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US “Repeatedly and Precisely” Bombs Afghan Hospital

by Vaska

Three days ago, during the night of October 2-3, and although it had the precise co-ordinates for the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, US-led NATO forces repeatedly bombed the medical facility bitself, leaving at least 22 people dead—12 staff members and 10 patients, including three children—and wounding 37 more. Ben Norton analyzes the US media reporting on this for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR):

AFP, the first network to report the story, in the early hours of October 3, quoted NATO saying, “US forces conducted an air strike in Kunduz city…. The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.”
MSF promptly issued a statement (10/3/15), revealing that it had been “hit several times during sustained bombing and was very badly damaged.” In an update hours later, MSF said it “condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrific bombing of its hospital in Kunduz, which was full of staff and patients.”

The humanitarian organization also indicated multiple times—and in bold capital letters—that “all parties to the conflict, including in Kabul and Washington, were clearly informed of the precise location (GPS Coordinates) of the MSF facilities in Kunduz, including the hospital, guesthouse, office and an outreach stabilization unit.” MSF says the US “repeatedly and precisely” hit the hospital.
MSF Tweet about bombed hospital
Morever, the aid group explained that the “bombing in Kunduz continued for more than 30 minutes after American and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington were first informed by MSF that its hospital was struck.” That is to say, the US persisted in bombing a hospital that it explicitly knew before and during the attack was a hospital.

Norton points out that the New York Times rewrote and changed the title of its article on the hospital bombing seven times. You can read the details of his analysis of the US press here.

Let us just note that as the NYT, CNN, Fox News, Washington Post, AP, the Wall Street Journal and others busily produced articles either concealing the US role in this war crime or outright justifying the crime itself, the same media outlets were also throwing more dust into the public’s eyes by (falsely) “reporting” that the first Russian air strikes in Syria had killed a number of civilians. Curiously enough, reports of the latter came before the air strikes themselves—something the same media will, naturally, make sure their readers and viewers are not informed of. Call me cynical, but it seems clear to me that the immediate and vociferous US administration’s and Western media lies about the nature and results of the Russian air strikes in Syria were intended in part to distract our attention from US bombing of a charity-run hospital in Afghanistan.

Nor is this the first time NATO’s air forces, led by the US, have struck a medical facility: during the illegal bombing of Serbia, they had also managed to bomb a maternity hospital in downtown Belgrade. No investigation into that (and other war crimes committed by NATO in Serbia) was ever carried out, and no NATO military officer or politician was made to answer for it. Do not expect any American or NATO commander to be called to answer for this latest war crime in Afghanistan, either.


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mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 6, 2015 7:16 PM

Didn’t start watching Al Jazeera till about 2 years ago and the English Channel version did not seem too Russophobic, but stopped watching it when I noticed they started taking sides with the US against Russia in the Crimea matter. Thanks for the heads up – just left a sight called DEBKA which is a propagandist site for Israel and US – ugh! These sight really do disgust me, which is why I have you and Susanna Panevin in my mail and Politico of course. Keep up the brilliant work.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 6, 2015 4:07 PM

Reblogged this on wgrovedotnet and commented:

There are two sides to every coin: The US and their allies atrocities represent one side, then there are atrocities perpetrated by non US and their allies on the other. If one of them just happens to be Russia, then that is just a bonus for the US and it’s hypocritical allies.

Brad Benson
Brad Benson
Oct 6, 2015 1:38 AM

The allegedly liberal MSNBC and formerly free Al Jazeera are also reporting the story first as an unfortunate mistake, next as a result of being close to the fighting and finally because “Afghan Troops engaged in the area called in the strikes”.

I expect this sort of nonsense from MSNBC, but both Mike Viera and Ali Velshi made totally ridiculous comments about the Russian Intervention (Viera at the UN after Putin’s Speech and Velshi in a special report on the incident). For a while, it appeared as if al Jazeera would be the new voice of truth in the US Media. That lasted for about six months. It’s all about the business.

Schade!

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 6, 2015 4:10 PM
Reply to  Brad Benson

Once Al Jazeera was allowed to broadcast on mainstream the price they had to pay became obvious. They are now Russophobic and anti – Putin at every opportunity and promulgate outright lies whenever they get the chance. I think it is fair to lump them in with mainstream media trash.

Vaska
Vaska
Oct 6, 2015 6:08 PM
Reply to  mohandeer

Al Jazeera has done a lot of dirty sectarian stuff in its Arabic language programs on Syria right from the start, i.e. 2011 — the anti-Russian slant is part of that and is dictated by the Emir of Qatar and the rest of the ruling clique.