By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on Sunday called the U.S. military’s Saturday airstrike on its charity hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan a war crime and announced it was withdrawing all staff from the beleaguered area.
MSF said 22 people, including medical workers and patients, were killed in the bombing, which occurred around 2:10 am local time and reportedly lasted for at least half an hour.
“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,” said MSF general director Christopher Stokes in a statement on Sunday.
The U.S. military, which initially described the hit as “collateral damage,” is now claiming that Taliban fighters had been hiding in the medical center.
Stokes rejected those charges, stating unequivocally, “Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the MSF hospital compound prior to the US airstrike on Saturday morning. The hospital was full of MSF staff, patients and their caretakers. It is 12 MSF staff members and ten patients, including three children, who were killed in the attack.”
“We reiterate that the main hospital building, where medical personnel were caring for patients, was repeatedly and very precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched,” Stokes said. “We condemn this attack, which constitutes a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law.”
The charity said all its most critical patients had been referred to other medical centers in the region, and that no MSF staff remained at the hospital in Kunduz, although some had volunteered to work at nearby clinics.
President Barack Obama on Saturday said the U.S. would conduct an investigation into the bombing, but would wait until the Department of Defense completed its own probe—a response which MSF rejected as weak.
“Relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient,” Stokes said Sunday.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a medical and science advocacy organization, also referred to the targeting of a hospital as a war crime and similarly called for an independent investigation into the bombing.
“This is truly horrific and inexcusable,” said PHR director of international policy and partnerships Susannah Sirkin. “Targeting a hospital is a war crime and warring parties are obligated to take every measure possible to avoid attacking health facilities.”
MSF said Saturday that it had given its coordinates to both sides involved in the fighting, including Washington and Kabul.
“Medical workers now have targets on their backs as they pursue their life-saving work,” said Sirkin. “Extra steps must be taken to avoid harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure even if there is a legitimate target in the vicinity.”
Meanwhile, the crisis in the northern city continued to escalate. Saad Mukhar, the Kunduz provincial public health director, said Kunduz faced “a serious, drastic shortage of medicine.”
“I’m afraid that if this situation continues, we will not be able to help our patients,” Mukhar said.
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As parents of an aid worker who was serving in Afghanistan the day the Twin Towers fell, returning to his work there on several more occasions, we add our voices to the demand for a full investigation. “Collateral damage” is typical bureaucratic language used as an excuse to look no further into the cause of a tragedy that might have been prevented.
Karen and Richard Riehl
What tears at my gut is that we’re seeing the approved propaganda response engaged in the aftermath of, yes, a war crime. Blame it on the victims. Yesterday, Google News chose as its lead story the Washington Post quoting an unnamed Afghan official saying the Taliban was using the MSF hospital as its base. So, now, Medicins Sans Frontiere is the enemy of an anonymous somebody in Afghanistan and WashPo runs with the story.
This is a heartless, craven response by our own institutions to a bloody tragedy. Like the massacres in our churches and schools the horror at all this armed madness is being beaten out of us by repetition of falsehood because… ? Our leaders talk about responsibility but hide their asses behind chintzy, legalist curtains when the gun nuts go further nuts.
The big question is, who would be charged if actual war crimes charges are filed? The top brass that ordered it? The pilots who carried it out? Both?
I suspect plenty of people could be charged. The command had to come from the American side, and someone had to order it. There’s a starting point in the search for culpability.
U.S. Army General John Campbell is being quoted in Reuters today saying the Afghans asked for the strike, so it’s pretty clear by now that the U.S. is trying to figure out how to evade the responsibility. But if that’s a fact it shouldn’t save any brass military asses because so far no one has established that any combatants were killed in the strikes. If it’s not a fact, Gen. John Campbell might be charged for perjury.
On down the line of command, if any personnel ignored requests for confirmation of the presence of enemy, they could be charged.
The MSF doctors are saying that they periodically reminded Taliban and U.S. forces of the hospital’s coordinates to prevent bombings, and that after they called and made the U.S. aware they were being bombed the attack continued for another 30 minutes to an hour, depending on which account is read. So, “we didn’t know we were bombing a hospital” won’t work any better than “The Afghans made us do it” will as an argument.
If people are comforted by the Washington Post and Reuters stories that attempt to soften the horror of our “mistake” those people should keep in mind that no American Army General should get away with making the statement Campbell did in today’s Reuter’s account that “several civilians were accidentally struck.” To date, 22 people in that hospital died in the aerial attack.
Our Congress can hold seven separate investigations into Benghazi lasting longer than Watergate did, but we, now, are hearing that the military can handle this investigation. Like we hear so often, “There’s nothing here, folks. Move on.”
The key to this whole thing is that the Republican shitasses in Congress will investigate Benghazi ad nauseum because Hillary was involved in it. Hillary doesn’t have her fingerprints on this; otherwise they would be investigating it too.
As things go, more likely than not it will only be a slap on the wrist. Then again the higher ups will do everything they can to throw the people junior to them under the bus.