American Soldier(s) Massacre 16 Afghan Civilians

[vanlose kid]

Allen told his men that "now is not the time for revenge for the deaths of two US soldiers killed in Thursday's riots". They should, he said, "resist whatever urge they might have to strike back" after an Afghan soldier killed the two Americans. "There will be moments like this when you're searching for the meaning of this loss," Allen continued. "There will be moments like this, when your emotions are governed by anger and a desire to strike back. Now is not the time for revenge, now is the time to look deep inside your souls, remember your mission, remember your discipline, remember who you are."

Robert Fisk wrote...
Now this was an extraordinary plea to come from the US commander in Afghanistan. The top general had to tell his supposedly well-disciplined, elite, professional army not to "take vengeance" on the Afghans they are supposed to be helping/protecting/nurturing/training, etc. He had to tell his soldiers not to commit murder. I know that generals would say this kind of thing in Vietnam. But Afghanistan? Has it come to this? I rather fear it has. Because – however much I dislike generals – I've met quite a number of them and, by and large, they have a pretty good idea of what's going on in the ranks. And I suspect that Allen had already been warned by his junior officers that his soldiers had been enraged by the killings that followed the Koran burnings – and might decide to go on a revenge spree. Hence he tried desperately – in a statement that was as shocking as it was revealing – to pre-empt exactly the massacre which took place last Sunday.

Good catch for Mr. Fisk here. The solders are trained to hate the Hajj in basic training so it is patiently absurd to think that Americans have intentions of bringing anything positive to Afghanistan.

We've all had our little massacres. There was My Lai, and our very own little My Lai, at a Malayan village called Batang Kali where the Scots Guards – involved in a conflict against ruthless communist insurgents – murdered 24 unarmed rubber workers in 1948

This kind of thing seems disgusting in that there so many not little massacres going on all the time, nearly every day and all over the world. Do we get to deny remembrance to all the atrocities simply by holding up My Lai or Batang Kali as a totem of our sorrow?

This also may be the bone that must be tossed to those slathering dogs called editors.

deflection and journalistic penance? there seems to be a bit of that. [and a bit of relish of his own rhetoric.] still not clear to me what the point of Fisk's last paragraph is though.

*

[NeonLX]

My 17 year old, while watching a segment on the a.m. teevee news about the serviceman's financial and stress issues: "Didn't this guy just do what he was supposed to do? Didn't he sign up to kill people when he joined the military?".

[crikkett]

I'm skeptical of the 'single deranged soldier' theory but not because of the idea that a base is secure. It wasn't difficult for me to sneak/bluff onto or off of a base, even under DEFCON conditions, even as a civilian. But I've never been to Afghanistan.

(edited to remove snark)

[Nordic]

You know what is so seriously fucked up:

Had these same civilians been slaughtered in a drone strike, we'd hardly hear a word about it. They would have been labelled "militants" or "suspected al Queda" and that would have been the end of it.

Would have barely made a blip in the "news" here.

[Saurian Tail]

From the things that make you go "hmmm" department:

Soldier in Afghan killings ‘remembers little'
US army man accused of slaughtering 16 civilians has sketchy memory of the night of the massacre, says his lawyer.

The lawyer for the US army staff sergeant accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians in a nighttime shooting rampage has met his client for the first time and said the solider has a sketchy memory of the night of the massacre.

Lawyer John Henry Browne said on Monday that Robert Bales remembers some details from before and after the killings, but very little or nothing from the time the military believes he went on a shooting spree through two Afghan villages.

"He has some memory of some things that happened that night. He has some memories of before the incident and he has some memories of after the incident. In between, very little," Browne told The Associated Press news agency by telephone from Fort Leavenworth, where Bales is being held since Friday.

Pressed on whether Bales can remember anything about the shooting, Browne said, "No," but added, "I haven't gotten that far with him yet." In an earlier interview with CBS News, Browne said unequivocally that Bales could not remember the shootings.

Bales, 38, has not been charged yet in the March 11 shootings, though charges could come this week. The killings sparked protests in Afghanistan, endangered relations between the two countries and threatened to upend US policy over the decade-old war.

Meanwhile, Bales' wife, Karilyn, offered her condolences to the victims' families and said she wants to know what happened. She said her family and her in-laws are profoundly sad. She said what they have read and seen in news reports is "completely out of character of the man I know and admire".

(Source: Associated Press)

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012 ... 08650.html

[compared2what?]

We've all had our little massacres. There was My Lai, and our very own little My Lai, at a Malayan village called Batang Kali where the Scots Guards – involved in a conflict against ruthless communist insurgents – murdered 24 unarmed rubber workers in 1948

deflection and journalistic penance? there seems to be a bit of that. [and a bit of relish of his own rhetoric.] still not clear to me what the point of Fisk's last paragraph is though.

*

I think he's just saying, "That's war for you, but that doesn't make it alright."

However, I do agree that he didn't say it very clearly, if so.

Nevertheless. His explanation is the first one I've heard that sounds like some form of reality supported by evidence, to me. Though Nordic's hypothesis makes sense, too. They're not really mutually exclusive, though, I don't think.

[The Consul]

To the best of my recollection I cannot remember shooting those children in the face and lighting them on fire. I have nightmares that my bones poke out of my flesh and all the meat of me is running white with maggots. I cannot say I did it. I cannot say I didn't. I see Jesus on the cross but he is not just being crucified. It is the very horror of existing, the brutality of humanity on display. Flies come out of his wounds and lay eggs in mine. Corporal Kenyon has a large stack of Koran's at the foot of the cross. When he squirts the lighter fluid on them and drops the match and Jesus screams...that's when I wake up and try to grab my rifle.

Ask the people there, don't ask me...how I went to three villages, alone....how no one even tried to so much as throw a stone at me.

Ask the people there what each of those nine children did that day of their final sleep. Ask each of the mothers and brothers if they think it's understandable. Soldiers crack. Here...here's five thousand dollars.

I even got the barefoot Ted Bundy lawer. You see, I cannot possibly remember, and if I did, it would not be what happened. The more you understand me, the more you will like me, and your pity will put a thin lid on your cowardly fear.

I had another dream that back in Fort Lewis this guy in a white Toyota pick up cut me off and I got pissed. He had a "Ted Nuggent for President" Sticker in his cab window. I was hot, I wanted to run him off the fucking road, get my pistol and shoot the fucker, man, shoot the fucker's laughing face off.

I got up side, in the dream, and I recognized it was my CO from Stryker Brigade. He leaned out the window with his sqaure head and screamed "I know what you need, soldier. I do! I know what you need!" And he smiled the smile of the insane, and each of his teeth were blood stained bullets.

Maybe I am not dreaming. Maybe I never fell asleep. Maybe none of this is happening. The whole world wants to tear me apart. I do too, but I can't remember. There are the pink pills and the blue pills. Maybe I didn't do anything. Maybe none of us are awake. I can smell Jesus, you know, he's still burning, and I hear millions of muslim women mouring the death of The Prophet while they sweep away the ashes where their children once slept.

They'll never make it to Mecca and I'll never make it to Disney Land.

[Ben D]

Just to affirm, you are an excellent writer Consul,...touches the heart.

[StarmanSkye]

Ditto.

Powerful stuff there alright, flushes out the cracks and makes ya think.

Much appreciated!

[Saurian Tail]

Fascinating story here. See video at link ... it is quite informative.

The story here is that this guy defrauded old people of huge cash. Had a million dollar judgement placed against him. And joined the army to escape justice.

Afghan Murder Suspect Bales 'Took My Life Savings,' Says Retiree

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/army-bale ... 2idulElbFI

By BRIAN ROSS (@brianross) and MEGAN CHUCHMACH (@megcourtney)

March 19, 2012

Robert Bales, the staff sergeant accused of massacring Afghan civilians, enlisted in the U.S. Army at the same time he was trying to avoid answering allegations he defrauded an elderly Ohio couple of their life savings in a stock fraud, according to federal documents reviewed by ABC News.

"He robbed me of my life savings," Gary Liebschner of Carroll, Ohio told ABC News.

Financial regulators found that Bales "engaged in fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, churning, unauthorized trading and unsuitable investments," according to a report on Bales filed in 2003. Bales and his associates were ordered to pay Liebschner $1,274,000 in compensatory and punitive damages but have yet to do so, according to Liebschner.



"We didn't know where he was," Liebschner told ABC News. "We heard the Bahamas, and all kinds of places."

Liebschner says he recognized Bales after news reports named him as the American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a shooting rampage.

Liebschner filed a complaint against Bales in May 2000, claiming Bales took his life savings of $852,000 in AT&T stock and through a series of trades reduced its value to nothing.
The Ohio retiree recalled Bales as a "smooth talker." Asked if he regarded Bales as a con man, Liebschner said, "You've hit the nail on the head."

At the time, Bales worked for an Ohio brokerage firm, MPI.

According to federal documents, Bales failed to appear at an arbitration hearing to resolve Liebschner's complaint.

[Nordic]

I think what we're seeing is a state-of-the-art coverup, 2012 style!

It's pretty fascinating on that level.

Frightening, but fascinating.

Tomorrow: Good Morning America interviews puppies that Bale has kicked.

[Stephen Morgan]

I think what we're seeing is a state-of-the-art coverup, 2012 style!

It's pretty fascinating on that level.

Frightening, but fascinating.

Tomorrow: Good Morning America interviews puppies that Bale has kicked.

Like Atta slaughtering kittens?

He's a bad man. If you're going to get someone out of clink and send them to central Asia to protect the drug trade, you don't choose a boy scout.

Mujahid Menepta/Melvin Lattimore was also first recruited by the FBI from prison, behind bars on an armed robbery charge.

[Nordic]

I think what we're seeing is a state-of-the-art coverup, 2012 style!

It's pretty fascinating on that level.

Frightening, but fascinating.

Tomorrow: Good Morning America interviews puppies that Bale has kicked.

Like Atta slaughtering kittens?

He's a bad man. If you're going to get someone out of clink and send them to central Asia to protect the drug trade, you don't choose a boy scout.

Mujahid Menepta/Melvin Lattimore was also first recruited by the FBI from prison, behind bars on an armed robbery charge.

I'm sure he is a bad man, and that's why he's currently so useful!

[RobinDaHood]

Who is Robert Bales? Friends, comrades thought they knew

LAKE TAPPS, Wash. — For those who grew up with him, Robert Bales seemed to have a place reserved on easy street. Captain of the football team and president of the sophomore class at his Ohio high school, Bales after just three years of college had an oceanfront condo in Florida. He was also pulling in more than $100,000 a year as a financial adviser.

His investment work ran into trouble, though, and when the Sept. 11 attacks came, Bales felt what friends said was an irresistible call. He enlisted in the Army — signed up for the hardest duty anybody could ask for, the infantry — and headed almost straight for Iraq.

“I thought, ‘Jeez, man. That’s crazy. You’ve got it all,’” said Steven Berling, a high school friend.

But Bales had long seemed fascinated by what led nations into combat. “I remember one day in AP (advanced placement) history class, Bobby and the teacher were going back and forth about old wars and ... various historic battles,” Berling said. “He must have been reading up on all that on his own.”

In Iraq, Bales was a soldier “who really believed in it,” his former platoon leader, Chris Alexander, said. “It was rare to find an E5 soldier who was as deep a thinker as he was. ... He’d get into these epic conversations about the Middle East and our role.”

Now, friends are trying to piece together how the gregarious 38-year-old staff sergeant could have become the tragic anti-hero suspected in the late-night massacre of 16 Afghan civilians — a crime that has prompted new questions about how much longer the U.S. can remain in Afghanistan.

For soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, where Bales was based during three deployments to Iraq and one in Afghanistan, the events have been dumbfounding. Bales trained his men carefully, oversaw his patrols vigilantly, and treated Iraqi villagers with respect and good humor. That he could have snapped so precipitously is almost beyond comprehension.

There is sympathy for the financial problems, multiple deployments and violence that may have imposed unbearable stress, but also contempt for a soldier who may have put others in the path of potential violent reprisals.

“The picture that’s being painted of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales — that ‘There but for the grace of God goes any other American soldier’ — this is amazingly offensive,” said Bryan Suits, who hosts a Seattle-based KFI radio show popular with soldiers and veterans.

Suits, who served three Army deployments, said nearly all long-serving U.S. troops had similar stories of nightmarish deployments. “Everybody’s been there. And this is the first time a guy has killed 16 civilians,” he said.

But Bales’ combat colleagues appear more mystified than angry.

“I know Bales. I worked with him for years. He was a great NCO,” Alexander said. “And you don’t go from being somebody like that to all of a sudden shooting unarmed people. ... There’s something more to it.”

Longtime friend Michael Blevins, who grew up with Bales in Ohio, said almost the same thing. “I want people to know there is no way the guy I knew did this,” he said. “You don’t go from being a local hero to a monster.”

———

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/west/view.bg?articleid=1061118806&srvc=rss
more at link...

[seemslikeadream]

U.S. Military
US Coverup. Probe Finds Not One - But up to 20 US Soldiers implicated in March 11 Panjwai massacre.
By Les Blough, Axis of Logic. Bashir Ahmad Naadimon, Pajhwok Afghan News
Axis of Logic. Pajhwok Afghan News. RT News.
Tuesday, Mar 20, 2012

Yesterday we reported that U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales now has a legal team to defend him in the United States against widely published charges that he alone killed the 16 Afghan civilians including 9 children and 3 women in their sleep on March 11, 2012. Later last night we received a report that there has been a coverup by the US government and that more US soldiers may have been involved in the massacre. Today we learned that an investigation team from the Afghan Parliament team says that up to 20 US Troops are implicated in the Panjwai massacre and that more Afghans were killed and wounded. The latest reports indicate that other Afghans were rounded up and killed and bodies burned in this "cold, calculated atrocity."

One surviving family member said: “I don’t want any compensation. I don’t want money. I don’t want a trip to Mecca. I don’t want a house. I want nothing. But what I absolutely want is the punishment of the Americans. This is my demand, my demand, my demand and my demand.”

Not surprisingly, the US media has been in complicity with the coverup. For examples, the Washington Post reported Bales as the lone assassin and quoted Captain Chris Alexander, Bales’ platoon commander, saying he’s “hands down, one of the best soldiers I ever worked with.” And the New York Times dutifully parroted the US military's version that Bales acted alone without any investigative journalism, saying that he was injured twice in the past and cited a report that his military record was exemplary.

According to the article below a group of Afghan parliamentarians believe there is evidence that 15 to 20 US soldiers were involved. Today, the Karzai government has accused the US military of not cooperating with that investigation and Karzai demanded that the servicemen (plural) must be brought to justice. Afghan army head General Sher Mohammad Karimi said US military officials “ignored and blocked” his attempt to investigate the incident. Karimi indicated the US Military would not allow Afghan officials to interrogate Bales who was flown out of the country and placed in the Leavenworth Federal Prison in Kansas. Moreover, in the video below, Rick Rozoff gives reasons to believe that Robert Bales will not receive any trial.

- Les Blough, Editor

Afghan police and residents gather around a van containing the bodies of some of the 9 children, 3 women and 4 civilian men murdered by US Troops in Afghanistan in the shooting. Photograph: I Sameem/EPA

In disbelief, two grief-stricken Afghan men look into the van where the body of a badly burned child lays, wrapped in a blue blanket (Photograph: EPA)

Up to 20 US troops executed Panjwai massacre: probe
Pajhwok Afghan News
by Bashir Ahmad Naadimon Mar 15, 2012 - 21:33


KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday’s killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province.

The probing delegation includes lawmakers Hamidzai Lali, Abdul Rahim Ayubi, Shakiba Hashimi, Syed Mohammad Akhund and Bismillah Afghanmal, all representing Kandahar province at the Wolesi Jirga and Abdul Latif Padram, a lawmaker from northern Badakhshan province, Mirbat Mangal, Khost province, Muhammad Sarwar Usmani, Farah province.

The team spent two days in the province, interviewing the bereaved families, tribal elders, survivors and collecting evidences at the site in Panjwai district.

Hamizai Lali told Pajhwok Afghan News their investigation showed there were 15 to 20 American soldiers, who executed the brutal killings.

“We closely examined the site of the incident, talked to the families who lost their beloved ones, the injured people and tribal elders,” he said.

He added the attack lasted one hour involving two groups of American soldiers in the middle of the night on Sunday.

“The villages are one and a half kilometre from the American military base. We are convinced that one soldier cannot kill so many people in two villages within one hour at the same time, and the 16 civilians, most of them children and women, have been killed by the two groups.”

Lali asked the Afghan government, the United Nations and the international community to ensure the perpetrators were punished in Afghanistan.

He expressed his anger that the US soldier, the prime suspect in the shooting, had been flown out of Afghanistan to Kuwait.

He said the people they met had warned if the responsible troops were not punished, they would launch a movement against Afghans who had agreed to foreign troops’ presence in Afghanistan under the first Bonn conference in 2001.

The lawmaker said the Wolesi Jirga would not sit silent until the killers were prosecuted in Afghanistan. "If the international community does not play its role in punishing the perpetrators, the Wolesi Jirga would declare foreign troops as occupying forces, like the Russians," Lali warned.

President Hamid Karzai on Thursday asked the US to pull out all its troops from Afghan villages in response to the killings.

mds/ma

Source: Pajhwok Afghan News