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AFGHANISTAN

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reality
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« Reply #250 on: October 06, 2015, 06:52:29 pm »

yaaawwwnnn.....The results of the investigation will be interesting...cant really form an opinion until the FACTS come in
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« Reply #251 on: October 06, 2015, 07:14:32 pm »


Errrrrrr.....read the second Washington Post article.

The 'merkins have admitted it was their armed forces who shot-up the hospital.

Although they've changed their story....twice....over who called in the air strike.

I guess their first lot of bullshit wasn't good enough, so they came back with some more creative bullshit, then when they got caught out with that, they came back with a third lot of creative bullshit.

What facts do you need? The 'merkins have admitted they did it....end of story.

Idiot....
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« Reply #252 on: October 06, 2015, 09:13:44 pm »



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« Reply #253 on: October 07, 2015, 06:22:54 am »

yup..of course the Americans did the bombing...there was a question of who called for the bombing..

..look forward to the results of the investigation Roll Eyes

..but ...regardless...we all know that in a war on terror...there will be mistakes...it's an occupational hazard Shocked
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« Reply #254 on: October 07, 2015, 11:00:38 am »

yup..of course the Americans did the bombing...there was a question of who called for the bombing..


Dumbshit........explain how you can carry out a bombing with 50mm multi-barrel cannons.

'cause that is the weapons AC-130 gunships are equipped with.

And as for the results of an investigation....the 'merkins have now changed their story FOUR TIMES. That's right....every time they get caught out trying to explain their murder of doctors and kids with spin and bullshit, they change their story to yet more spin and bullshit.




from The Guardian....

Doctors Without Borders airstrike: US alters story for fourth time in four days

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reality
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« Reply #255 on: October 07, 2015, 04:27:55 pm »

I dont think it is helpful to jump to conclusions before  investigations are carried out...  Roll Eyes

..it's like saying something really stupid.....like..England is going to win the rugby world cup...now you may think that it is impossible for someone to be so stupid..but ...hey ..they are actually out there..mainly in the Musturbaturtun area Grin
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« Reply #256 on: October 07, 2015, 06:37:26 pm »


Too stupid to explain how 50mm multi-barrel cannons can or cannot drop bombs?

I guess that PROVES that you are full-of-shit, eh?

Just like those American “doctor & kid murderers” who have so far changed their story FOUR TIMES.

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reality
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« Reply #257 on: October 07, 2015, 06:41:55 pm »

..and you also said that England was going to be in the final of the world cup...how is the prediction going? Wink
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« Reply #258 on: October 07, 2015, 07:05:16 pm »


That's alright....I'll continue to wind you up with whoever is left in the competition....be it France....or even Australia.

(Hey....if the final is NZ vs Australia, I'll probably barrack for Australia just to wind you up.)


And you still continue to display your stupidity be NOT explaining how multi-barrel 50mm cannons can BOMB a hospital.
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« Reply #259 on: October 07, 2015, 07:10:52 pm »

kj..."..be it France.."

..yes .. you support the terrorist Rainbow Warrior  bombers..as always Roll Eyes
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« Reply #260 on: October 07, 2015, 07:26:09 pm »


I'll support whoever will piss off you (and John Key) the most if they beat the All Blacks.

It'd be hilariously funny watching John Key ditching the “All Blacks brand” like a hot potato and fleeing back to ENZED if the All Blacks lose.

You see, that is how SHALLOW John Key is....as soon as somebody loses, they suddenly aren't his friend any more.

It would almost be worthwhile seeing the All Blacks lose just so John Key displays his TRUE colours when he buggers-off quick-smart.
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« Reply #261 on: October 07, 2015, 07:36:08 pm »

....are you talking about the same John Key who has been on a trip to Iraq to visit our kiwi troops ?..yup..John Key..living on the edge.....

......some members here claim to "live on the edge",,but they are just try-hards compared to the best PM in the world Tongue


kj..."It would almost be worthwhile seeing the All Blacks lose just so John Key displays his.."

..dare you to go down to the local and sat that Tongue
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« Reply #262 on: October 12, 2015, 12:30:05 pm »


from The Washington Post....

By evening, a hospital. By morning, a war zone.

By TIM CRAIG, MISSY RYAN and THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF | 9:52PM - Saturday, October 10, 2015

Medical personnel treat the injured on October 3rd following an attack by a U.S. gunship on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. — Photograph: Courtesy of Doctors Without Borders via AFP/Getty Images.
Medical personnel treat the injured on October 3rd following an attack by a U.S. gunship on the Doctors Without Borders hospital
in Kunduz, Afghanistan. — Photograph: Courtesy of Doctors Without Borders via AFP/Getty Images.


KABUL — The day after Taliban fighters swept through Afghanistan's northern city of Kunduz, capturing a major urban area for the first time since 2001, six stray bullets crashed through the windows at the Doctors Without Borders hospital there.

The spillover from the militant assault, which had overwhelmed local security forces, was an unsettling sign at the lightly guarded civilian facility, where doctors and nurses were tending to a crush of patients.

It was also a foreshadowing of a far greater calamity that would descend on the hospital four days later when, in the early hours of October 3rd, nearby U.S. combat advisers authorized a gunship to unleash a powerful attack. The AC-130U plane, circling above in the dark, raked the medical compound with bursts of cannon fire, potentially even using high explosive incendiary munitions, for more than an hour. The assault left at least 22 people dead, some of them burned to death.

The aid group, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, has demanded an international investigation of what it deems a possible war crime.

The U.S. military, whose own account of what took place changed in the initial days after the attack, has said that the hospital was “mistakenly struck” in an attempt to support Afghan security forces. But the military has declined to provide full details of the incident while its investigators examine what occurred in the worst example of errant U.S. air power in recent years.

This account of what took place is based on multiple interviews in Afghanistan and the United States with U.S. and Afghan military officials, Doctors Without Borders personnel and local Kunduz residents; some of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.




Although government forces have recaptured much of Kunduz, the city's collapse to a relatively small militant force was a blow to the Afghan government and its Western allies, illustrating the Taliban's potency at a time when foreign forces are winding down their long mission in the country.

In the days after the city’s September 28th collapse, Taliban fighters consolidated their control of the neighborhood around the hospital's tree-lined compound, clamping down on residents' movement and imposing their harsh interpretation of Islam.

For much of that week, the central Kunduz neighborhood of Spinzar, which was under the militants' control, was relatively quiet, according to residents and hospital officials.

Inside the hospital, which the international relief agency in recent years had turned into the province's most advanced medical facility, doctors and nurses were busier than ever. Between September 28th and October 3rd, exhausted hospital staffers treated 394 people, many of whom had received gunshot wounds during the battle for the city.

All that week, a steady stream of Taliban fighters appeared at the hospital seeking treatment, adding to the patient load, according to a hospital security guard.

Before fighters were admitted onto hospital grounds, the guard said, they were required to hand over their assault weapons to facility guards. Once inside, the Taliban fighters — many of whom had been shot — were treated like any other patient.




The Taliban appeared to respect the neutrality of the charity operation, the only hospital functioning in Kunduz that week.

“Even the Taliban didn't harm wounded Afghan security forces taken to the hospital,” the guard said.

Doctors Without Borders has declined to discuss patient identities, pointing to rules under the Geneva Conventions that state wounded soldiers or militants must be treated like other noncombatants. “We don't even want to know who is inside because that is a basic protection, as a patient,” said Guilhem Molinie, director of the organization's operations in Afghanistan.

But organization officials said that some Taliban fighters were treated.

According to the guard's account, not just wounded Taliban fighters were present at the hospital that week. On Monday, September 28th, as the battle for Kunduz kicked off, Mullah Abdul Salam, the most senior Taliban commander in Kunduz province, visited wounded fighters receiving treatment there, the guard said.

Some Afghan leaders have suggested that the Taliban had been using the hospital as a base. MSF officials have strongly denied those claims, saying no Taliban commanders and fighters had used hospital grounds to plan or carry out attacks.


Shattered calm

Early on Saturday, October 3rd, a team of U.S. Special Operations forces was tracking the fighting across Kunduz from a small U.S.-Afghan joint operations center at the airport, about five miles south of the city. The JOC, as it is called, has become a hallmark of the long insurgent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. forces liaise closely with their local counterparts.

As part of the limited U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, that night the U.S. forces were supporting elite Afghan troops as they fought their way through the city, and helped coordinate U.S. air power to back their assault against the Taliban.

General John F. Campbell, commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, told lawmakers in Washington on Thursday that his forces were providing planning and “training advice” for local forces around Kunduz, with a headquarters support group at the airfield.

In the days after the city's fall, Afghan security forces had advanced into Kunduz's commercial district but were still locked in intense clashes with Taliban militants holed up in government buildings, private homes and the abandoned offices of international aid groups. That Afghan security forces had made it into the city at all was a result of the airstrikes that the U.S. military began to conduct to support their advance.

The strikes earlier in the week were reported to have killed nearly 50 Taliban fighters who were attempting to advance on Afghan and coalition troops at the Kunduz airport.

In central Kunduz on the night of October 2nd, hospital staffers were settling in. Five patients — members of a family shot while trying to flee Kunduz — had been brought in earlier that evening, around 6 p.m. The wards were mostly quiet after that, and no major fighting had been reported.

“It was the first time the team could rest and [the] first time we could plan some operations that had been delayed before,” Molinie said.

Shortly before midnight, clashes erupted nearby between Taliban and government forces and quickly intensified, said Islamuddin, a Kunduz resident who lives about 50 yards from the hospital gates and, like many Afghans, goes by one name. At the airport, U.S. advisers received a request from Afghan special forces for urgent help in the vicinity of the hospital, where they reported receiving Taliban fire.

Scrambling to assist, American Special Operations forces advisers requested immediate close air support for the Afghan commandos.

Soon after, an AC-130U from the 4th Special Operations Squadron — call sign “Hammer” — was lumbering through a mostly clear night sky toward the target position.

The AC-130U is one variant of the AC-130 gunship. A holdover from the Vietnam War, the plane is a converted transport aircraft loaded with 25mm and 40mm cannons as well as a 105mm howitzer. As its weapons jut from the left side the aircraft, the AC-130 engages targets in a wide left turn. Crewed by a dozen airmen, including a Special Operations Ground liaison officer responsible for coordinating with ground forces, the AC-130 has low-light and thermal sensors that give it a “God's eye” of the battlefield in almost all weather conditions.




According to individuals familiar with the incident, American forces from the JOC directed the aircraft over the Afghan special forces and sent up the initial “call for fire” to the aircraft. The request gave the aircraft the necessary targeting information as well as the location of friendly forces.

According to an individual familiar with the aircraft's operations that night, the sensor operators identified fighters moving into and firing from one of the hospital's front porticos. The crew, piloting an aircraft that rarely targets buildings, asked the JOC twice if they wanted the aircraft to engage, the individual said. How close active Taliban forces may have been to the hospital — a point where the accounts of the charity's personnel and Afghan security officials diverge — is now a central question for investigators. Even if Taliban militants were firing from the compound, U.S. rules of engagement would not have allowed an airstrike if the crew knew it was a protected civilian facility.




On Saturday, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said that the U.S. military was authorized to make “appropriate” condolence payments to the families of civilians killed in the hospital attack, and to provide funding for repairing the hospital.

U.S. investigators are now trying to determine whether the air crew knew that the target was a hospital.

While the Afghan government has not said definitively whether it thinks that the Taliban forces were firing from near or within the compound, local officials have said that the group had set up a “command center” at the facility — an assertion Doctors Without Borders has strongly rejected.


Who placed the call?

Another unresolved question is who placed the request for the air support. According to Brigadier General Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, troops from the Afghan army's 209th Corps were fighting on the ground in that area, but officials in Kabul were unsure whether they made the request processed by U.S. advisers at the Kunduz airport.

Waziri suspects that Afghan soldiers were aware of the hospital's location. Before soldiers begin combat, they receive detailed maps from local police outlining the locations of mosques, schools and hospitals, he said.

A few minutes after 2 a.m., following approval from U.S. forces, the plane fired a massive initial burst at the main hospital building, which houses the facility's emergency rooms and intensive care unit.

While it is unclear what weapons were employed, the AC-130U's 40mm round has a high explosive incendiary munition that is lined with zirconium. The rounds are known for causing fires.




One MSF physician, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons, had finished his shift and was drifting off to sleep in the hospital's break room when a giant blast shook the building. Light fixtures and parts of the ceiling crashed down on him.

The explosion, possibly from the plane's 105mm gun, was so powerful that it shattered windows of nearby homes. “I saw the flame of fire rise from the hospital,” Islamuddin said.


The Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz in flames following the October 3rd airstrike by an American AC-130 gunship. — Photograph: Courtesy of Doctors Without Borders via Associated Press.
The Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz in flames following the October 3rd airstrike by an American AC-130 gunship.
 — Photograph: Courtesy of Doctors Without Borders via Associated Press.


The physician and other staff members rushed to the hospital's basement, which was used as a makeshift bomb shelter.

Far above, the U.S. pilots banked the aircraft into a wide orbit circling the hospital. Over the next 65 minutes, the plane unleashed additional fire on each pass around the facility below, every 15 minutes or so.

Some staff members and patients may have died instantly; others died amid the rubble or as colleagues tried fruitlessly to administer care. A pharmacist died in the hospital office. As a fire engulfed the hospital building, at least six patients burned to death in the intensive care unit.


Doctors Without Borders medical personnel treat wounded colleagues and patients after the American aerial assault on October 3rd. — Photograph: Courtesy of Doctors Without Borders via AFP/Getty Images.
Doctors Without Borders medical personnel treat wounded colleagues and patients after the American aerial assault on October 3rd.
 — Photograph: Courtesy of Doctors Without Borders via AFP/Getty Images.


During the attack, staff members placed desperate calls to colleagues, who relayed messages to U.S. officials in Kabul and Washington, including to the Pentagon's Joint Staff in Washington, the organization said.

In the days before the assault, Doctors Without Borders said, it provided the hospital's location repeatedly to the same officials. But the relief group has declined to provide details of exactly who it alerted. The office of the Joint Staff says it has not yet located an individual who received that information.




At about 3:30 a.m., staffers huddled in the basement bomb shelter heard the guns fall silent. It is not known why the air crew chose to halt the attack.

Many of those who had taken shelter below ground were too frightened to emerge and stayed there until dawn. “Then we heard this calling, ‘Anyone alive? You can come out’,” the physician recalled.

When he emerged into the rubble of the smoldering hospital, the doctor immediately saw the bodies of patients and colleagues. Other staffers began to make their way out into the open and rushed to treat those wounded in the attacks. Some could not be saved. One doctor died on a desk while another staff member tried to perform emergency surgery to save him.


Mohammad Sharif in Kabul and Julie Tate and Andrew Katz in Washington contributed to this report.

• Tim Craig is The Washington Post's bureau chief in Pakistan. He has also covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and within the District of Columbia government.

• Missy Ryan writes about the Pentagon, military issues, and national security for The Washington Post.

• Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a staff writer at The Washington Post and a former Marine infantryman.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • The Pentagon's evolving response to the Afghan hospital attack

 • Top U.S. general in Afghanistan: Hospital ‘mistakenly struck’

 • Doctors Without Borders says U.S. airstrike hit hospital in Afghanistan

 • The bloody history of Kunduz, from Afghanistan’s ‘Convoy of Death’ to now

 • In Kunduz, echoes of a 1988 guerrilla assault after the Soviets withdrew


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/story-of-how-a-kunduz-hospital-was-shelled-by-us-gunship-in-question/2015/10/10/1c8affe2-6ebc-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html
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« Reply #263 on: October 14, 2015, 05:44:45 pm »

Yeah the Taliban should not use innocent people as human shields..the hospitals should not be treating the Taliban who are the cause of many injuries..and are terrorists  Shocked
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« Reply #264 on: October 14, 2015, 07:27:05 pm »


And what is wrong with medical staff treating anybody who turns up needing treatment?

My Dad served in the 6th Field Ambulance in North Africa and Italy during World War Two and he treated both friend and foe alike without fear or favour.

Are you slagging off at my late Father, you disgusting piece of shit?

You are a total sicko who is justifying the WAR CRIME of deliberately murdering doctors and kids.

You are really showing your despicable and disgusting true colours with what you are posting in this group.

Perverted cunts like you should NEVER be allowed anywhere near kids.
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« Reply #265 on: October 14, 2015, 07:40:42 pm »


from FUSION.net....

What if the military blew up a hospital in the U.S.?

DOCTORS WITHIN BORDERS

By JEN SORENSEN | 1:34PM - Tuesday, October 13, 2015




APOLOGIES to the Mayo Clinic for this one. They were on my mind because my aunt recently had heart surgery there (I hear she received excellent care).

While the U.S. may not blow up civilians in foreign lands every single day, many civilians do fear air strikes by the U.S. and our allies every day. These massacres keep happening over and over and over again. Would Americans tolerate drone strikes and other aerial bombings in their neighborhoods because someone thinks a terrorist might be hiding in a nearby house? Can you imagine living this way for years on end?

This case is particularly bad since it seems to be a deliberate strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital. Glenn Greenwald does a good job summing up the shifting arguments coming out of the military (see article below).


http://fusion.net/comic/213768/what-if-the-military-blew-up-a-hospital-in-the-u-s



from The Intercept....

The Radically Changing Story of the U.S. Airstrike on Afghan Hospital: From Mistake to Justification

By GLENN GREENWALD | 3:11AM - Tuesday, October 06, 2015

WHEN news first broke of the U.S. airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, the response from the U.S. military was predictable and familiar. It was all just a big, terrible mistake, its official statement suggested: an airstrike it carried out in Kunduz “may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.” Oops: our bad. Fog of war, errant bombs, and all that.

This obfuscation tactic is the standard one the U.S. and Israel both use whenever they blow up civilian structures and slaughter large numbers of innocent people with airstrikes. Citizens of both countries are well-trained — like some tough, war-weary, cigar-chomping general — to reflexively spout the phrase “collateral damage”, which lets them forget about the whole thing and sleep soundly, telling themselves that these sorts of innocent little mistakes are inevitable even among the noblest and most well-intentioned war-fighters, such as their own governments. The phrase itself is beautifully technocratic: it requires no awareness of how many lives get extinguished, let alone acceptance of culpability. Just invoke that phrase and throw enough doubt on what happened in the first 48 hours and the media will quickly lose interest.

But there's something significantly different about this incident that has caused this “mistake” claim to fail. Usually, the only voices protesting or challenging the claims of the U.S. military are the foreign, non-western victims who live in the cities and villages where the bombs fall. Those are easily ignored, or dismissed as either ignorant or dishonest. Those voices barely find their way into U.S. news stories, and when they do, they are stream-rolled by the official and/or anonymous claims of the U.S. military, which are typically treated by U.S. media outlets as unassailable authority.

In this case, though, the U.S. military bombed the hospital of an organization — Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières [MSF]) — run by western-based physicians and other medical care professionals. They are not so easily ignored. Doctors who travel to dangerous war zones to treat injured human beings are regarded as noble and trustworthy. They're difficult to marginalize and demonize. They give compelling, articulate interviews in English to U.S. media outlets. They are heard, and listened to.

MSF has used this platform, unapologetically and aggressively. They are clearly infuriated at the attack on their hospital and the deaths of their colleagues and patients. From the start, they have signaled an unwillingness to be shunted away with the usual “collateral damage” banalities and, more important, have refused to let the U.S. military and its allies get away with spouting obvious falsehoods. They want real answers. As The Guardian's Spencer Ackerman put it last night: “MSF's been going incredibly hard, challenging every US/Afgh claim made about hospital bombing.”

In particular, MSF quickly publicized numerous facts that cast serious doubt on the original U.S. claim that the strike on the hospital was just an accident. To begin with, the organization had repeatedly advised the U.S. military of the exact GPS coordinates of the hospital. They did so most recently on September 29th, just five days before the strike. Beyond that, MSF personnel at the facility “frantically” called U.S. military officials during the strike to advise them that the hospital was being hit and to plead with them to stop, but the strikes continued in a “sustained” manner for 30 more minutes. Finally, MSF yesterday said this:




All of these facts make it extremely difficult — even for U.S. media outlets — to sell the “accident” story. At least as likely is that the hospital was deliberately targeted, chosen either by Afghan military officials who fed the coordinates to their U.S. military allies and/or by the U.S. military itself.

Even cynical critics of the U.S. have a hard time believing that the U.S. military would deliberately target a hospital with an airstrike (despite how many times the U.S. has destroyed hospitals with airstrikes). But in this case, there is long-standing tension between the Afghan military and this specific MSF hospital, grounded in the fact that the MSF — true to its name — treats all wounded human beings without first determining on which side they fight. That they provide medical treatment to wounded civilians and Taliban fighters alike has made them a target before.

In July — just 3 months ago — Reuters reported that Afghan special forces “raided” this exact MSF hospital in Kunduz, claiming an Al Qaeda member was a patient. This raid infuriated MSF staff:

he French aid group said its hospital was temporarily closed to new patients after armed soldiers had entered and behaved violently towards staff.

“This incident demonstrates a serious lack of respect for the medical mission, which is safeguarded under international humanitarian law,” MSF said in a statement.

A staff member who works for the aid group said, “The foreign doctors tried to stop the Afghan Special Operations guys, but they went in anyway, searching the hospital.”


The U.S. had previously targeted a hospital in a similar manner: “In 2009, a Swedish aid group accused U.S. forces of violating humanitarian principles by raiding a hospital in Wardak province, west of Kabul.”




News accounts of this weekend’s U.S. airstrike on that same hospital hinted cryptically at the hostility from the Afghan military. The first New York Times story on the strike — while obscuring who carried out the strike — noted deep into the article that “the hospital treated the wounded from all sides of the conflict, a policy that has long irked Afghan security forces.” Al Jazeera similarly alluded to this tension, noting 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 of the conflict. ‘We are here to help and treat civilians’, Abdul Manar said.”

As a result of all of this, there is now a radical shift in the story being told about this strike. No longer is it being depicted as some terrible accident of a wayward bomb. Instead, the predominant narrative from U.S. sources and their Afghan allies is that this attack was justified because the Taliban were using it as a “base”.

Fox News yesterday cited anonymous “defense officials” that while they “regret the loss of innocent life, they say the incident could have been avoided if the Taliban had not used the hospital as a base, and the civilians there as human shields.” In its first article on the attack, The Washington Post also previewed this defense, quoting a “spokesman for the Afghan army's 209th Corps in northern Afghanistan” as saying that “Taliban fighters are now hiding in ‘people's houses, mosques and hospitals using civilians as human shields’.” Associated Press yesterday actually claimed that it looked at a video and saw weaponry in the hospital's windows, only to delete that claim with this correction:




The New York Times today — in a story ostensibly about the impact on area residents from the hospital's destruction — printed paragraphs from anonymous officials justifying this strike: “there was heavy gunfire in the area around the hospital at the time of the airstrike, and that initial reports indicated that the Americans and Afghans on the ground near the hospital could not safely pull back without being dangerously exposed. American forces on the ground then called for air support, senior officials said.” It also claimed that “many residents of Kunduz, as well as people in Kabul, seemed willing to believe the accusations of some Afghan officials that there were Taliban fighters in the hospital shooting at American troops.” And this:

Still, some Afghan officials continued to suggest that the attack was justified. “I know that there were civilian casualties in the hospital, but a lot of senior Taliban were also killed,” said Abdul Wadud Paiman, a member of Parliament from Kunduz.

So now we're into full-on justification mode: yes, we did it; yes, we did it on purpose; and we're not sorry because we were right to do so since we think some Taliban fighters were at the hospital, perhaps even shooting at us. In response to the emergence of this justification claim, MSF expressed the exact level of revulsion appropriate (emphasis added):

“MSF is disgusted by the recent statements coming from some Afghanistan government authorities justifying the attack on its hospital in Kunduz. These statements imply that Afghan and US forces working together decided to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital with more than 180 staff and patients inside because they claim that members of the Taliban were present.

“This amounts to an admission of a WAR CRIME. This utterly contradicts the initial attempts of the US government to minimize the attack as ‘collateral damage’.


“There can be no justification for this abhorrent attack on our hospital that resulted in the deaths of MSF staff as they worked and patients as they lay in their beds. MSF reiterates its demand for a full transparent and independent international investigation.”


From the start, MSF made clear that none of its staff at the hospital heard or saw Taliban fighters engaging U.S. or Afghan forces:




But even if there were, only the most savage barbarians would decide that it's justified to raze a hospital filled with doctors, nurses and patients to the ground. Yet mounting evidence suggests that this is exactly what the U.S. military did — either because it chose to do so or because its Afghan allies fed them the coordinates of this hospital which they have long disliked. As a result, we now have U.S. and Afghan officials expressly justifying the consummate WAR CRIME: deliberately attacking a hospital filled with doctors, nurses and wounded patients. And whatever else is true, the story of what happened here has been changing rapidly as facts emerge proving the initial claims to be false.

__________________________________________________________________________

Just as this article was being published, NBC News published a report making clear that even the latest claims from the U.S. and Afghan governments are now falling apart. The Pentagon's top four-star commander in Afghanistan, Army General John Campbell, now claims that “local Afghans forces asked for air support and U.S. forces were not under direct fire just prior to the U.S. bombardment” of the hospital. As NBC notes, this directly contradicts prior claims: “The Pentagon had previously said U.S. troops were under direct fire.”

See also from today: CNN and the NYT Are Deliberately Obscuring Who Perpetrated the Afghan Hospital Attack


__________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE: Responding to the above-referenced admission, MSF has issued this statement:

“Today the US government has admitted that it was their airstrike that hit our hospital in Kunduz and killed 22 patients and MSF staff. Their description of the attack keeps changing—from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government. The reality is the US dropped those bombs. The US hit a huge hospital full of wounded patients and MSF staff. The US military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition. There can be no justification for this horrible attack. With such constant discrepancies in the US and Afghan accounts of what happened, the need for a full transparent independent investigation is ever more critical.”

The U.S. seems to have picked the wrong group this time to attack from the air.


https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/the-radically-changing-story-of-the-u-s-airstrike-on-afghan-hospital-from-mistake-to-justification
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« Reply #266 on: October 15, 2015, 04:52:22 am »

wiki....

"President Karzai said that the agreement "will close the season of the past 10 years and is going to open an equal relationship season. With the signing of this agreement, we are starting a phase between two sovereign and independent countries that will be based on mutual respect, mutual commitments and mutual friendship".[44] During a background briefing on the strategic partnership agreement by senior administration officials aboard Air Force One en route to Afghanistan, an unnamed U.S. official said: "This agreement will make clear to the Taliban, to al Qaeda, and to other international terrorist groups that they cannot wait us out. The agreement is not only a signal of long-term commitment by the United States, but a document that enshrines commitments by both countries to each other with a common purpose. Our commitments to support Afghanistan's social and economic development, security, institutions and regional cooperation is matched by Afghan commitments to strengthen accountability, transparency, oversight, and to protect the human rights of all Afghans, men and women."[3] Another U.S. official told The New York Times the agreement is necessary to give the United States the capacity to carry out counter-terrorism operations in order to prevent Al Qaeda's resettlement in Afghanistan and ensures "a regional equilibrium that serves our national security interest. And that's ultimately why we went in there in the first place."


good idea Tongue
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« Reply #267 on: October 15, 2015, 09:42:40 am »


You can waffle all you like, it still doesn't change the FACTS....


“The USA has now joined Israel in committing WAR CRIMES, such as murdering doctors and children!”


And talking about Israel, I see they have been calling up reservists.

It would appear they are getting ready to go on another kid-killing spree.

More war-crimes coming up from those who are delusional enough to claim they are the “chosen” of some imaginary god.


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« Reply #268 on: October 15, 2015, 11:36:28 am »

kj..."It would appear they are getting ready to go on another kid-killing spree."

..or..they could be getting ready to defend themselves from people who have terrorists running their camp Tongue
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« Reply #269 on: October 15, 2015, 11:54:43 am »


Oooooh, look....stupid MAGGOT has ooooooozed out of his hole.

Yet again he is making excuses for kid-killers.

Talk about being a sick cunt, eh?
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« Reply #270 on: October 15, 2015, 04:30:57 pm »

now, now...theres no need for the vulgar language..lets keep it civil Wink
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« Reply #271 on: October 15, 2015, 04:33:13 pm »


There is nothing at all wrong with ACCURATE descriptions.

And you are a sick cunt.
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« Reply #272 on: October 15, 2015, 04:35:33 pm »

Do you know what that word means?
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« Reply #273 on: October 15, 2015, 05:10:17 pm »


Who'd have thought it, eh?

That the Americans would become accomplished doctor-killers and kid-killers.

It must take a special type of bravery to sit in an aeroplane and pour cannon shells into doctors and kids, eh?

Do you reckon the Americans should add a kid-killing medal to their decorations?

Kid-killers from gunships could wear it with pride.

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« Reply #274 on: October 15, 2015, 05:20:13 pm »

kj..."Do you reckon the Americans should add a kid-killing medal to their decorations?"

yeah..nah...we probably beat them at that pastime

IF YOU CAN GO TO THIS LINK < LOOK AT THE PIC>>>AND NOT GET ANGRY>>YOU ARE NOT HUMAN Shocked

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/72374978/matiu-wereta-named-as-dead-hawkes-bay-toddler-in-assault-case

Matiu Wereta named as dead Hawke's Bay toddler in assault case
 Matiu Wereta, Hastings toddler who died on October 14
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Matiu Wereta, Hastings toddler who died on October 14

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Police have named the 2˝-year-old boy who died after an alleged assault in Hastings.

Matiu Wereta died on Wednesday evening in the intensive care unit at Hawke's Bay Hospital after allegedly being assaulted at his home in Columbus Cres, Flaxmere, on Monday.

A 17-year-old male has been charged with assault and appeared in the Hastings District Court on Tuesday. He was remanded to a Rotorua address on bail to reappear in court on November 3 and was granted interim name suppression.

The family released the following statement:

"This is a very difficult time for us as we go through the grieving process and take in the events of the past few
days".

"We have a very supportive whanau around us and are being supported by our local community.

"Matiu was a happy, smiley, adventurous boy who loved being active and getting involved in a lot of activities.  He loved kapa haka,
which his family has been involved in for some time.

"Matiu attended Te Tirahou daycare at Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga and was a popular little boy there. He loved to sing, dance and play with all his friends and teachers.  He touched many hearts with his cheeky smile and warm heart, and will be sadly missed by all his whanau and friends.

"We appreciate all the kind wishes and support we have been offered from many people.  This is a tragic event that is extremely hard for any family to comprehend or experience.  We must now wait for the judicial process to take its course.

The family asked for privacy.

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An uncle of the accused man said on Tuesday the boy died as the result of a tragic accident.

He said his nephew told him he had been having a shower with the boy when the boy ran out of the shower and fell down a set of stairs.

He was confident the police investigation would conclude the death had been the result of an accident.

"It's a traumatic experience for our families. It's a shock. No-one expects accidents to happen to children, and it's certainly affected everyone involved and certainly our family is grieving for what's happened," he said.

"We're certainly supportive of the processes that are happening. Our family is involved with both my nephew and the young woman," he said.

He said there was no animosity between the two families and both were being supportive to the couple.

"Everyone supports the due process involved with police when a child dies like this. We're confident the process will endorse what actually happened, which was an accident," he said.

Flaxmere community leader and Hastings District councillor Henare O'Keefe said he knew the families involved and the community was rallying around them.

He understood the toddler's biological father was living in Australia but had returned home.
"In situations like this you just run out of cliches. You get anger and frustration and utu and revenge. All of those feelings. You can understand how people feel that way," he said.

"I can't imagine how those people must be feeling. We give them out total and absolute love and sympathy. That's a void in their life that may possibly never heal. This harmless, precious little chap who through no fault of his own has had his life cut short," O'Keefe said.

"We'll do all that we can to support the family. To date we've stood back while they've been in intensive care. The last thing they want is people right now," he said.

"I don't know what the solution is, but I know what people should be doing now. Go back to their families and give them a hug, tell them you love them," he said.

"I would say to people don't give up on Flaxmere," O'Keefe said.

Several tributes for Matiu have been posted on his mother Eranna Tiopira's Facebook pages.

One person wrote: "Sending so much love to you ... There's no words to describe the feeling you are going through right now and the pain". Another wrote "Feeling for you ... love uz so much gf omg my hearts breaking for you see you soon my girl."

Another wrote "Love u baby... rest in peace such devastating news to hear cant imagine what mummy and daddy are going through right now we are going to miss you so much especially poppy you have brought happiness and joy into our lives and to my bro... stay strong my friend I love you so much... Praying for you my friend I am so sorry I can't be there at this time I'd come back in a heartbeat if I could....xxxx Rest in peace baby ... We love you..."

Residents of Columbus Cres, where the alleged assault took place, said the boy and his mother were new to the neighbourhood and kept to themselves.

The dead boy's mother works locally and the general manager at organisation where she is employed said their hearts went out to the family and they were doing all they could to support their staff member and her family.

The mother of the accused declined to comment.

 - Stuff
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