NPR reports: NATO in Afghanistan says it will lead an investigation into an airstrike in Kunduz this weekend that hit a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital, killing 22 people — an attack that the humanitarian organization, also known as Doctors Without Borders, has called “a war crime.”
A U.S.-led airstrike on the northern Afghan city was carried out on Saturday but the circumstances surrounding it remain murky. NATO acknowledges only that the raid occurred near the charity’s hospital.
The NATO coalition says it “has directed a preliminary multi-national investigation known as a Casualty Assessment Team.” It says that an initial investigation would be complete in “a matter of days.” [Continue reading…]
Lets’s look at the basic evidence:
– The set of buildings which has been destroyed by attacks from the air was a hospital run by medicins sans frontieres, and contained their staff and their patients
– The set of buildings had been in place for years, and US forces had been regularly and frequently informed of its presence, purpose, and exact location.
– The US both internationally and locally was informed that the hospital was being attacked by aircraft during the attack, but the waves of attacks continued.
– The US is the only air force around. None of the afghan terrorists own or use any aircraft at any time.
– The US is a signatory to international conventions which forbid attacks on hospitals, even when the hospital has been taken by enemy forces, and even when those forces open fire. The convention requires that the enemy forces be given time to leave.
– There is therefore no excuse whatever for the attacks on the hospital, and it can only have been done on the order of a US officer, and by US officers and airmen.
– These men should be court martialled.