Pentagon Burying Kunduz Hospital Attack Report On Thanksgiving Eve

[charrob]

--they wait till the eve of a holiday weekend when people are busy travelling- can't get much lower than that...



Pentagon Burying Kunduz Hospital Attack Report On Thanksgiving Eve
(http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/24/pentagon-burying-kunduz-hospital-attack-report-on-thanksgiving-eve/)

Pentagon officials plan Wednesday to release the official report on the Oct. 3 U.S. military attack on a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that killed 30 patients and medical personnel, according to a Department of Defense advisory.

Doctors Without Borders, which ran the hospital, says the U.S. Air Force attack on the medical compound constitutes a “war crime.”

It’s not uncommon for U.S. agencies to bury unfavorable news on the eve of national holidays.

The Pentagon said Tuesday U.S. Army Gen. John F. Campbell, commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, will brief reporters from Afghanistan via satellite Wednesday morning.

“I would say they are trying to mitigate the impact of what will be perceived as embarrassing to the military,” retired Col. James Williamson told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“It will be something the Pentagon wants to put behind them as quickly as possible,” he said.

[charrob]

US Troops Suspended Over Attacking Afghan Hospital (http://news.antiwar.com/2015/11/25/us-troops-suspended-over-attacking-afghan-hospital/)



Chalking up last month’s US attack on a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan to “human error,” Gen. Joseph Campbell today announced the multiple troops have been suspended from duty over the attack, and that they may face court-martial for attacking a hospital on the no-strike list.

Campbell insisted the military courts are “independent of decision-makers” and that they will continue to study what went wrong. He declined to say if the court-martials would involve disciplinary or criminal charges for the attacking troops.

The investigation claimed that the warplane that attacked the hospital was given the coordinates of a site suspected of being a “Taliban base,” but that it turned out to be an empty field. The crew on the plane then decided to just attack the next closest thing, which was the hospital.

They attacked the hospital even though no ground troops were within visual range of it and there were no signs of a fire-fight, despite the initial target coming from Afghan troops claiming they were “being attacked.” This suggests that the crew on the plane almost certainly will be among those facing court-martial.

MSF has demanded an independent investigation of the attack, saying it amounts to a war crime. President Obama has opposed the idea, and the military badly damaged the hospital site during its “investigation,” likely precluding any more inquiries.

[charrob]

MSF Not Buying Pentagon Probe into Hospital Attack:

What about the hour-long attempts to stop the bombing? Why is this damning report being released the day before Thanksgiving? And what does this say about the competency of the U.S. military?

Doctors Without Borders is challenging the Pentagon over the findings of internal probes into the bombing of a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz on October 3, saying the military's conclusions offer "more questions than answers" and that claims of "human error" simply don't correspond to the available facts.

The pair of investigations, which trickled out by way of the mainstream media, reduced the attack on the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital to series of human errors and technical glitches. The findings claim to show that despite the medical charity's documented efforts to alert commanders to the onslaught, those signals did not reportedly reach the trigger team until it was "too late," resulting in the deaths of at least 31 civilians and injuring 28 more.

Among observers—including the head of MSF—the findings have raised some eyebrows as well as questions such as: What about the hour-long attempts to stop the bombing? How does this compare to MSF's own investigation? Why are these damning reports being released the day before Thanksgiving? And what does this say about the competency of the U.S. military?

"The U.S. version of events presented today leaves MSF with more questions than answers," said Christopher Stokes, MSF general director.

Responding to the news that gunmen erroneously relied on a physical description of the compound to carry out the attack and had intended to strike a building 450 yards away, Stokes continued: "It appears that 30 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of people are denied life-saving care in Kunduz simply because the MSF hospital was the closest large building to an open field and 'roughly matched' a description of an intended target."

"The frightening catalogue of errors outlined today illustrates gross negligence on the part of U.S. forces and violations of the rules of war," he added, reiterating the organization's call for independent and impartial investigation into the attack.

more at link: http://commondreams.org/news/2015/11/25/more-questions-answers-msf-not-buying-pentagon-probe-hospital-attack

[charrob]

Looks like The Guardian also has various reports about this now also:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/nov/25/msf-report-kunduz-hospital-strike-gross-negligence-video

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/nov/25/msf-report-kunduz-hospital-strike-gross-negligence-video

[dusman]

The investigation claimed that the warplane that attacked the hospital was given the coordinates of a site suspected of being a “Taliban base,” but that it turned out to be an empty field. The crew on the plane then decided to just attack the next closest thing, which was the hospital.


That is the most idiotic thing I've read today. There are such strict protocols on engaging targets, even in defense, that this is a ridiculous assertion.

Throughout the military, especially where military equipment is being used to carry out the engagement, there is ALWAYS an engagement clearance and confirmation. Servicemembers are taught not to think independently to make such determinations on their own. This is why there is a chain of command. Some higher echelon cleared this engagement, no question.

Watch Apache film to see what I mean. A servicemember engaging on a target at wrong coordinates by their own free will is like Red (Morgan Freeman) in Shawshank Redemption taking a piss without permission.

[charrob]

Servicemen Contradict Military's Account Of Attack On MSF Hospital In Afghanistan (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/msf-hospital-afghanistan-attack_566869bae4b080eddf567cfb)
Doctors Without Borders Marches on the White House (http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/12/09/perpetrators-cant-also-be-judges-war-crime-probe-demanded-white-house-gate)



Doctors Without Borders delivered over 540,000 signatures on Wednesday to the White House (http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/12/09/perpetrators-cant-also-be-judges-war-crime-probe-demanded-white-house-gate)calling for an independent investigation of the MSF hospital bombing, as new evidence throws Pentagon findings into further doubt.

Wearing white lab coats, workers with the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders and their supporters on Wednesday delivered boxes and boxes of petitions to the White House gates bearing the signatures of more than half a million people who are reiterating the call: "Even war has rules."

In the more than two months since the U.S. military bombing of a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, the Obama administration has thus far refused to respond to the medical charity's demand for an independent investigation.

Now, more than 540,000 people from across the globe have added their voice to that call. "With the delivery of this petition to the gates of White House, we continue to fight back for the respect of the Geneva Conventions," Jason Cone, executive director of MSF-USA, declared during a rally in Washington, D.C.'s Lafeyette Park on Wednesday.

"Perpetrators cannot also be judges," he stated, reiterating the organization's repeated request to empower the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) to investigate possible violations of International Humanitarian Law.

"These Conventions govern the rules of war," he continued. "They were established to protect civilians in conflicts, including patients, medical workers, and facilities. They bring some humanity into what is otherwise an inhumane setting. We face today a critical moment."




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-r87clr6Ms





Instead of consenting to the impartial fact-finding mission, the Obama administration proceeded with an internal probe into the October 3 attack which killed at least 30 people.

The Pentagon investigation—which first raised eyebrows when it was leaked on November 25, the day before Thanksgiving—was further thrown into question on Tuesday after reports revealed that two U.S. servicemen issued statements contradicting the military's account.

According to the Associated Press, two unnamed servicemen reportedly told Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) that U.S. special forces called in the airstrike on the hospital "because they believed the Taliban were using it as a command center, contradicting the military's explanation that the attack was meant for a different building."

The servicemen allege that U.S. forces "were not aware the Doctors Without Borders building was still being used as a hospital" because Afghan forces told them "it had become a Taliban command and control center."

However, additional AP reporting found, "The day before the attack, a senior special forces commander wrote in a report that the hospital was in Taliban hands and his objective was to clear it. A senior Pentagon official called Doctors Without Borders to ask whether their hospital had been overrun; he was told it had not."

[wizardwatson]

Empire of lies, plain and simple.

"We didn't bomb that hospital."
"Ok, yeah we did."
"We are attacking ISIS."
"Ok, not really."
"We didn't bomb that Syrian army base."
"Well, we may have been in the area."

I honestly doubt this firm policy of denial of everything in the first printing will change. Deny it, then two weeks later post a milquetoast retraction. Perhaps, the PTB see the future and say to themselves, "who cares, in 2 years they'll be worried about eating, and their ideological fights will be the last thing they care about."

I find it very frustrating that this level of lying and disinformation is tolerated when they are doing it so openly.

Russia: The plane was in Syria.
USA: The plane was in Turkey.

Seriously? NASA is showing me what the mountains on Pluto look like but I'm expected to believe that the most hotly contested real estate on the planet right now, with a legion of drones and satellites hovering above it, is creating a task so difficult that two superpowers can't agree where a giant metal airplane was flying and landed.

[charrob]

Empire of lies, plain and simple.

"We didn't bomb that hospital."
"Ok, yeah we did."
"We are attacking ISIS."
"Ok, not really."
"We didn't bomb that Syrian army base."
"Well, we may have been in the area."

I honestly doubt this firm policy of denial of everything in the first printing will change. Deny it, then two weeks later post a milquetoast retraction. Perhaps, the PTB see the future and say to themselves, "who cares, in 2 years they'll be worried about eating, and their ideological fights will be the last thing they care about."

I find it very frustrating that this level of lying and disinformation is tolerated when they are doing it so openly.

Russia: The plane was in Syria.
USA: The plane was in Turkey.

Seriously? NASA is showing me what the mountains on Pluto look like but I'm expected to believe that the most hotly contested real estate on the planet right now, with a legion of drones and satellites hovering above it, is creating a task so difficult that two superpowers can't agree where a giant metal airplane was flying and landed.

-wizardwatson, it's not letting me +rep you, but totally agree!!!