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US Government Accused Of "War Crime" By Doctors Without Borders In Bombing That Killed 22
In the aftermath of Saturday's tragic and unprecedented bombing of an Afghanistan hospital by the US air force, one which killed 22 and continued for 30 minutes after mission command has been allegedly notified of the "error" which the US initially claimed was "collateral damage", the Doctors without Borders physician group in charge of operating the hospital has come out swinging and has equated the US bombing of a hospital to engaging in nothing short of a war crime.
According to AFP, "pressure mounted on Washington Monday to come clean over the apparent US airstrike on an Afghan hospital that killed 22, an incident the Pentagon chief said was "confused and complicated" but which medical charity MSF branded a war crime."
MSF general director Christopher Stokes, however, had no intention of waiting:
"Under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed, MSF demands that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body."
Stokes also hit out at claims by Afghan officials that insurgents were using the hospital as a position to target Afghan forces and civilians.
"These statements imply that Afghan and US forces working together decided to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital with more than 180 staff and patients inside because they claim that members of the Taliban were present," he said.
"This amounts to an admission of a war crime. This utterly contradicts the initial attempts of the US government to minimise the attack as 'collateral damage'."
Others joined in: UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has also called for a full and transparent probe, noting: "An air strike on a hospital may amount to a war crime."
To be sure, the US which has done everything in its power in the past week to divert attention to Russian bombardment in Syria as attacks on Syrian "civilians" and "moderate rebels", had a canned response: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter expressed sadness over the "tragic loss of life" but warned that the investigation will not be swift.
"The situation there is confused and complicated so it may take some time to get the facts, but we will get the facts, but we will be full and transparent about sharing them," he told reporters on a flight to Madrid at the start of a European tour.
Then, moments ago after the US government did in fact admit, again, it was at fault, the DwB once again lashes out at the US government with the following statement:
"Today the US government has admitted that it was their airstrike that hit our hospital in Kunduz and killed 22 patients and MSF staff. Their description of the attack keeps changing—from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government. The reality is the US dropped those bombs. The US hit a huge hospital full of wounded patients and MSF staff. The US military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition. There can be no justification for this horrible attack. With such constant discrepancies in the US and Afghan accounts of what happened, the need for a full transparent independent investigation is ever more critical."
So what is the US response? Why desperately attempt to pivot once again to Russian "war crimes"
- NATO URGES RUSSIA TO STOP HARMING CIVILIANS, SYRIAN OPPOSITION
And the biggest US strategic asset in the region, of course: ISIS.
More importantly, we fail to find any historical precedent for a Nobel Peace Prize winner having been accused of engaging in war crimes just several short years later.
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Aww, ya had a perfect chance to yank Be Optimistic's chain!
At a time when Western Media was hell bent on claiming mass civilian deaths due to Russian air strikes, this US bombing of a hospital could not have come at a worse time! Nobody yet has any verifiable evidence of significant civilian losses in Russian air strikes on ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Yet we do now how Proof of a mass killing done by a US A10 ground support Air Craft, who lingered over the target for ten minutes making bombing runs and Cannon straffing runs. Obviously the Hospital Phone calls to US force command did little, as the plane repeated the attacks over and over.
When facts collide with lies, the US media always looks like a bunch of lying cunts!
I heard it was an AC130 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cfCZ3y4M0E
Canon as well as gatling guns.
I heard another report that said helicopter gunships.
My earlier posts stand that we do not know and likely the people in the hosptial do not know. I would also suggest that since the entire town/city was an active combat zone that at different times they could have seen all of them. I will wait for a direct on the ground forensic investigation. All they or we know is that there were explosions, one or more.
I will also reject the idea that we purposely bombed a hospital with Western physicians. There is not even a decent conspiracy theory that comes up with any good reason for that. Only the most convoltuted lunacy comes up with anything.
rot in hell Berry
Can they hang Obama?
Oh......So you have to blow up doctors for it to be a war crime.
Doctor's without Borders? How big is their army? What I thought.
are they full of Mexicans too?
So the Nobel Prize in Economics a couple years ago went to the guys who designed trading models for Long Term Capital hedge fund (and others) -- that nearly brought down the global financial system.
And more recently, the Nobel Peace prize went to the banana republic asswipe currently in the White House (the previous asswipe was stupid, but not a socialist, therefor he was ineligible) -- and when Obama isn't murdering people without trial using drones, he is bombing hospitals filled with French doctors and people who could have been terrorists based on satellite images but turned out to be innocent civilians caught between Obama and Osama.
Maybe the Nobel prizes aren't all the media makes them out to be...
I SERIOUSLY DOUBT that US forces bombed the hospital as a "careless" move, or because they believe that "collateral damage" is accepable.
It was either a mistake ... OR someone on the ground fed wrong information to the US. Don't forget that the Taliban will try to capitalize on media reports. If they can cause mistakes in US targeting, so that civilian casualties occur, they will try to do this.
Nobody knows the complete story yet. Don't jump to conclusions.
Duplicate.
I have all the information I need to come to a conclusion. What is presented from now on is only spin control.
The doctors without borders were against obamacare. So he droned them.
Well, this is easy.
Now that OFTS are on the UN Human Rights Council, they will just determine that the clinic made some sort of furtive gestures or just wait until public attention has moved on then the US and OFTS will just vote to block any further inquiries.
UN human rights fail: Saudi Arabia to ‘investigate themselves’ over Yemen war crimes:
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/317530-un-human-rights-saudi/
Saudis block UN inquiry into war crimes in Yemen:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4574574.ece
Do you have a more difficult question for me to look into?
*OFTS = Our Friends the Saudis
Once again, the US government shows that it does not represent the American people. You would be hard pressed to find an American that would bomb a hospital. But the US government seemingly has no problem with that and many more atrocities.
My take is a drone strike. There's some indicators for and against that though...
For: Drone targeteers' rules of engagement are much more lax than a USAF sortie. Clearance of targets for a USAF sortie are vetted pretty rigorously unless they're going after a "High Value Target." So this could have been a strike package redirect if they were fed info that so-and-so Taliban leadership was in that building. However, the coords of the hospital were known to the military for 4 years... they just don't bomb shit like that on the fly, but drone operators do.
Against: The attack was sustained and in multiple waves. Drones don't carry a lot of armament.
Some sources are reporting an AC-130 strike. I really hope that isn't the case. 130s have optics capable of seeing what they're shooting. I would be surprised if MSF was operating a facility and didn't have a huge red cross/crescent painted on the roof.
Russia should now sponsor a UN resolution to set up an investigating tribunal to prosecute those guilty of this war crime. After all there are witnesses and plenty of evidence.
Ooops, my bad, forgot that can only be allowed when it suits the agenda of the USSA ...
So a Nobel Peace prize winning banana republic dictator ignores the Constitution repeatedly, orders murders by drone strike without even the pretense of a trial, fails to close Guantanamo, fails to leave Iraq (the unnecessary war), fails to finish the war in Afghanistan -- and now orders a hospital full of French doctors and Afghan civilians to be bombed.
Next, the well educated doctors realize they are under attack. They could try to signal the pilots overhead (a long shot, but worth trying). Better yet, they could use their sat phones to call military commanders in Afghanistan -- you know, someone who could actually call off the bombers.
NO!... these French doctors decide to call politicians back in Europe (who are going to do what exactly?) Other doctors decide to call Washington DC (who don't even listen to US citizens about problems in the US). Who calls a bunch of politicians in time zones 10+ hours away, instead of calling local military commanders?
Based on Obama's promises to US voters, isn't the military supposed to be out of Afghanistan and out of Iraq already? Like long gone? Read my lips: it depends on what your definition of "is" is.
And to the Afghan people: if you like your current health plan, you can keep it AND the bomb that landed on it. We'll force you to buy overpriced insurance later.
The US government got hoodwinked by its "ally" the Afghan government. Afghan commanders don't like that MSF (it's French) treats both sides' casualties so they called in a strike on the hospital. Hospital closed, mission accomplished.
Many of the comments here are OFF-BASE.
The air strike on the hospital was called in by AFGHAN POLICE operating in Kunduz. They called the strike themselves.
There are Afghan authoritities saying that there WERE Taliban inside the hospital compound. That belief may be wrong. But the local Afghans beleived it.
There was DEFINITELY house-to-house fighting taking place in the vicinity of the hospital. The Taliban were actively fighting in that neighborhood.
Therefore, when MSF says that there were only patients and doctors in the hospital - they could be completely correct. But this statement completely ignores the fighting that was going on in the neighborhood around the hospital. The MSF is not a military oranization, and they do not conduct intelligence on neighborhoods.
The strike happened at 2:15 am.
It was called in by Afghan ground forces.
Yes, the outcome was a tragedy. But it is NOT clear what really happened, and who was responsible. There are NOT ENOUGH facts.
US forces do not target hospitals. it was clearly a mistake.
Nope, they just target baby milk factories.
I can stand a lot , but when they start bombing titties,they've gone too far
...and weddings don't forget those, and vans full of civies that stop to render aid to the people in the other van that they just shot up and herds of goats and allied military posts, funerals (only makes sense right?), empty buildings with cardboard cutouts in the windows, street markets, vehicle convoys where they really weren't quite sure whether there was, in fact any actual terrorists in the cars and US citizens who post videos on you tube that express a pro al-CIAda position (kind of counterproductive isn't it?).
but that's Washington's bag these days, after all in their minds what good is it to have all these smart bombs if your not dropping them on somebody somewhere in the world?
So the Afghan POLICE phoned the local military command and ordered a bomb strike on a neighborhood.
The Taliban were fighting in said neighborhood, but not in the building later identified by the POLICE as a hospital.
The doctors in said hospital decided to phone some politicians 12 time zones away to call off the attack, rather than the local POLICE or the local military command.
The politicians 12 time zones away were busy playing golf and trying not to notice giant piles of unpayable debts blocking all the golf tees.
Some pilots flying 500+ mph overhead are going to take the fall for this fubar.
Seems like the facts are clear enough to reach a conclusion...
As DWB said, the US remains responsible for where it drops its bombs. Incidentally the DWB had previously lodged the coordinates of the hospital with the US military in Afghanistan, so eith military failed to include that in their systems or didn't allow that to stop them when bombing.
They probably did rely on the locals' request for air support, and those locals do not have the same qualms as the US about bombing civilian targets. Which is where you get to when you pull out your own ground troops and de facto give locals control of the actions of your air force.
The outcome has followed from decisions of the Obama administration. They own the results.
#PrimalScream "US forces do not target hospitals. it was clearly a mistake."
Did you forget the /sarc tag? If not, then all of the assertions made in your post require either that
a)you were there and witnessed everything that you assert
b) you have other evidence (not presented here) to back your assertions.
Which one is it?
If not sarcasm and if conditions a) and b) don't apply then your post reads like wishful thinking of the type "the USA can do no worng, it's just a terrible random tragedy with no one to blame".
Seriously! Do you think about what you write before you click "save"? Ahem.
What you imply, if not outright say, is that it is perfectly A-OKAY to bomb a freaking hospital full of patients and doctors... if maybe there might be a bad guy shooting at or near the hospital?
Seriously?
So the solution to a "bad guy" shooting at the hospital (and thereby possibly endangering patients and doctors) is... to destroy the hospital and kill the patients and doctors?
Seriously?
You don't see a problem with the logic of your statements?
Good grief!
-----
As a rather sick and sarcastic joke, one that perhaps George Carlin might make if alive, now any bad guy "terrorist" can simply call up officials and say "there be a terrorist in or near the following 12 hospitals"... after which the 12 hospitals full of patients and doctors are vaporized by bombs dropped from USSA aircraft.
What an easy way for "terrorists" to win! Just claim they are near hospitals... USSA military bases, USSA ammo dumps and other important USSA assets... and the USSA itself will destroy the USSA assets.
Could it really be that bad?
Even I can't believe that.
And I'm fairly cynical.
PS: The USSA military knows where hospitals are. Those coordinates are certainly stored in their computers to assure they are not bombed. Unless, of course, the USSA military is 1000 times more incompetent than even I imagine.
Maybe the brownies were having a wedding?
Pretty sure the downvotes are because you believe that the US forces do not target hospitals, an assertion with nothing to back it up as Truth or Falsehood. Given the amount of lies constantly being spewed by the US Govt., you shouldn't be so quick with the benefit of a doubt(s) in this instance.
Consider the timing Droogies.
Russia (at the request of a sovereign Nation) attacks one or more CIA terror groups slamming the weak U.S. foregign policy of toppling Assad and their bullshit 'War on Terror' meme.
The embarrassed White House monkettes then accuse Russia of killing civilians in Syria (before the planes took off BTW). Then, that story falls off of the radar.
Immediately after, the U.S. bombs a hospital in Afghanistan, killing innocent medical professionals, patients and (who ever the CIA can fabricate) to justify the action.
Let's say for conversation, the U.S. military was fed bogus advice and they fucked up. Which is a common 50/50 chance.
What next? Rage on ZH with clever, NSA recorded brilliance and inanity?
We are being programmed not to believe anything from any media source.
So they must have pulled lots of bodies of dead Taliban fighters from the rubble of the destroyed hospital where they were hiding.
NOT
Prepare for casualties with nine zeros. The FDIC and other insurance companies aren't going to survive what's coming.
BTW, MSF = Médecins Sans Frontières = Doctors Without Borders. I shouldn't have had to look that up, Zerohedge.
I suspect this event was probably a pilot targeting error, weapon guidance malfunction, or, worst case, enemy intrusion into comm channels resulting in an intentionally misdirected strike if that's even possible with the comm tech used, I have no idea.
Nothing will happen because democrat.
New footage reveals US bombs had "OBAMACARE" scribbled on them.
Usually those casualties are named terrorists by the oval office, it worked more then a hundred times previous 2 this hit and run.
Borders without doctors
Here's MSF own statements.
http://www.msf.org/topics/kunduz-hospital-airstrike
MSF already gives to US, its GPS location in khunduz. And yet that idiot US still targettimg them.
A couple days ago, i saw stupid comments about how great US precision strikes are.
Well.. my ass!! To coward to hits taleban and instead only dares to bombs hospital eh??
What's really sad is that more Americans were apalled when The Joker did this.
I don't know if the bombing of the hospital was deliberate or not. The really depressing thing is that the US authorities just don't care. To them, the doctors - never mind the patients! - are simply cockroaches, not worth a moment's hesitation. God, that's a sad judgment!
This is simply a case of
WE HAD TO DESTROY THE HOSPITAL IN ORDER TO SAVE IT
(It's worked for us in the past)
I wonder who was in the hospital that had to be killed? Things don't happen by accident. Maybe that person had an affiliation with Hillary Cunt Clinton?
i told FDR to bomb the concentration camps because there were nazis working there...so he did. the usa killed 6 million jews. to cover up they invented the 'gas chambers'...and it f'ing worked...!
What's really sad, is that yer comment is almost believeable!
war is a crime
What the fuck are we doing there?
WartFacedCockSuckerObama should be given a second Nobel Peace prize for this noble act.
Can Nobel prizes be rescinded?
IF you won the prize for nothing then you cannot lose it for anything, right?