Your “Official” Lie

Afghan official: Hospital in airstrike was ‘a Taliban base’

By Tim Craig, Правда

October 4 at 11:20 AM

The acting governor of Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province said Sunday that Taliban fighters had been routinely firing “small and heavy” weapons from the grounds of a local hospital before it was apparently hit by a U.S. airstrike over the weekend.

In an interview, Hamdullah Danishi said the Doctors Without Borders compound was “a Taliban base” that was being used to plot and carry out attacks across the provincial capital, Kunduz city.

“The hospital campus was 100 percent used by the Taliban,” Danishi said. “The hospital has a vast garden, and the Taliban were there. We tolerated their firing for some time” before responding.

Early Saturday, in an airstrike that outraged the United Nations and humanitarian groups across the world, at least 22 people were killed and 37 others critically wounded during sustained bombardment near the hospital.

On Sunday, Doctors Without Borders strongly refuted suggestions that any Taliban fighters were inside the hospital at the time of the attack.

“The gates of the hospital were all closed so no one that is not a staff, a patient or a caretaker was inside the hospital when the bombing happened,” the group said in a statement.

…

Danishi, who became acting governor last week when the former governor failed to return to Kunduz after the Taliban seized it Monday, said Taliban fighters had been firing rocket-propelled grenades from hospital grounds for days.

A longtime deputy governor, he defended the actions of coalition forces, saying the suspected airstrike had been aimed along the perimeter of hospital grounds. He said the main hospital building, where most of the causalities occurred, somehow caught fire during the airstrike but it was the not the main target.

…

Christopher Stokes, general director of Doctors Without Borders, is demanding an independent review of the incident.

“Under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed, [Doctors Without Borders] demands that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body,” Stokes said in a statement. “Relying on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient.”

Stokes also pushed back against suggestions that U.S. or Afghan troops were fired on before the airstrike occurred. He said no Doctors Without Borders staff members heard any fighting inside the hospital compound prior to the airstrike.

“We reiterate that the main hospital building, where medical personnel were caring for patients, was repeatedly and very precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched,” Stokes said. “We condemn this attack, which constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law.”

U.S. officials said the airstrike occurred as U.S. Special Operations soldiers were accompanying Afghan troops near the hospital. Since at least mid-summer, there had been considerable tension between Afghan troops in Kunduz and hospital staff members.

In July, Doctors Without Borders issued a statement accusing Afghan troops of a “violent armed intrusion” at the now-destroyed Kunduz hospital. The group said Afghan special forces burst into the hospital July 1 and “began shooting into the air.” The soldiers then assaulted three hospital staff members before arresting three patients.

“One staff member was threatened at gunpoint by two armed men,” the group said in the July statement. “After approximately one hour, the armed men released the three patients and left the hospital compound.”

The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

Why quote Goebbels?  I think it appropriate for the current regime.