by the American Air Force on the Mdecins sans Frontires
hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killed twelve medical staff and at least seven
patients.  Three of them were children.  Six of them were burnt alive in their
intensive-care beds.

The United States' culpability is compounded by its ongoing refusal to
participate in the International Criminal Court to any extent other than that
of an observer.  Mr Obama prefers, instead, to have his Department of Defence
investigate itself.  Without a serious and deep congressional enquiry, the
result will be predictable: nobody will be held to account, not the commanders
who gave the orders and not the pilots who unquestioningly pulled the trigger.

How can such a violent and xenophobic regime as the United States be permitted
to continue to hold the world's largest arsenal of weapons of mass
destruction?

The United States will not, in the end, profit from yesterday's attack.
Instead the United States will only suffer the blowback from the ill will and
new enemies that its aggression will have created.