The Pressure Is On

We've obviously bombed the wrong hospital this time. This one wasn't run by natives or Islamic charities like the one we decimated in Falluja.  ("At least four were hit recently in Iraq. U.S. bombs had also struck hospitals in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Iraq in the 1990s. [...] In George W. Bush’s war on Afghanistan, 2001-2002, bombs struck hospitals in Herat, Kabul, and Kandahar; some reports placed the death toll in the hundreds." - May 2003 Source.  Bombing hospitals is a New War tactic also used by Israel and by Assad in Syria. It's also in direct violation of the Geneva conventions, not to mention utterly immoral and reprehensible.)

Dismissal of this latest hospital bombing as "collateral damage" didn't satisfy Doctors Without Borders (MSF).  Nor did "there were terrorists being harbored there" nor "terrorists were firing on US forces from there."  We're down to "it's the Afghan military's fault."

Local Afghan forces asked for air support and American forces were not under direct fire just prior to the U.S. bombardment of an Afghan hospital that killed at least 22 people, the coalition's top commander in Afghanistan said Monday.

The Pentagon had previously said U.S. troops were under direct fire.

"I've ordered a thorough investigation into this tragic incident and the investigation is ongoing," U.S. Army Gen. John Campbell said. "The Afghans ordered the same. If errors were committed we'll acknowledge them. We'll hold those responsible accountable and we will take steps to ensure mistakes are not repeated."

[...]

Military officials told NBC News over the weekend that Afghans cannot call in airstrikes — that they do not have the training. However, they can report to the U.S. and coalition that they are under fire from a location and the U.S. or coalition partners there can call it in. Officials said the U.S. would not strike without target verification first.

[...]

It isn't clear how the Afghans asked for air support, but Campbell seemed to suggest both of those policies were violated.

A preliminary report into the bombing should be ready "in the next couple of days," he added.

  NBC

And the whole world will be waiting.

UPDATE:  12:30pm

The U.S. seems to have picked the wrong group this time to attack from the air.

  Glenn Greenwald

October 05, 2015 "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 changing—from 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."

—Christopher Stokes, General Director, Médecins Sans Frontières

  Doctors without Borders