Sunday 4 October 2015

A heinous war crime in Afghanistan

Interesting that as I checked, while NATO commits a war crime in Afghanistan the western media is silent about Russia's airstrikes on ISIS. The Empire's in trouble.

Patients were burning in their beds’: Witnesses recall horrific Kunduz hospital airstrike


RT,
3 October, 2015

Afghan child receiving treatment at a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in the northern city of Kunduz © Shah Marai
Afghan child receiving treatment at a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in the northern city of Kunduz © Shah Marai / AFP

Seeing their colleagues and patients die was a horrifying shock, according to survivors of the deadly air raid on a hospital in Afghanistan. The tragedy, medical staff said, simply cannot be dismissed as “collateral damage” from a botched airstrike.
On bombing of @MSF hospital in Kunduz: "We cannot accept that this horrific loss of life will simply be dismissed as ‘collateral damage.’”
MSF International (@MSF) October 3, 2015

Recalling the tense minutes of continuous airstrikes which hit the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, NGO staff said that the destruction of the hospital is nothing short of a “grave violation of international humanitarian law.”


The aerial bombing raids took place between 2:08am and 3:15am local time and were carried out at approximately 15 minute intervals, with the main hospital building being “repeatedly hit very precisely” during each raid, MSF said. The tragedy happened despite the fact that MSF had provided the US-led command with the GPS coordinates of the hospital to make sure that the hospital would not be hit.
#MSF staff saving lives after being bombed in Kunduz. Don't cal it collateral damagehttp://t.co/XUxHyvtI5cpic.twitter.com/8U2yguxegv
Sergio Cecchini (@SergioCecchini) October 3, 2015

A survivor of the horrific bombardment, MSF nurse Lajos Zoltan Jecs, who had been inside the facility during the attack, described the airstrikes as “absolutely terrifying.”

At first there was confusion and dust settling” he said, as cited by the MSF website. “As we were trying to work out what was happening, there was more bombing.”

The bombs hit and then we heard the plane circle round,” recalled Heman Nagarathnam, MSF’s head of programs in northern Afghanistan. “There was a pause, and then more bombs hit. This happened again and again.”



Zoltan remembers seeing one of the emergency room nurses sustain massive trauma to his arm.

He was covered in blood, with wounds all over his body. At that point my brain just couldn't understand what was happening. For a second I was just stood still, shocked,” Zoltan said.

When the bombing stopped, some of the survivors left their shelters looking for those who could possibly have remained alive. Others, in a panic, tried to escape to safety, as the main hospital building was engulfed in flames.

We tried to take a look into one of the burning buildings. I cannot describe what was inside. There are no words for how terrible it was,” Zoltan said.

In the intensive care unit six patients were burning in their beds,” he dded.

UPDATED: US continued bombing Afghan hospital despite @MSF pleashttp://t.co/LyX2491BVHpic.twitter.com/FWClkdi7PQ
teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) October 3, 2015

Those people that could, had moved quickly to the building’s two bunkers to seek safety. But patients who were unable to escape burned to death as they lay in their beds,” Nagarathnam remember.

One patient was left in the operating room on the table “dead, in the middle of the destruction,” the nurse recalled.


Urgent surgery was carried out on one of the doctors on the office table but he did not survive. Zoltan remembers that there were “too many that we couldn’t help.”
#MSF zonal hospital in #Kunduz bombed by US planes, Dozens of medics, patients died...!pic.twitter.com/bKPuqnINpL
Inayat ullah kakar (@Kalamnigar) October 3, 2015

Eltaf Najafizada, a freelance journalist for RT, found out about the death of his friend Aminullah Salarzai on social media. He had worked at the hospital as a doctor.

It’s a really sad moment concerning the death of my friend. He was in his 20’s and was engaged. He worked as a physician at the Doctors Without Borders hospital. He was loved by all those around him. I really miss him.”
Dr. Aminullah Salarzai, killed last night in #Kunduz Doctors Without Borders's hospital.#Afghanistanpic.twitter.com/fDRLDFQTm9
Bashir Ahmad Gwakh (@bashirgwakh) October 3, 2015

The charity has confirmed 19 deaths, 12 of whom were staff. Four were adult patients, along with three children. A further 37 were left wounded. At the time of the bombing, 105 patients, and more than 80 MSF international and national staff were in the hospital.



From Glenn Greenwald




Yesterday afternoon, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power marched to Twitter to proclaim: “we call on Russia to immediately cease attacks on Syrian oppo[sition and] civilians.” Along with that decree, she posted a statement from the U.S. and several of its closest authoritarian allies – including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UK – warning Russia that civilian casualties “will only fuel more extremism and radicalization.”

Early this morning, in the Afghan city of Kunduz, the U.S. dropped bombs on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (MĆ©decins Sans FrontiĆØres (MSF)). The airstrike killed at least 9 of the hospital’s medical staff, and seriously injured dozens of patients. “Among the dead was the Afghan head of the hospital, Abdul Sattar,” reported The New York Times. 

Jason Cone, MSF’s Executive Director, said the medical charity “condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrific bombing of its hospital in Kunduz full of staff and patients.” He added that “all parties [to the] conflict, including in Kabul & Washington, were clearly informed of precise GPS Coordinates of MSF facilities in Kunduz,” and that the “precise location of MSF Kunduz hospital [was] communicated to all parties on multiple occasions over past months, including on 9/29.” Worst of all, from MSF itself:
Bombing continued for >30 minutes after American & Afghan military officials in Kabul & Washington first informed of proximity to hospital.
MSF International (@MSF) October 3, 2015


For its part, the U.S. military in Afghanistan issued a statement acknowledging that it carried out airstrikes, claimed they were conducted “against individuals threatening the force,” and conceded that “the strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.” But the NYT reported: “From early on, the Taliban had respected the hospital’s request not to bring weapons inside, according to staff members, and the hospital had been a refuge in the shattered city of Kunduz. It was a place where the wounded from all sides were treated.”

The medical organization noted that “our hospital in Kunduz was the only one of its kind in NorthEastern Afghanistan.” It referenced a now-poignant tweet it posted earlier in the week:
Since early Monday morning, our medical teams in Kunduz,#Afghanistan have treated 252 wounded, including 53 childrenpic.twitter.com/hjmhYMSdpS
MSF Canada (@MSF_canada) September 30, 2015

Now, however, the Twitter accounts of various MSF branches are filled with horrific photographs of their staff traumatized and their hospital burning as a result of U.S. bombs:
Photos of aftermath of the bombing that left 3 staff dead & many ppl wounded. #Afghanistan http://t.co/pjecwxuPSspic.twitter.com/OnSZXwc2x9
MSF UK Press Office (@MSF_Press) October 3, 2015

MSF’s full, frequently updated, hard-to-read account of all of this is here.

This strike on a hospital in Afghanistan comes days after the Saudi-led coalition bombed a wedding in Yemen that killed more than 130 people. After days of silence from the U.S. Government – which has actively participated from the start in the heinous bombing of Yemen – Ambassador Power finally acknowledged the wedding massacre, but treated it like some natural disaster that has nothing to do with the U.S.: “Terrible news from Yemen of killing of innocent civilians & aid workers. Urgently need pol solution to crisis,” she tweeted.


Her accompanying statement claimed that “the United States has no role in the targeting decisions made by the Coalition in Yemen,” but yesterday, the Saudi Foreign Minister told CBS News that “We work with our allies including the United States on these targets.” There’s no dispute that the U.S. has lavished the Saudis with all sorts of weapons and intelligence as it carries out its civilian-massacring attacks on Yemen.

This last week has been a particularly gruesome illustration of continuous U.S. conduct under the War on Terror banner, including under the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president who celebrates himself for “ending two wars” (in the same two countries where the U.S. continues to drop bombs). The formula by now is clear: bombing whatever countries it wants, justifying it all by reflexively labeling their targets as “terrorists,” and then dishonestly denying or casually dismissing the civilians they slaughter as “collateral damage.” If one were to construct a list of all the countries in the world based on their credibility to condemn Russia for using this exact rhetorical template in Syria, the U.S. would literally be last on that list.


UPDATE: U.S. officials went to TIME Magazine yesterday to announce that Russia will be creating more terrorists than they kill as a result of misguided airstrikes in Syria. “We believe if you inadvertently kill innocent men, women and children, then there’s a backlash from that,” Lieut. General Bob Otto, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance said. “We might kill three and create 10 terrorists. It really goes back to the question of are we killing more than were making?”

It’s impossible to fathom what the U.S. media would be saying and doing if Russia did something like this in Syria. By contrast, the reaction to this airstrike by their own government will be muted and filled with apologia, ironically quite similar to the widely vilified caricature of Jeb Bush’s comments about the Oregon shooting spree: “stuff happens.”

UPDATE II: Al Jazeera reports that the hospital bombed by the U.S. “is the only medical facility in the region that can deal with major injuries.” Nonetheless, “officials of MSF … told Reuters that they ‘frantically phoned’ NATO and Washington DC, as bombs rained on the hospital for ‘nearly an hour.'”

UPDATE III: The latest casualty figures from MSF:
LATEST: 16 ppl killed – 9 MSF staff, 7 patients (3 children). 37 injured – 19 staff (5 critical) & 18 patients & caretakers. #Afghanistan
MSF UK (@MSF_uk) October 3, 2015

Speaking to the nation just three days ago about the Oregon shooting spree, Barack Obama said: “This is a political choice that we make, to allow this to happen every few months…” That applies to a lot more than that incident.

UPDATE IV: Several reports suggest that this hospital has been viewed with hostility because it treats all injured human beings, regardless of which side they’re on. “The hospital treated the wounded from all sides of the conflict, a policy that has long irked the Afghan security forces,” reports the NYT. Al Jazeera notes that “a caretaker at the hospital, who was severely injured in the air strike, told Al Jazeera that clinic’s medical staff did not favour any side the conflict. ‘We are here to help and treat civilians,’ Abdul Manar said.” That same caretaker added: “Several women and children are also killed in the strike. I could hear them screaming for help inside the hospital while it was set ablaze by the bombing. We are terrified and speechless.”

UPDATE V: The U.N. human rights chief has denounced the U.S. airstrike as “tragic, inexcusable, and possibly even criminal.”

This is not the first time this has happened. In 2004, U.S. airstrikes in Falluja, Iraq hit a hospital and “razed it to the ground.”


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