New details about the lead-up to the October 3 US airstrike against a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital near Kunduz, Afghanistan continue to emerge, and further add to the likelihood that the US attack overtly violated international law.
The new claims center around the mistaken assumption among the Green Berets stationed near the hospital that the functioning MSF site was actually under Taliban control. Previous reports have also indicated those troops were “new” to Afghanistan and that the US had initially ordered some surveillance of the site on suspicion that a Pakistani spy was within.
The reports suggested that the troops were fully aware the site was a functioning hospital at the time they called in the attack, which Pentagon officials have repeatedly made clear shouldn’t have been allowed under any circumstances, no matter what they suspected might’ve been going on inside.
Indeed, the troops had reportedly asked an MSF director in Kabul about the site, and an unnamed US official had asked MSF officials in the US, just days before the bombing, if their hospital in Kunduz “had a large group of Taliban fighters in it.”
Naturally, it didn’t, and there’s been no evidence that anyone other than a rising number of civilians were slain in the attack. But MSF made clear during that meeting that they believed it was vital to “respect medical structures,” which likely explains how particularly furious they were when the US ended up attacking it anyhow.
I don't understand why antiwar is still making an issue out of the bombing of the MSF hospital in Afghanistan. The US already apologized for it, and it looks like they really mean it. That, ladies and gentlemen – is the main difference between democracy and dictatorship. If this bombing was done by a dictator – like Saddam Husein – he would have never apologized for it. That makes all the difference to the victims and their families. It gives them the warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that their loved ones died of democracy by democracy and for democracy. I mean, their pain would have been almost unbearable if they have found out that their family members died by the hand of a dictator, but now they can have a closure by receiving an apology for something that calls for Nuremberg and the gallows, but then again there are always exceptions, and nobody deserves an exception like the exceptional ones, except maybe the chosen ones.
Simple. They are frantically trying to whitewash Putin, in this case, by "balckening" the US. It's the same tactic as the "neo-nazis" in Ukraine.
It makes me wonder if some Taliban misdirection has been at work here. What was the main purpose of the rather pointless Kunduz "conquest" by the Taliban anyway? My guess is that they play with the over-reliance on "intelligence" which ends up too easy being distorted by anyone slightly more clever than the average US intelligence analysis. Which is likely more than 80% of the world population by now…
This could well be true.
Which is why they just bombed another one in Yemen. Go away trolls
I see no regret for US actions and this is not first hospital or known medical facility attacked by bomb and shell in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and by drones in Pakistan and Yemen.
The truth of the vengence massacre at Faluja Iraq is filled with Marine snipers deliberately choosing Red Crescent (the equivelent mercy corp to Red Cross, the cross not Islamic). Who were stretcher bearers ambulance drivers and first aid responders made kills of 50 a day no more than as of higher cost poker chips in the betting pools.
Our smart bombs hit hospitals and known civilian shelters and it was done to “terrorize the populace”as they knew there was no safe haven as long as Saddam lived.
Our military poltical and their supporters are almost tottaly made up of what can only be described as the amoral/ immoral mindsets.
While amoral/immoral do have meanings as to “right and wrong” the amoral have no notion of difference and are as snakes fish and cold blooded reptiles; While the immoral do know “right from wrong” the do not care and willfully even gleefully will kill maim and abuse any and all life forms.
When a nation has such an over preponderance of such minds and then to be led by intelligence of sociopaths who know how to maipulate for own needs that nation is more than just a rogue nTion, it is homicidal and willing to destroy the whole world unless it is let free to wreck havoc when and where it wants.
The rest of world can only try and appease be ause that Moral/immoral mindset is now growing in each US allied nations political military educational and financial leadership positions.
The bombing and killing along with use of Iraqi people as R&R lab rats for developement of military weaponry and co trol over the civilians through high tecb tools.
Why did MSF wait three weeks before telling us this? And they're still being cagey: "large number" of Taliban "fighters" "in" the hospital. They don't deny that there might have been a number that they don't regard as "large", or that they might have been perosns that MSF don't regard as "fighters" or that they were in some part of the huge building other than the hospital. Equally, we still haven't been told what were the huge flags they claimed to have been flying on the roof. MSF's initial reaction was completely based on the hospital being clearly marked, with no mention of meetings with US officials. All this weaving and dodging sounds a bit too much like the "Fifth Amendment" to me. MSF are certainly acting as if they were guilty of something.