“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Joanne Liu and Peter Maurer: The airstrike on an Aleppo hospital is a wake-up call for the UN. It must act now
At 10pm two nights ago, the al-Quds hospital in the north Syrian city of Aleppo came under attack. With an airstrike, the 34-bed hospital which offered services including an emergency room, intensive care unit, operating theatre and the cities’ main referral centre for paediatrics was completely destroyed.
Surrounded in darkness and dust, surviving patients, staff and volunteers began to dig out those caught in the rubble. Eight doctors worked full-time in the hospital, two of whom were among the 14 confirmed dead. Their dedication and commitment to providing medical care to those in need resulted in the ultimate sacrifice.
Sadly, this is not an isolated case. From Afghanistan to the Central African Republic, from South Sudan to Yemen and Ukraine, ambulances, hospitals and health centres have been bombed, looted, burned and destroyed. Patients have been killed in their beds; health workers have been attacked as they rescued the wounded.
Eugene R. Fidell: The Wrong Way to Handle the Kunduz Tragedy
LAST October, an American gunship mistakenly launched a devastating attack on a Doctors Without Borders trauma center in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 42 innocent people. An investigation released last week detailed a cascade of human and technical errors that led to the bombardment. Now the Pentagon is compounding the tragedy by treating the case as less grave than it is.
Kunduz is not the first time aerial bombing has unintentionally killed noncombatants on the ground. In World War II, American bombers repeatedly strayed into Swiss airspace, dropping ordnance and causing significant damage. The Swiss finally registered a strong protest after Zurich was bombed, resulting in a court-martial of some of the crew. [..]
As matters currently stand, there will be no Kunduz trial. Instead, 16 members of the American military, including a general, have received disciplinary action or adverse administrative action, including letters of reprimand, removal from command, transfer out of Afghanistan and requiring recertification in a job specialty. Given the loss of life and damage to a hospital which, by definition, is a protected site under the law of armed conflict, it is hardly surprising that many view these actions are inadequate.
Trevor Timm: Donald Trump’s views are impossible to discern. Why pretend otherwise?
Let’s stop pretending that Trump is anything other than a shape shifter with no core belief system – besides maybe craven opportunism mixed in with a little bit of racism.
Trump has switched positions or lied about his true feelings on virtually every single issue that has come up during this primary campaign. Yet for some reason, he keeps getting credited with having principled beliefs.
The latest example was in Sunday’s New York Times, where columnist Maureen Dowd referred to Donald Trump as a foreign policy “dove” – or at least less hawkish than Hillary Clinton – because he’s made a few comments, most recently last week, about not starting additional wars in the Middle East.
Paul Krugman: The Diabetic Economy
Things are terrible here in Portugal, but not quite as terrible as they were a couple of years ago. The same thing can be said about the European economy as a whole. That is, I guess, the good news.
The bad news is that eight years after what was supposed to be a temporary financial crisis, economic weakness just goes on and on, with no end in sight. And that’s something that should worry everyone, in Europe and beyond.
First, the positives: the euro area — the group of 19 countries that have adopted a common currency — posted decent growth in the first quarter. In fact, for once it was better than growth in the U.S.
Jill Filipovic: Go Ahead, Play the Woman Card
FOR all his purported business acumen, it seems the woman card may not be as valuable as Donald J. Trump thinks: In Maryland on Tuesday, Representative Chris Van Hollen beat Representative Donna Edwards in the Democratic primary race for the Senate seat to be vacated by Barbara Mikulski.
In her concession speech, Ms. Edwards railed against the hypocrisy of a party that relies on black female votes but has sent only one black woman to the Senate. “What I want to know from my Democratic Party is, when will the voices of people of color, when will the voices of women, when will the voices of labor, when will the voices of black women, when will our voices be effective, legitimate equal leaders in a big-tent party?” she asked. [..]
She raises a crucial question, and one that Democrats, even as they come closer to nominating Hillary Clinton, have been bad at answering. Democrats and liberals generally agree that representation matters. This is the party that supports affirmative action, that champions diversity, that pays lip service to getting more women and minorities represented in public office. But does representation matter over other factors?
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