If, as claimed by Pentagon officials and the top general in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Campbell, there were Taliban fighters firing from some location in the hospital (a claim vigorously disputed by Medicine Sans Frontieres, which says there was no fighting going on near the hospital and that all people entering the hospital, Taliban victims included, had to surrender weapons at the door as a matter of policy) it still would not justify under any circumstances the use of a weapons system like the AC-130 with its array of industrial slaughter weaponry.
The US has a lot to answer for, which explains why the White House has refused Medicine Sans Frontieres' demand for an independent investigation into this atrocity.
No independent investigation could end up exonerating the US in this case.
As I wrote earlier, the US response to calls for an independent investigation stand in stark contrast to US complaints about Russia's refusal to participate or cooperate with a so-called international investigation into the downing of Malaysian Flight MH-17 over Ukraine two years ago.
One thing is clear. Gen. Campbell's assurance after this atrocity that in continuing operations in and around the embattled city of Kunduz "As always, we will take all reasonable steps to protect civilians from harm," is utter bullshit.
As for his claim that his "thoughts and prayers are with those affected," I suspect they are really pleas to his god to protect him from being tried someday for mass murder."
If the US can send an AC-130 to provide "air-support" in the middle of an urban battle zone, and can use it to assault, for over an hour, a known hospital facility, nobody is safe from American military power.
This is a case that must not go away, that cannot be "paid off" by "condolence" money, and that should lead to some high-profile trials for war crimes.
The Kunduz murders must, as MSF is demanding, be investigated by an independent international body, not by the killers themselves in the US military.
DAVE LINDORFF is a member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent, uncompromised, five-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper. His work, and that of colleagues JOHN GRANT, GARY LINDORFF, ALFREDO LOPEZ, LORI SPENCER, LINN WASHINGTON, JR. and the late CHARLES M. YOUNG, can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net
(Article changed on October 12, 2015 at 12:00)
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