U.S. airstrike on Afghanistan MSF hospital looks like a "kill mission"

[MikeWB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-doctors-borders-airstrike-kill-mission-article-1.2425113

U.S. airstrike on Afghanistan Doctors Without Borders hospital looks more and more like a 'kill mission'

In early October, a sustained American airstrike destroyed a Doctors Without Borders hospital at their Kunduz Trauma Center in Afghanistan. The attack was catastrophic. On Thursday, Doctors Without Borders, which is perhaps the most respected charity in the world, released their own internal review.

In an interview with the Daily News, the group's international president Dr. Joanne Liu recounted the sheer devastation and horror of what took place,
"Our hospital was razed to the ground. Thirty of our patients and medical staff died. We were forced to leave patients to die on the operating table and others burning in their ICU beds," she told The News.

This is as egregious of a human rights violation as it gets. Not only must we have answers, but we also must have consequences for the horror that was visited upon these brave women and men who are doing some of the most important work in the world.

Liu went on to say, "We believe that this attack was conducted with a purpose to kill and destroy. The facts compiled in this review confirm our initial observations: the MSF Trauma Centre was fully functioning as a hospital with 105 patients admitted and surgeries ongoing at the time of the U.S. airstrikes; the MSF rules in the hospital were implemented and respected, including the 'no weapons' policy; MSF was in full control of the hospital before and at the time of the airstrikes; there were no armed combatants within the hospital compound and there was no fighting from or in the direct vicinity of the trauma center before the airstrikes."

In the full report from their investigation, they detail how staff members who attempted to flee the hospital were actually shot from the planes — lending credence to the observation that it appears the U.S. military was on a complete kill mission.

No real answers have been given from our government as to why this hospital was attacked with such ferocity. What's obvious is this — it was an enormous error. Nothing whatsoever can justify the carnage that our military caused in this attack.