Code Pink & Curt Wechsler / The World Can’t Wait & Revolution Newspape – 2015-10-07 01:29:26
http://www.codepink.org/campbell_kunduz?utm_campaign=afghanpetition3&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink
ACTION ALERT: Tell the Pentagon: Rebuild the Bombed Hospital in Kunduz!
Code Pink
(October 5, 2015) — Bombing a hospital is a war crime. But that’s exactly what the US military did in Kunduz, Afghanistan, over the weekend when it dropped several bombs on a Doctors Without Borders hospital, killing 22 and wounding dozens of others.
On Tuesday, October 6, we will be at an Armed Services Committee hearing with the top US Commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell. We are asking him to apologize for the bombing, rebuild the hospital, provide healthcare for the injured and compensation to the families of the deceased, and submit to an independent investigation! If you sign the petition immediately, we will hand deliver your name to General Campbell.
The deadly bombing left 22 people dead, including 12 staff members, 10 patients — 3 of them were children. Doctors Without Borders had provided the GPS coordinates of the hospital to the US-led coalition in Afghanistan days before the attack, and now Doctors Without Borders is calling for an independent investigation into what it is calling a war crime.
October 8 will mark the beginning of 15 years of US military presence in Afghanistan, making it the longest war the US has even been involved in. The US has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Afghans throughout the years and has rarely even acknowledged their deaths. This impunity must end!
Tell General Campbell: Apologize for the bombing, rebuild the hospital, provide healthcare for the injured and compensation to the families of the deceased, and submit to an independent investigation! Sign the petition now.
For an end to all wars,
Alli, Ariel, Chelsea, Janet, Janna, Jodie, Lisa, Medea, Michaela, Michelle, Nancy and Tighe
If you’re outraged about the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, sign this petition to the US Commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell. We will deliver your signature to him tomorrow, October 6, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington DC about Afghanistan!
General John F. Campbell–
We condemn the October 3rd bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Twelve staff members and at least seven patients, including three children, were killed; 37 people were injured, including 19 staff members. This attack constitutes a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law, and we refuse to allow this to be dismissed as “collateral damage.” Bombing a hospital is a war crime.
The US government must commit the funds to rebuild this hospital, provide health care for the injured parties, and compensation to the families of the deceased.
Furthermore, we call for a full, transparent and independent investigation into the attacks.
Signed,
Bombing Hospitals is a War Crime
Curt Wechsler / The World Can’t Wait Steering Committee
The death toll from US “sustained bombing” of a trauma center in Kunduz, Afghanistan has risen to 22. The attack constitutes a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law, charge officials of Doctors Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
“The [US government] description of the attack keeps changing – from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government.” Twelve MSF staff members and at least 10 patients, including three children, were killed. Another 37 people were injured.
Doctors Without Borders reports that MSF “frantically phoned” NATO and Washington DC, as bombs rained on the hospital for “nearly an hour.” MSF demands a fully transparent and independent international investigation. Loss of the medical facility worsens the growing humanitarian crisis for the thousands of civilian residents trapped in Kunduz.
There can be no justification for destruction of a fully functioning hospital where the need for medical treatment is desperate. The MSF’s facility was the only one of its kind in the north-eastern region of Afghanistan. The exact location of the hospital had been communicated to all parties engaged in battle. “No longer is it being depicted as some terrible accident of a wayward bomb” observed journalist Glenn Greenwald this morning.
“Instead, the predominant narrative from US sources and their Afghan allies is that this attack was justified because the Taliban were using it as a base.” This excuse contradicts reports from the field. “Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside #Kunduz hospital compound prior to the airstrikes” tweeted MSF International.
It is no “accident” that our government elects collective punishment to hold entire populations hostage to US interests. The tragic air strike on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz this weekend was no isolated incident, but part and parcel of a deliberate military policy to terrorize states that challenge US hegemony.
#BlackLivesMatter Activist Shaun King called the attack in Kunduz “disgusting.” Others in the movement to stop state terror at home make the connection between the ultimate war crime abroad — invasion of a sovereign nation that poses no imminent threat — and an epidemic of murder by police across the US.
Watch Cadine Williams, sister of O’Shaine Evans speaks out:
No One “Deserves” to Suffer the Crimes of this Government.
US Out of Afghanistan. NOW
Revolution Newspaper & The World Can’t Wait
(October 5, 2015) — Revcom.us asks in response to the US Air Force bombing a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz, Afghanistan: “You want to talk about terrorism? Yes, terrorism is a method of reactionary jihadists. But they can only dream of carrying out massacres that bring destruction and death on the scale of massacres brought by the United States.”
At 2:15 in the morning, Saturday, October 3, the United States carried out a massive, sustained bombing attack against a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres in Kunduz, Afghanistan. At least 19 people are dead, including at least a dozen of the courageous hospital staff who were treating patients in the most dire circumstances, without supplies. Dozens more patients and staff were wounded.
The US military coldly called the massacre “collateral damage” — their euphemism (wording that covers up reality) for killing civilians.
You want to talk about terrorism?
Doctors Without Borders revealed that the US military continued the bombing for 30 minutes after receiving phone calls telling military contacts that the hospital was being bombed. “All parties to the conflict including in Kabul [the US-backed Afghan regime] and Washington, were clearly informed of the precise location of the MSF [Medecins Sans Frontieres] facilities — hospital, guesthouse, office.” And hospital staff told reporters there were no Taliban fighters in the area.
The bombing sent shockwaves through the devastated city of Kunduz, the latest focal point in the clash between the US-backed regime of Dark Ages Islamic fundamentalist warlords who have aligned with the US, and on the other side, the oppressive Dark Ages Taliban — all of whom represent nothing but exploitation and oppression.
The Kunduz hospital treated civilians as well as those wounded in fighting without regard to which side they were on — which is what a hospital should do.
Hours after the bombing, thick smoke continued to hang in the air over Kunduz — a message from the USA as it clashes around the world with factions of Islamic fundamentalists who are obstacles to its interests. A message to rival powers that smell weakness in the defeats the US is encountering in clashes with these forces. And a message to the people of the world: Don’t fuck with us because there is nothing too depraved, too inhuman, too grotesquely in stark contradiction to our proclaimed values of “democracy” and “human rights” that we won’t do to teach you a lesson.
The US attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, and then invaded and occupied the country. They called it “Operation Enduring Freedom.” US bombs, missiles, and bullets have killed thousands of Afghan men, women, and children.
Night raids, special operations, covert assassinations, extrajudicial killings, drone strikes, the use of military contractors, massive detentions and torture, and all-around terror are embedded in the nature of this imperialist occupation. From 2009-2012 alone, nearly 30,000 non-combatants were killed or wounded.
And that’s just Afghanistan. The US has brought the same and worse to country after country in that region. (See “What the Record Shows: Nothing Good Has — or Will — Come from US Imperialist Intervention in Syria or Anywhere Else.”)
You want to talk about terrorism? Yes, terrorism is a method of reactionary jihadists. But they can only dream of carrying out massacres that bring destruction and death on the scale of massacres brought by the United States.
This article was published on revcom.us on October 3, 2015.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
