[Peace-discuss] FW: Margaret Flowers Arrested Protesting Afghan Hospital Bombing

Wed Oct 7 07:35:32 EDT 2015

From: David Johnson [mailto:davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2015 6:34 AM
To: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net
Subject: Margaret Flowers Arrested Protesting Afghan Hospital Bombing

Margaret Flowers Arrested Protesting Afghan Hospital Bombing

Description: protest against bombing of hospital

Resist! <https://www.popularresistance.org/category/resist/>  War crimes
<https://www.popularresistance.org/tag/war-crimes/> , Wars and Militarism
<https://www.popularresistance.org/tag/wars-and-militarism/>  
By Alli McCracken, www.CODEPINK.or <http://www.CODEPINK.org> 
October 6th, 2015

  Powered by  <https://translate.google.com> Description:
https://www.gstatic.com/images/branding/googlelogo/1x/googlelogo_color_42x16
dp.pngTranslate

22
<https://www.popularresistance.org/margaret-flowers-arrested-protesting-afgh
an-hospital-bombing/> 

<http://www.printfriendly.com/print?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.popularresistance.
org%2Fmargaret-flowers-arrested-protesting-afghan-hospital-bombing%2F>
Description: Print FriendlyPrint Friendly

Note: Margaret Flowers, MD was arrested demanding an independent
investigation of the bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan by the US military
(see story below this note). Glenn Greenwald has reported on this bombing
and the varying stories that the Department of Defense has putting forward
which demonstrate why an independent investigation is needed.

In, The Radically Changing Story of the U.S. Airstrike on Afghan Hospital:
>From Mistake to Justification
<https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/the-radically-changing-story-of-the-u-s
-airstrike-on-afghan-hospital-from-mistake-to-justification> . As Greenwald
reports the initial
<https://twitter.com/stuartmillar159/status/650271482057113601> official
statement suggested: an airstrike it carried out in Kunduz may have
resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility. This is a
common response to controversial military attacks, but it did not hold in
this case because doctors with Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans
Frontières, MSF) pushed back against the story. 

As Greenwald reports They give
<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/u-s-airstrike-hits-doctors-without-borders-h
ospital-afghanistan/> compelling, articulate interviews in English to U.S.
media outlets and As the Guardians Spencer Ackerman
<https://twitter.com/attackerman/status/650821262898544640> put it last
night: MSFs been going incredibly hard, challenging every US/Afgh claim
made about hospital bombing.  MSF added some key facts:

<https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Doctors-withou
t-borders-offices-after-Kunduz-bombing.-e1444155288108.jpg> Description:
Doctors Without Borders office in Geneva. Those number are the GPS
coordinates of the hospital, which all fighting parties, including the
United States, were well informed of prior to the airstrike that killed 19
people.

Doctors Without Borders office in Geneva. Those number are the GPS
coordinates of the hospital, which all fighting parties, including the
United States, were well informed of prior to the airstrike that killed 19
people.

- The organization had repeatedly advised the U.S. military of the exact GPS
coordinates of the hospital, most recently on September 29, just five days
before the strike. 

- MSF personnel at the facility frantically called U.S. military officials
during the strike to advise them that the hospital was being hit and to
plead with them to stop, but the strikes continued in a sustained manner
for 30 more minutes. 

- And, they reported that The hospital was repeatedly & precisely hit
during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly
untouched.

Greenwald concludes that MSFs fational additions make it extremely
difficult  even for U.S. media outlets  to sell the accident story.

The new story from the DoD Greenwald reports the predominant narrative from
U.S. sources and their Afghan allies is that this attack was justified
because the Taliban were using it as a base. Various news outlets
reported on anonymous sources in DoD and the Afghan military. The New York
Times had a much more detailed story
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/world/asia/doctors-without-borders-says-i
t-is-leaving-kunduz-after-strike-on-hospital.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Hom
epage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1>
about heavy gunfire around the hospital at the time of the bombing where US
and Afghan soldiers called in air support so they could pull back. They even
quoted a member of parliament from Afghanistan claiming that a lot of
senior Taliban were also killed. 

Greenwald then reports on how MSF pushed back on this new story, saying
there were no Taliban forces in the hospital and:

MSF is disgusted by the recent statements coming from some Afghanistan
government authorities justifying the attack on its hospital in Kunduz.
These statements imply that Afghan and US forces working together decided to
raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital with more than 180 staff and
patients inside because they claim that members of the Taliban were present.

This amounts to an admission of a war crime. This utterly contradicts the
initial attempts of the US government to minimize the attack as collateral
damage.

There can be no justification for this abhorrent attack on our hospital
that resulted in the deaths of MSF staff as they worked and patients as they
lay in their beds. MSF reiterates its demand for a full transparent and
independent international investigation.

Then the story changes again, as Greenwald reports: The Pentagons top
four-star commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Campbell, now claims that
local Afghans forces asked for air support and U.S. forces were not under
direct fire just prior to the U.S. bombardment of the hospital. As NBC
notes, this directly contradicts prior claims: The Pentagon had previously
said U.S. troops were under direct fire.

MSF continues to push back on the DoD evlovling story. It has issued
<http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/msf-response-pentagon-claim-af
ghan-forces-called-kunduz-airstrike?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm
_campaign=social> this statement:

Today the US government has admitted that it was their airstrike that hit
our hospital in Kunduz and killed 22 patients and MSF staff. Their
description of the attack keeps changingfrom collateral damage, to a tragic
incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan
government. The reality is the US dropped those bombs. The US hit a huge
hospital full of wounded patients and MSF staff. The US military remains
responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition.
There can be no justification for this horrible attack. With such constant
discrepancies in the US and Afghan accounts of what happened, the need for a
full transparent independent investigation is ever more critical.

Reporting on the testimoney from the hearing where Dr. Flowers was arrested,
the NY Times reports
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/middleeast/doctors-without-borders-
airstrike-kunduz.html> : Gen. John F. Campbell, the American commander in
Afghanistan, told lawmakers Tuesday that the airstrike that mistakenly
struck a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz and killed 19 people
resulted from a U.S. decision made within the U.S. chain of command.

All of this is why we and Dr. Margaret Flowers more specifially are calling
for an independent investigation to determine whether the US violated
international law by bombing a hospital.

KZ

<https://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Doctors-withou
t-borders-Kunuz-hospital-after-attack-e1444153725647.jpg> Description:
Doctors without borders Kunuz hospital after attack. Source NBC News.

Doctors without borders Kunuz hospital after attack. Source NBC News.

Dr. Flowers Calls For Independent Investigation Into Hospital Bombing in
Kunduz, Afghanistan

Washington, DC  Before the start of a Senate Armed Services Committee
hearing about Afghanistan, Dr. Margaret Flowers was arrested for speaking
out against the recent US bombing of a Doctors Without Border hospital in
Kunduz, Afghanistan. Dr. Flowers was holding a sign which read BOMBING
HOSPITALS= WAR CRIME. In the attack on Kunduz, twelve staff members and at
least seven patients, including three children, were killed; 37 people were
injured, including 19 staff members including 19 staff members.

Dr. Flowers, a pediatrician from the Washington DC-based activist group
Popular Resistance, was with several members of the peace group CODEPINK at
the hearing wearing bloodied doctors garb with bloody hands to draw
attention to the culpability of the US military, and specifically the
hearing witness General John Campbell who is responsible for US forces in
Afghanistan, in the Kunduz massacre. As she left the hearing room she said:
Bombing hospitals is a war crime. Stop the bombing now. Several members of
Doctors Without Borders were present in the audience at the hearing.

There needs to be an independent investigation into the hospital bombing in
Kunduz because targeting hospitals is against international law. I am
appalled first that the US did this and second that instead of taking
responsibility, the military is trying to avoid it. Dr. Flowers said from
the Capitol Hill jail. People should be held accountable for violating the
law. Flowers is also a candidate for the US Senate seeking Sen. Barbara
Mikulskis seat.

The protesters are also calling for a US commitment to rebuild the hospital,
provide health care for the injured parties and compensate the families of
the deceased. They delivered to General Campbell
<http://www.codepink.org/campbell_kunduz?utm_campaign=afghanpetition&utm_med
ium=email&utm_source=codepink> a petition to that effect signed by over
5,000 members of CODEPINK.

Only an independent investigation will give us answers as to why a hospital
was bombed and why the bombing continued for more than 30 minutes after
Coalition and Afghan forces were informed that they were bombing a
humanitarian hospital. The 22 civilians killed in this attack, including 12
staff of Doctors Without Borders deserve a transparent investigation, said
Ella Watson-Stryker, who was named Time magazine person of the year for
fighting Ebola with Doctors Without Borders.

I feel like one part of me, my government to which I pay taxes, has bombed
the other part of me, my vocation as a humanitarian worker, says Athena
Viscusi, a social worker who has worked with Doctors Without Borders
delivering mental health care. Accusations that Doctors Without Borders was
harboring Taliban fighters are offensive and impossible. I echo the call for
an independent investigation.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151007/8d5fcd33/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 36365 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151007/8d5fcd33/attachment-0003.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 974 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151007/8d5fcd33/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 1145 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151007/8d5fcd33/attachment-0001.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 44977 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151007/8d5fcd33/attachment-0004.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image005.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 47149 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20151007/8d5fcd33/attachment-0005.jpg>