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Swedish Charity: US Raided Afghan Hospital
American Army Troops Allegedly Stormed Facility, Tied Up Staff in Reported Violation of NATO Agreement
A Swedish charity accused American troops Monday of storming through a hospital in central Afghanistan, breaking down doors and tying up staff in a search for militants. The U.S. military said it was investigating.
The allegation that soldiers violated the neutrality of a medical facility follows the reported deaths of Afghan civilians in a U.S. air strike in the country's north last week.
Nearly eight years after the U.S.-led coalition invaded to oust the Taliban, foreign forces are working to persuade the population to support the Afghan government. But civilian deaths and intrusive searches of homes have bred resentment.
Read more on how the recent airstrike in Kunduz was an "enormous coup" for the Taliban in the World Watch blog.
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan said the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division entered the charity's hospital without permission to look for insurgents in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, according to the charity's country director, Anders Fange.
"This is simply not acceptable," he said.
The U.S. troops came to the hospital looking for Taliban insurgents late at night last Wednesday, Fange said. He said they kicked in doors, tied up four hospital employees and two family members of patients, and forced patients out of beds during their search.
When they left two hours later, the unit ordered hospital staff to inform coalition forces if any wounded militants were admitted, and the military would decide if they could be treated, Fange said.
The staff refused, he said. "That would put our staff at risk and make the hospital a target."
The charity said on its Web site that the troops actions were not only a violation of humanitarian principles but also went against an agreement between NATO forces and charities working in the area.
"We demand guarantees ... that such violations will not be repeated and that this is made clear to commanders in the field," a statement said.
Navy public affairs officer Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker confirmed that the hospital was searched last week but had no other details. She said the military was looking into the incident.
"We are investigating and we take allegations like this seriously," she said. "Complaints like this are rare."
Violence has surged across much of Afghanistan since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 more U.S. troops to the country this year. Two foreign troops were killed Sunday when their patrol hit a roadside bomb in the country's south, NATO said without giving their nationalities. Three civilians also died in a militant rocket attack on the capital.
NATO was also investigating reported civilian deaths in a U.S. air strike last week. Afghan officials said up to 70 people were killed in the early morning air strike Friday in the northern province of Kunduz after the Taliban hijacked two fuel tanker. After the trucks became stuck in the mud on the banks of a river, villagers came to siphon off gas and some were reported killed when an American jet dropped two bombs on the stolen tankers.
The increasingly violent Taliban have killed more Afghan civilians in bombings and other attacks. On Monday, the government said three insurgent rockets landed in the capital, Kabul, killing three people when one of them hit a house.
A United Nations report in July said the number of civilians killed in conflict in Afghanistan has jumped 24 per cent this year, with bombings by insurgent and air strikes by international forces the biggest single killers. The report said that 1,013 civilians were killed in the first half of 2009, 59 per cent in insurgent attacks and 30.5 per cent by foreign and Afghan government forces. The rest were undetermined.
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17 Comments so far
Show AllI've heard of this kind of shit happening before both in Iraq and Palestine, done by Americans and Israelis soldiers--wicked to the core! And they say they will win the minds and hearts of the occupied--right!
Perhaps a better word than "wicked" to describe a nation(s) or person(s) that can do this is DEPRAVITY.
Correction: And when torture is called "enhanced interrogation technique", then perhaps depravity does not suffice to describe what we have become or what are doing. Perhaps a better word is INSANITY.
And it turns out that the most immoral government in the world is our own. Such a pity.
Get out.
Joe
"Navy public affairs officer Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker confirmed that the hospital was searched last week but had no other details. She said the military was looking into the incident."
Translation: Delay and hope the media forgets the incident since no real action will be taken against anyone anyways.
This is a page straight out of Israel's playbook. When will the world stand up to the true rogue states? When will Europe grow a spine?
Sorry folks but the Fallujah Holocaust was before the Gaza Holocaust.
Fallujah --- Initial bombing targets Hospitals and Clinics.
White phospherous on civilians.
Shoot ambulance drivers.
Sorry but the USA does not need demented zionist for mentors the USA military is psycho enough on it's own.
When will the American public grow a spine? This American inflicted mayhem is accepted and condoned by lazy, apathetic Americans, too busy shopping and mowing their 10 acre lawns to care squat about the Pentagons bludgioning of the world...
[the unit ordered hospital staff to inform coalition forces if any wounded militants were admitted, and the military would decide if they could be treated, Fange said.]
Gee, isn't that what the soldiers of the Empire of Japan did when they conquered territories? Yes, it is. Of course the Japanese soldiers also bayoneted the wounded and killed them outright, I imagine that the yanks wanted to do to the taliban wounded what they did to Khadr. Deny treatment until they 'confess' their crimes against humanity and then hang them after a 'fair' trial...
Just when you think there are some things the yank army wont do, they surprise you. Although I really shouldn't be surprised by this crap anymore.
Calm down. They were not looking for terrorists. They were looking for a national health care policy.
Hmm, seems to me as if the Powers That Be may be looking for a "Jessica Lynch"* in Afghanistan to boost public support for the Af-Pak phase of the Amerikan Hegemony's imperialist permawar.
Invading a hospital with the grace and civility of a pack of rabid wolverines doesn't exactly win "hearts and minds", even among Afghans Sitting in Darkness.
The storming of a hospital evoked the Lynch episode, which I realize differs fundamentally from this escapade. I only refer to it to suggest that this debacle is nakedly ugly, and that here the military didn't even bother to create a pretextual "fig leaf".
And as another commenter noted, the US certainly borrowed and copied the IDF berserker approach to military operations after 2001, to augment its own skills in militarized terrorism.
*No disrespect intended to Ms. Lynch herself, who had the courage and integrity to repudiate the fictional version after the Amerikan government and its corporate media propaganda arm had finished exploiting her.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Test. I'm having difficulty posting; have been for probably around two hours now at CD. So this is just a test to see if this'll get posted.
Okay, so the test worked, but then trying to add a separate post for what I was wanting to post failed; therefore, I'll see how adding the text by editing this post works.
That also seems to fail, so how about with just these few words; even if my post was much less than the 1,000 word limit, maybe this shorter test edit will work. Preview works, so now what about posting?
Something's really goofy with CD's server, or something else is going on, for I could make the short test post and then added a few more words to that post, but failed in trying to post this paragraph separately, which I just tried to do. I've been having problems with the CD connection for a week or more now, but have, so far, just reloaded, clicked Preview and then Post again, and this worked. Today's much worse. I'll try resubmitting this as a separate post again, one more time, and if it fails, then I'll try adding this to the test post.
Marian Cole
The U.S. Military needs to be OUT OF AFGHANISTAN. This withdrawal must include the infamous contractors as well.
The raid on the Hospital is unforgivable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Remember when a Kuwaiti Ambassadors daughter reported to Congress that Iraqi soldiers were throwing premie babies out of their incubators and the world was outraged enough to support the 1st Gulf war. We found out later that it was a lie. But when the US and UN economic sanctions on Iraq caused the electricity to be off in the hospitals and premie babies died nobody cared. It seemed that humanitarians who broke the sanctions to help the Iraqis were reporting the carnage the sanctions caused and very few people heard about it or just didn't care. What would happen if the US bombed the infrastructure of Afghanistan including electrical, clean water, sewers. all roads then imposed the same sanctions on Afghanistan as they did to Iraq. I worry that if the war is ended and the Afghan government is overthrown that Sanctions like the Iraqi ones will be imposed and that would be worse, as far as suffering and deaths of the civilians , is concerned.
For the Cuckold.
When a military spokesperson says "Complaints like this are rare", I have to wonder how often does it happen and we do not hear about it.
When a military spokesperson says "We are investigating and we take allegations like this seriously", it means they are pissed off that it was reported and they haven't figured out how to lie about why it happened.
The rampant love of force and violence in the United States of America has infected NATO, largely through the whores of England. IF the European Union really wants to create a better world, they had better tell the U.S.A. "enough is enough." If they don't, and SOON, their repute will be one side of cuckoldry.
"Navy public affairs officer Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker confirmed that the hospital was searched last week but had no other details"
Just curious, but what the hell does the Navy have to do with landlocked Afghanistan?