The Hill: Bombed Afghan hospital had 65 Taliban patients
About 65 Taliban fighters were being treated at the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, hospital in Afghanistan bombed by the United States, according to an internal review released Thursday by the charitable group.
Taliban members accounted for about half of the hospital's 130 patients on the Wednesday before the deadly bombing, which killed at least 30 people. Two Taliban members appeared to have had higher rank, the report said.
The report also revealed that the next day, the hospital received an inquiry from a "US Government official in Washington, D.C." asking if the hospital or any other of the organization's locations had a large number of Taliban "holed up" and asked about the safety of the staff.
WNU Editor: Médecins Sans Frontières is admitting that they were treating scores of wounded Afghan Taliban fighters during the bombing, but they are stressing the point that these patients were unarmed .... Probe Finds No Armed Men in Afghan Clinic Bombed by US (New York Times/AP). 65 Taliban fighters ?!?!?!?! But no Afghan military/police personnel being treated .... even though many were also killed and wounded during the battle for Kunduz. And no weapons !?!?!?! When it comes to wars and conflicts I learned a long time ago to always be sceptical .... and yes .... this Doctors Without Borders report is raising more questions than answers.
Update: A new report is also revealing two other installations in Kunduz were hit by U.S. forces during the same time that the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital was being bombed .... U.S. airstrikes in Kunduz destroyed more than a hospital (Washington Post).
18 comments:
So again the world sees that there are no good guys in this fight, except the doctors and staff etc. Had the Taliban destroyed this hospital the world would be all over it like a dirty shirt.
Thank goodness for the internet which allows information to get out to anyone who wants to see it.
As for Snowden, Wikileaks and the internet, rather than helping the "enemy" his releases of information did far more damage to the US' ability to be two faced albeit a fact already known to millions but now confirmed thanks to Snowden.
Bob, someone emailed me that when the Taliban took over the hospital they murdered two wounded Afghan police officers who were there. I do not know if that claim is true, but it is interesting that the Doctor's Without Borders report makes no mention on who were the other patients that they were treating at the time, nor any mention that there are some photos circulating in social media of armed Taliban fighters in the hospital days before the bombing.
That makes the hospital a legitimate target, time for these drs to figure out what side theyre on maybe over dose non friendlies
fazman,
Treating wounded "enemies" is a requirement of the Geneva Conventions, and the whole reason MSF manages to exist in these war torn areas, where there are no other medical facilities, is because they treat everybody.
If there were armed Taliban in the Hospital, it does make the Hospital a "legitimate" target, however, under the Geneva Conventions, the Hospital must be first notified that the presence of armed combatants has made them a legitimate target, that they must remove the armed combatants, and be given sufficient time to comply,
Before they can be attacked.
In other words, the attack on the MSF facility is still a war crime.
Jay .... the Pentagon have delayed their report on this incident. I suspect that the reason why are the same reasons that you have outlined. Their rules were not followed, and it was probably a very senior officer who gave the A-OK to bomb it.
WNU Editor,
I suspect that the reason the Pentagon has gone dark on their "investigation" and "report", is despite all the rumour and innuendo being floated to slander MSF,
Is that the Pentagon has not yet figured out the right mix of creative omissions and false narrative to sell this a "not a war crime".
I expect the same "torture" lawyers have been creatively parsing until late in the wee hours, but have no yet figured out a wa to say that the Geneva Conventions really doesn't say what it says.
Thats all great problem is the taliban havent signed the geneva convention.
This is what always loses wars for the west and not our adversaries because our campaigns are run by lawyers not soldiers.
No, fazman,
We win all the battles yet lose the wars, because out of hubris, ignorance, racism, greed and false superiority, we go out of our way to make the majority of the people in the countries we invade hate our guts.
Simple question for you, why, in Kunduz, Afghanistan's third largest city, is the only Hospital a charity hospital run by a NGO?
$1Trlllion in U.S. taxpayers money, $768 billion from other countries, so far, an annual ongoing cost of over $190 billion,
And nobody thought to build the Afghans any hospitals?
In an Afghan election, which child raping, genocidal War Criminal Bandit would you vote for to represent your District?
War crime or no they won't be held accountable anyway. Prosecution is for "those people". It's all about fiat.
You are right about not winning the hearts and minds.
What l am saying is if you pkay by a rule book that your oppo ent hasnt even read then you will lose.
No , l said lose wars not battles if you go to war you make that decision and you go to war instead of worrying g about the political repercussions and the jags.
Do you think they 2ouldnt have slit 5he throats of 65 marines in there hospital beds if they had the opportunity. .
Im saying fight a dirty war in a dirty way .
Operation Phoenix was just one component of fighting a dirty war the dirty way. Still, one every battle, lost the war, badly.
The French re-invented Dirty War in Algeria, and completely and utterly lost.
At the First Loya Jurga, the U.S. put the genocidal, child raping War Criminal Bandits in charge and lost in that one moment all the support they had had from the Tribal Elders, Moderates and Political reformers. The genocidal, child raping War Criminal Bandits are still in charge.
Then they sent SOF teams out to hunt down, kill and torture the Talibs who had taken the amnesty, who of course, responded by digging up their weapons and went back to war.
So, as an Afghan Army Conscript, which one of the ass raping, child molesting, genocidal War Criminal Bandits do you want to fight for,.....
Or would you instead, pick the Taliban, who at least have a code?
I asked my father once .... why did he decide to join the Soviet army instead of joining the Germans when they invaded in 1941 .... especially since he knew first hand the purges/mass murder/government enforced famine/etc. under Stalin. His answer is most telling .... and will explain why U.S. war policy has failed. As bad as Stalin was, he was not an outsider. The Germans were the invaders, and regardless of how bad Stalin was, for most people the decision was simple .... ban together to support the tyrant to wage war against the invader. Flash forward to today. As bad as the Taliban are .... and they are bad .... they are Afghans, and it is the U.S. who is the invader. And like the Germans in Russia during World War II .... the U.S. and its allies have squandered and ruined their stay in Afghanistan .... and that incidences like the Doctor's Without Borders hospital bombing .... in the eyes of many Afghans it is the U.S. who is the invader and mass murderer, and not the Taliban. Sighhh .... as much as it pains me to say it, for us in the West we have pass the tipping point .... it is time to leave Afghanistan or they will chase us out.
Dirty warefare does not entale immoral warefare or the use of oroxies. If you wage war you wage war if not pack up and leave. Which if they need to speak to a jag before they pull a trigger or push a button yeah maybe they should.
fazman,
You can't win hearts and minds while ripping out and eating hearts and minds.
The U.S./NATO has won every battle in Afghanistan, and yet, lost the War a long time ago.
That's because the Peace, Democracy, Justice spiel is just utter BS.
Always has been.
Sure, you can rip up the GC, go full on Mad Max, but in the end the only peace you achieve is genocide, and even the Nazi's with their full on mechanized Extermination Camps couldn't kill enough people fast enough.
And you still havn't responded to my question,
If you were an Afghan, which ass raping, child molesting, genocidal War Criminal Bandit would you vote for, or fight for?
C'mon, dip your finger in the purple ink and make a horrible choice,
Or maybe, if you were an Afghan, you would chose the Talib, as they at least have a "code" and some semblance of "honour", as twisted as it is.
WNU,
" it is time to leave Afghanistan or they will chase us out."
Should have left 3 months after the fall of the Taliban, but that's hindsight.
WNU,
This affair just gets smellier and smellier for all concerned. You know how I feel about NGO's in general, but not necessarily about Whores Without Boarders!
James .... many of the special ops guys who were involved in the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban have been saying the same thing. After installing Karzai we should have left.
Maybe not interfering in the eighties would have been the best bet.
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