Almost all of the corporate media began by distancing the US from the attack, with some\u00a0indicating\u00a0that it was possible the hospital’s\u00a0destruction\u00a0simply coincided with US\u00a0air strikes in that area. The BBC used the painfully evasive “Afghan air strike” in an early\u00a0headline<\/a>, suggesting the possibility of an illusory Afghan air force, to keep the US out of the picture.<\/p>\n Then, the US admitted it was responsible but claimed the strike was an accident. The problem, however, was that this story too was not credible: Doctors without Borders\u00a0(M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res) had given the US and Afghan forces the GPS coordinates of the hospital and called the US military to tell them of the attack\u00a0during the\u00a0strike to no avail.<\/p>\n Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, exemplified the western liberal community’s torturous efforts to avoid considering\u00a0US responsibility for such a serious war crime. He wanted us to think about\u00a0Assad rather than Kunduz in this astonishing, deflectionary tweet (since deleted).<\/p>\n (Note that this a familiar\u00a0practice by the HRW team: I wrote at length about similar efforts<\/a> by their investigators to try to accuse\u00a0Hizbollah of more serious breaches of international law than Israel when considering\u00a0the same<\/em> war crimes.)<\/p>\n Next, the US admitted\u00a0it had intentionally targeted the medical facility, but did so because, it claimed, there were Taliban fighters using it as a base, even though no evidence was produced and Doctors without Borders staff absolutely denied that had been\u00a0the case.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Screen-Shot-2015-10-04-at-15.53.02-e1444200718252.png\")
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