The “Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War”, in Article 18, states that: “Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the parties to the conflict.”

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military committed repeated human rights violations.

On, October 3, 2015, In the city of Kunduz, northern Afghanistan. Within a single hour, US fighter jets dropped five bombs on a hospital set up by Medecins Sans Frontieres in northern Afghanistan, severely damaging the ER and ICU wards. Twenty-two people were killed. The world reacted with horror.

In order to minimize deaths among its own soldiers, the US frequently deployed drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But instead of US soldiers, it was innocent civilians who were killed or injured. A 2014 article in the UK newspaper The Guardian cites a human rights group’s report, revealing a significant decline in the accuracy of US drone strikes. In attacks targeting 41 people, an additional 147 innocent lives were lost.

In 2006, two US drone strikes were launched, aimed at Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Pakistan. They resulted in the deaths of 76 children and 29 adults, while al-Zawahiri survived.

On July 1, 2016, the US government for the first time published the death toll from US drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. The report stated that between 2009 and 2015, US drones had carried out 473 attacks in these countries, killing 64 of their targets, and causing 116 civilian deaths.

The general opinion was that the figures fell far short of the truth, and that the report was a blatant fabrication. The US was accused of trampling on human rights with its drone attacks, showing contempt for human life, and subjecting the countless victims and their families to a lifetime of pain.

Throughout the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the media regularly reported US violations of the Geneva Conventions.

In December 2003, a US soldier anonymously sent a computer disc with photographs of prisoners being mistreated, to the US military’s Criminal Investigation Command in Iraq.

In February 2004，Janis Karpinski, the commanding officer with responsibility for Abu Ghraib prison, was relieved of her duties and assigned out of Iraq. On April 28, 2004, the CBS program “60 Minutes” revealed the photographs, to international condemnation.

The “Geneva Convention” of August 1949 has long been at the heart of international humanitarian law. The convention defines the treatment of prisoners of war, and the rights of civilians in wartime. Its fundamental principle, is respect for individual life and dignity.

However, following the 9-11 attacks, the US military refused to afford the treatment specified in the “Geneva Convention”, to militants it captured in its war on terror.