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November 6th, 2015 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the U.S.’ Department of Defense issued conflicting reports about the U.S.’ air raid against a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan on October 3.
Photo courtesy of MSF.
Doctors Without Borders, a.k.a. Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) released an internal review of the October 3 airstrikes by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
MSF notes that the chronological review of the events leading up to, during, and immediately following the airstrikes reveal no reason why the hospital should have come under attack. There were no armed combatants or fighting within or from the hospital grounds.
The document, part of an ongoing review of events undertaken by MSF, is based upon sixty debriefings of MSF national and international employees who worked at the 140-bed trauma center, internal and public information, before and after photographs of the hospital, email correspondence, and telephone call records.
At least thirty people were killed in the airstrikes, including 13 staff members, 10 patients and 7 unrecognizable bodies yet to be identified. MSF General-Director Christopher Stokes noted:
“The view from inside the hospital is that this attack was conducted with a purpose to kill and destroy. … But we don’t know why. We neither have the view from the cockpit, nor the knowledge of what happened within the US and Afghan military chains of command.”
“Some public reports are circulating that the attack on our hospital could be justified because we were treating Taliban,. … Wounded combatants are patients under international law, and must be free from attack and treated without discrimination. Medical staff should never be punished or attacked for providing treatment to wounded combatants.”
MSF stresses that the initial findings of the MSF review firmly establish the facts from inside the hospital in the days leading up to and during the attack. The review includes the details of the provision of the GPS coordinates and the log of phone calls from MSF to military authorities in attempt to stop the airstrikes. MSF had reached an agreement with all parties to the conflict to respect the neutrality of the hospital, based on international humanitarian law. Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of MSF stated:
“We held up our end of the agreement—the MSF trauma center in Kunduz was fully functioning as a hospital with surgeries ongoing at the time of the US airstrikes. … MSF’s no-weapons policy was respected and hospital staff were in full control of the facility prior to and at the time of the airstrikes.”
Among the 105 patients at the time of the airstrikes, MSF was treating wounded combatants from both sides of the conflict in Kunduz, as well as women and children.
The United States’ Department of Defense (DoD), for its part, announced that it had received a 13-page initial review conducted by MSF. Pentagon spokeswoman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said that a full investigation is underway in coordination with Afghanistan’s government to “determine exactly what happened” when the hospital came under fire,
In an initial official statement on October 3, U.S. Army Col. Brian Tribus spoke on behalf of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, confirming that U.S. forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz at 2:15 a.m. local time that “may have caused collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.” Later on that day, the narrative was changed into allegations about the presence of Taliban fighters that were the intended target.
The Pentagon announced that its investigation continues and that it appreciated the cooperation offered by MSF to determine the full extent of damage to the hospital so it can be repaired in full. The incident is also being investigated by the NATO Resolute Support Combined Civilian Casualty Assessment Team, or CCAT. Both the United States and NATO are involved in the incident.
An investigation according to U.S. Army Regulation 15-6 as conducted by the DoD and the CCAT investigation are normal responses to an incident of this nature. Several experts in international law would, however, criticize the United States and NATO for “investigating themselves” as insufficient, pointing out that the incident should be investigated in accordance with international and humanitarian law. MSF also released what it describes as ” A primer” with regard to the air raid against the hospital and the protection of medical services under Humanitarian Law.
Ironically, it was not long after the air raid against the hospital in Kunduz, that the U.S. administration and western media began deflecting attention from the air raid in Kunduz by issuing thus far unproven, uninvestigated and undocumented reports about an alleged Russian air strike against a hospital in Syria.
CH/L – nsnbc 06.11.2015
Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2015/11/06/msf-and-us-dod-issue-conflicting-reports-about-kunduz-hospital-attack/
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