The New York Times Has Degenerated Into A Propaganda
Organ Of The US Government
44 years ago the NYT
published the Pentagon Papers.
Today the NYT publishes neoconservative lies, which have destroyed several
countries and millions of peoples, and dishonest apologies for Washington’s war
crimes. Stephen Lendman tells us about the latest NYT atrocity.
It is amazing that anyone still reads the NYT.
NYT Justifies US Afghan Hospital Bombing
by Stephen Lendman
Almost daily, The Times
finds new ways to disgrace itself. Instead of full and accurate reporting, it
fronts for imperial lawlessness – making it complicit with high crimes of war
and against humanity.
Its administration and
Pentagon press release “journalism” is an open cesspool of misinformation,
distortion and Big Lies – all propaganda all the time on issues mattering most.
Its latest willful deception
headlines “Hospital Attack Fueled by Units New to Kunduz,” saying:
“The American airstrike
against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in northern Afghanistan…was approved
by American Special Operations Forces normally assigned to other parts of
Asia.”
“The Afghan commandos who requested
the strike had been rushed from another part of the country to help quell the
Taliban attack. And the AC-130 gunship that unleashed the fire had not worked
with either group before.”
“Military investigators have
not yet reached any final conclusions about how the Oct. 3 attack in Kunduz
occurred, but an emerging focus of investigators is how the lack of familiarity
of American and Afghan forces with the area and their lack of experience in
working together may have directly contributed to the series of mistaken
decisions that led to the attack, American officials said.”
“They attributed those
problems, in part, to the withdrawal of American forces from northern
Afghanistan that has been part of the gradual drawdown of United States forces
in the country.”
No legitimate editor would
publish this type rubbish – willful distortion of facts, ignoring clear
evidence of a premeditated war crime, horrific by any standard, a vicious
bandit act carried out by a rogue state, authorized at the highest levels,
contemptuous of human lives and welfare, continuing over 14 years of naked
aggression against a nation threatening no one.
Fact: US warplanes knowingly
and deliberately bombed what they knew was a Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
hospital – treating sick and wounded Afghans, not involved in fighting.
Fact: High-ranking US and
Afghan officials in Washington and Kabul had precise coordinates of the
facility – identified as a hospital, not a military outpost or refuge.
Fact: Multiple US attacks
continued for over an hour – ignoring MSF’s frantic plea to stop, moments after
the first strike, telling Pentagon and Afghan authorities a hospital was being
hit, medical personnel and patients alone inside.
Fact: Attacking the facility
was a well-planned, premeditated, willful act of mass murder – 24 victims,
medical staff and patients only, some burned alive in their beds, 37 others
injured.
The only medical facility
available for thousands of Afghans was destroyed. They have nowhere to go for
treatment, assuring many will die and suffer grievously because of Washington’s
act of savagery.
The Times report mocks them,
ignoring 14 years of US Afghan war crimes. Post-9/11, millions of Afghans died
from war-related violence, untreated diseases, starvation, exposure to freezing
cold in winter and overall deprivation – deliberate premeditated genocide, the
highest of all high crimes.
An unnamed MSF nurse called
what happened “absolutely terrifying.” People were screaming for help while the
hospital was being destroyed, turned to rubble and set ablaze by US airstrikes.
“We tried to take a look
into one of the burning buildings,” said the nurse. “I cannot describe what was
inside. There are no words for how terrible it was. In the Intensive Care Unit,
six patients were burning in their beds.”
“We looked for some staff
that were supposed to be in the operating theater. It was awful. A patient
there on the operating table, dead, in the middle of the destruction. We
couldn’t find our staff.”
Wounded patients were
“crying out, everywhere.” Surviving doctors had to operate on their colleagues,
trying to save them. Many died.
“Some of my colleagues were
in too much shock, crying and crying.” The horror was too much to bear.
Doctors, nurses and other medical staff worked tirelessly for months, at times
non-stop, treating patients urgently needing care.
They hadn’t been home for
months. Many are now dead – murdered by US imperialism, humanity’s greatest
scourge, ISIS and other takfiri terrorists pale in comparison.
“I cannot find words for
this,” said the nurse. He survived. Many of his colleagues died. MSF demands a
full independent investigation, conducted by the Geneva-based International
Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) – the only permanent body
established to investigate international humanitarian law violations.
It rejects Washington, NATO
and Afghan authorities investigating themselves – assuring whitewash, not truth
and full disclosure of what happened.
It called on Obama and
Afghan officials to permit it, a requirement for it to proceed, so far not
gotten. Last week, MSF reported a US armored vehicle forced its way through the
closed wrecked hospital’s gate unannounced – destroying and/or damaging
evidence of the malicious attack.
MSF press officer Tim Shenk
explained it, saying “(t)heir unannounced and forced entry damaged property,
destroyed potential evidence and caused stress and fear for the team.”
Photographs show charred
human remains, damaged or destroyed medical equipment, and a facility largely
in ruins.
With or without an
independent investigation, the whole world knows what happened. Washington
knowingly and willfully committed a grievous war crime, mass murdering
noncombatant civilians, the way all US wars are waged – without mercy,
violating fundamental international law, civilian men, women and children
suffering most.
The Times is complicit with
Washington’s coverup – publishing Pentagon propaganda, suppressing vital
truths.
A Final Comment
On July 3, 2015, MSF
reported the following:
“On Wednesday 1 July at
14:07, heavily armed men from Afghan Special Forces entered the MSF hospital
compound, cordoned off the facility and began shooting in the air.”
“The armed men physically
assaulted three MSF staff members and entered the hospital with weapons. They
then proceeded to arrest three patients.”
“Hospital staff tried their
best to ensure continued medical care for the three patients, and in the
process, one MSF staff member was threatened at gunpoint by two armed
men.”
“After approximately one
hour, the armed men released the three patients and left the hospital
compound.”
“We are shocked by this
incident,” MSF director of operations Dr. Bart Janssens said at the time.
“Since it opened in 2011, Kunduz Trauma Centre has been a place where all
patients can receive free medical and surgical care safely. This serious event
puts at risk the lives of thousands of people who rely on the centre for urgent
care.”
MSF called what happened “an
unacceptable (serious) breach of international humanitarian law, which protects
medical services from attacks” – this one carried out with full knowledge and
likely authorization of US officials, running everything in Afghanistan, its
puppet regime subservient to US rule.
Stephen Lendman lives in
Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net
His new book as editor and
contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW
III.”
Listen to cutting-edge
discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the
Progressive Radio Network.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books areThe Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West
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