Baling Together This Post About Afghanistan

Turned out to be a patsy when I was all done. 

"Robert Bales – Lone Nut or Scapegoat?; What are the Americans hiding?" by Justin Raimondo, March 23, 2012

The murder of 17 Afghan civilians – most of them children – by staff sergeant Robert Bales may be far worse than we think at present. The semi-official story, as related by our compliant news media, is that a formerly model soldier went bananas under the pressure of war-related injuries, financial problems at home, and the all-purpose PTSD explanation for military misbehavior, whereupon he decided – at 3 am in the morning, after drinking with his army buddies – to walk the couple of miles to an Afghan village, shoot 16 people sleeping in their beds, pile the bodies atop a funeral pyre and set the whole thing alight.

How did he get out of the base at 3 am unchallenged and without anyone’s knowledge? How did he manage to do so much damage alone? These questions automatically register in the minimally critical mind – unless, of course, you’re an American reporter, who is quite used to accepting what our government tells us without question. On the other hand, without clear evidence of another – darker – scenario, all one can do is engage in problematic speculation. That problem has been solved, however, because evidence of an alternative explanation is now coming to light which throws the whole "lone nut" theory into question.

A few days before Bales went postal, there was a bomb attack on a US convoy in which a friend of Bales’s lost a leg: Bales’s lawyer has been detailing his client’s anger at this incident, implying it precipitated the murder spree. There are indications, however, that this is not the whole story. One local resident relates how the Americans paid a visit to the village where the killings took place and threatened residents with retaliation:

"Ghulam Rasool, a tribal elder from Panjwai district, gave an account of the bombing at a March 16 meeting in Kabul with Mr Karzai in the wake of the shootings. ‘After the incident, they took the wreckage of their destroyed tank and their wounded people from the area," Mr Rasool said. ‘After that, they came back to the village nearby the explosion site. The soldiers called all the people to come out of their houses and from the mosque,’ he said. ‘The Americans told the villagers ‘A bomb exploded on our vehicle. … We will get revenge for this incident by killing at least 20 of your people,’ Mr Rasool said."

So there was a direct threat, and not specifically from Bales but from an organized group of American soldiers presumably under the command of US army officers. Even more sinister is this report from the Christian Science Monitor:

"Several Afghans near the villages where an American soldier is alleged to have killed 16 civilians say U.S. troops lined them up against a wall after a roadside bombing and told them that they, and even their children, would pay a price for the attack.

"…One Mokhoyan resident, Ahmad Shah Khan, told The Associated Press that after the bombing, U.S. soldiers and their Afghan army counterparts arrived in his village and made many of the male villagers  stand against a wall.

"’It looked like they were going to shoot us, and I was very afraid,’ Khan said. ‘Then a NATO soldier said through his translator that even our children will pay for this. Now they have done it and taken their revenge.’"

Another resident of Mokhoyan, Naek Mohammad, says that on the day of the IED attack he heard a loud explosion, went outside to investigate, and spoke with a neighbor. As they spoke, a group of Afghan army soldiers rounded them up and stood them against a wall. Mohammad says:

"’One of the villagers asked what was happening. The Afghan army soldier told him, ‘Shut up and stand there.’ Mohammad said a U.S. soldier, speaking through a translator, then said: ‘I know you are all involved and you support the insurgents. So now, you will pay for it — you and your children will pay for this.’"

Bales murdered 17 civilians, half of them children sleeping in their bed.

The Afghan parliament is investigating, and they aren’t buying the Americans’ story of a "lone nut." Nor is President Hamid Karzai:

"In an emotional meeting with relatives of the shooting victims, Karzai said the villagers’ accounts of the massacre were widely different from the scenario depicted by U.S. military officials. The relatives and villagers insisted that it was impossible for one gunmen to kill nine children, four men and three women in three houses of two villages near a U.S. combat outpost in southern Afghanistan.

"Karzai pointed to one of the villagers from Panjwai district of Kandahar province and said:

"’In his family, in four rooms people were killed — children and women were killed — and then they were all brought together in one room and then set on fire. That, one man cannot do.’

"Karzai said the delegation he sent to Kandahar province to investigate the shootings did not receive the expected co-operation from the United States. He said many questions remained about what occurred, and he would be raising the questions with the U.S. military ‘very loudly.’"

The infamous "night raids" carried out by US troops have been a source of contention between Karzai and the Americans. As one commentator described them:

"The method employed is simple: Identify those who provide financial support or protection to the militants. And those who even have sympathies with them. Constitute teams which would go to the houses so identified, knock at the door and as soon as the wanted man appears, shoot him dead. At times a substitute is killed who may be a guest in the house but was unlucky to greet the intruders at the door. On an average about 50 night raids take place daily. And every night about 25 people are killed in cold blood in different parts of the country."

This is the "new" counterinsurgency doctrine – which is supposed to win "hearts and minds" – in practice: a program of systematic terror designed to dry up support for the Taliban by driving up the costs of collaborating with them. One may credibly argue it isn’t working, but this question seems beside the point: such a murderous strategy mandates the commission of war crimes. Whether it is "working" or not is irrelevant.

Another suspicious aspect of this whole affair is the extraordinary aura of secrecy surrounding it. The Pentagon kept Bales’s identity under wraps as long as it could, unlike in the case of, say, Major Hasan,  the Ft. Hood shooter, whose name was out there almost as soon as the news hit the wires. In addition, they have treated Bales as if he were a cache of radioactive material, keeping him in complete isolation after spiriting him out of Afghanistan to Kuwait – without having notified the Kuwaitis – where his presence caused consternation and protests from the local authorities when it was discovered. He was soon back in the US, greeted by a cascade of sympathetic accounts in the media detailing his battlefield injuries, his "patriotic" persona, his alleged PTSD, and his myriad financial problems. As of this writing, he has been charged with 17 counts of murder: apparently the initial count of the dead was wrong.

The Afghans say the US military has been less than cooperative with the parliamentary investigation, and the Afghan chief of staff claims he was refused permission to see Bales. All of this has led to an outcry in Afghanistan, where the local are saying this was an organized revenge killing rather than Sergeant Psycho on a rampage. Which raises an intriguing question: organized by whom?

It seems to me there are two possibilities:

1) This was the result of a "rogue" group of soldiers acting on their own, motivated by the previous IED attack. Reports that Bales was drinking with a group of other soldiers the night of the massacre conjure images of a late-night venting climaxed by a senseless act of terror.

2) It was a "night raid" gone horribly wrong. This is suggested by the fact that the "official" story of what happened that night limns these night raids to a tee, except for the number of military personnel involved. And Karzai has a point: it is certainly possible Bales went to two residences, killed 16 women and children, and then gathered up the bodies and burned them in the space of a couple of hours, with no assistance from anyone — but how likely is it? About as likely as Bales’s claim not to remember anything of that night.

What is striking is how seamlessly these two scenarios blend into each other: even if this heinous crime was carried out by a "rogue" group of soldiers, how different is it from those night raids where they are acting under orders? The direct threats issued to the villagers, however, points to the possibility that they were acting with the knowledge of at least some higher-ups, who must have authorized the round-up, the use of a translator, and even the participation of the Afghan army.

What is worrying is that the numerous reports coming out of Afghanistan of rampant war crimes committed by "rogue" soldiers – "kill teams" – indicates a complete breakdown of the US chain of command. At the top of the command structure, the grand strategists and theoreticians are constructing elaborate theories of counterinsurgency warfare designed to win over the populace and deny the Taliban a victory. However, by the time "clear, hold, and build" trickles down to the ranks in the field, it becomes "clear, hold, and kill."

The reason is because no theory of counterinsurgency warfare, no strategy — no matter how clever — can win the hearts and minds of an occupied people. We can clear the Taliban out of a district, and even hold it with enough troops, but all we are building, in the end, is resentment and hatred of our presence....

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Also see: Child witnesses to Afghan massacre say Robert Bales was not alone 

Afghan massacre involved multiple shooters: investigator

"Locals swear that multiple soldiers participated and that they communicated via walkie-talkies, indicating the attack might have been a more organized operation. Such accounts, however, stand in stark contrast to the story being told by US officials of a lone US soldier, Bales, who snapped under the  pressures of multiple deployments.

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The story we are getting from New England's flagship: 

"Hearing begins in Afghanistan massacre; Case is outlined in killings of 16" by Gene Johnson  |  Associated Press, November 06, 2012

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — The details emerged Monday as a preliminary hearing in Staff Sergeant Robert Bales's case opened, offering the clearest picture yet of one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars....

No offense, but you never get that in an AmeriKan paper, no matter what the subject. 

Bales spent the March night before the raids at Camp Belambay, watching ‘‘Man On Fire,’’ a fictional account of a former CIA operative on a revenge spree, with his fellow soldiers, said Lieutenant Colonel Jay Morse, the prosecutor.

He seemed normal as they shared whiskey, discussed Bales’s anxiety over whether he’d get a promotion, and talked about another soldier who lost his leg a week earlier in a roadside bomb attack, Corporal David Godwin testified.

Shortly before leaving the base, Bales told a Special Forces soldier that he was unhappy with his family life and that the troops should have been quicker to retaliate for the March 5 bomb attack, Morse said.

‘‘At all times, he had a clear understanding of what he was doing and what he had done,’’ said Morse, who described Bales as lucid and responsive.

Bales is accused of slipping away from the remote outpost with an M-4 rifle outfitted with a grenade launcher to attack the villages of Balandi and Alkozai, in a dangerous district.

Morse said Bales broke the killings into two episodes. Dressed in a T-shirt, Bales walked first to one village, returned to the base, and then slipped away again to carry out the second attack.

???????

Between the episodes, Bales told a colleague about shooting people at one of the villages, Morse said. The soldier apparently took it as a bad joke and responded: ‘‘Quit messing around.’’

Prosecutors played for the first time the video captured by a surveillance blimp that showed the caped figure running toward the base, then stopping and dropping his weapons as he was confronted. There was no audio.

It wasn’t immediately clear from where Bales got the cape.

As he stood outside the base, Godwin testified, Bales had asked him and another soldier: ‘‘Did you rat me out? Did you rat me out?’’

Part of the hearing will be held overnight to allow video testimony from witnesses in Afghanistan, including an estimated 10 to 15 Afghans.

Bales’s attorney, John Henry Browne, said the hearing will give the defense a chance to see what the military can prove. He said he and his client are expecting a court martial.

The Ohio native joined the Army in late 2001 — after the 9/11 attacks — as his career as a stockbroker imploded, including an arbitrator’s $1.5 million fraud judgment against him and his former company.

Bales was serving his fourth combat tour after three stints in Iraq and his arrest prompted a national discussion about the stresses that soldiers face from multiple deployments.

His lawyers have said Bales remembers little or nothing from around the time of the attacks.

Emma Scanlan, one of his attorneys, declined to say to what extent the lawyers hope to elicit testimony that could be used to support a mental-health defense. Bales himself will not make any statements.

She said the Army had only recently turned over a preliminary DNA trace evidence report from the crime scenes, but defense experts have not had time to review it.

WTF?

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Related: Sergeant aware of massacre, soldiers testify

Testimony suggests accused soldier was remorseful

Also see: The Lone Gunman of Afghanistan

Crocker of Crap From Afghanistan

Consider my source. 

"Girl, 7, testifies on Afghan massacre" by Gene Johnson  |  Associated Press, November 12, 2012

JOINT BASE LEWIS-Mc­CHORD, Wash. — Robina took her seat wearing a deep-red head covering and a nervous smile, ready to tell her story. She giggled as any 7-year-old in the spotlight might.

But when the questions began, what she recalled seemed impossibly dark: how she hid behind her father when the gunman came to their village that night, how the stranger fired, and how her father died, cursing in pain and anger.

‘‘I was standing behind my father,’’ she testified simply, by video feed from Afghanistan on Saturday night during a hearing for the soldier accused of killing 16 civilians, including nine children, in Kandahar Province. ‘‘He shot my father.’’

One of the bullets struck her in the leg, but she didn’t realize it right away, she said.

Her testimony came on the second overnight session of the preliminary hearing for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who prosecutors say slipped away from his base to attack two villages. The slayings drew such angry protests that the United States temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan, and it was three weeks before US investigators could reach the crime scenes.

The stories recounted by the villagers have been harrowing. They described torched bodies, a son finding his wounded father, and boys cowering behind a curtain while others screamed ‘‘We are children! We are children!’’

Bales sat quietly throughout, betraying no reaction to what he heard.

The hearing is meant to help determine whether Bales, 39, will face a court-martial. He could face the death penalty if he is convicted.

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"Bales hearing on Afghan killings a test for US military; Video links with civilians hint new accountability" by Gene Johnson  |  Associated Press, November 13, 2012

JOINT BASE LEWIS-Mc­CHORD, Wash. — The US military has been criticized for its spotty record on convicting troops of killing civilians, but a hearing against Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales involving a massacre in Afghanistan has shown that it is not like most cases.

Government prosecutors have built a strong eyewitness case against the veteran soldier, with troops recounting how they saw Bales return to the base covered in blood.

And in unusual testimony in a military court, Afghan civilians questioned via a video link described the horror of seeing 16 people killed, mostly children, in their villages earlier this year.

Legal analysts said the case could test whether the military, aided by technology, is able to embark on a new era of accountability....

The US military system’s record has shown it is slow to convict service members of alleged war crimes. 

I want to know when the lying leaders and mouthpiece media enablers are going to be before the bar. They are the ones who have put Bales and the rest in this situation. 

A range of factors make prosecuting troops for civilian deaths in foreign lands difficult, including gathering eyewitness testimony and collecting evidence at a crime scene in the midst of a war.... 

After a while you get sick of the excuses offered up when blanket accusations always do for the "enemy."

Throughout history, troops have been accused of heinous crimes involving civilians in countries where wars are waged.

But rarely have villagers who witnessed the horror testified in a US military court — often because of the costs and logistics of bringing them to the United States.

Villagers may be leery to leave their homeland to go to a foreign country and confront members of one of the mightiest militaries in the world. And as foreign nationals, they cannot be subpoenaed. 

Yet they would also want to tell their story if they could be guaranteed safety and justice. That is a powerful motivator when it comes those bereaved.

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"Army seeks death penalty in Afghan massacre; Staff sergeant allegedly killed 16 in two villages" by Rachel La Corte  |  Associated Press, November 14, 2012

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — Army prosecutors asked an investigative officer to recommend a death penalty court-martial for a staff sergeant accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a predawn rampage, saying Tuesday that Staff Sergeant Robert Bales committed ‘‘heinous and despicable crimes.’’

Prosecutors made their closing arguments after a week of testimony in the preliminary hearing. Prosecutors say Bales, 39, slipped away from his remote base at Camp Belambay in southern Afghanistan to attack two villages early on March 11. Among the dead were nine children.

The slayings drew such angry protests that the United States temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan, and it was three weeks before US investigators could reach the crime scenes.

‘‘Terrible, terrible things happened,’’ said prosecutor, Major Rob Stelle. ‘‘That is clear.’’

Stelle cited statements Bales made after he was apprehended, saying that they demonstrated ‘‘a clear memory of what he had done, and consciousness of wrongdoing.’’

Several soldiers testified that Bales returned to the base alone just before dawn, covered in blood, and that he made incriminating statements such as, ‘‘I thought I was doing the right thing.’’

An attorney for Bales argued there is not enough information to move forward with the court-martial.

‘‘There are a number of questions that have not been answered,’’ attorney Emma Scanlan told the investigating officer overseeing the preliminary hearing.

Scanlan said that it is still unknown what was Bales’s state of mind.

An Army criminal investigations command special agent had testified last week that Bales tested positive for steroids three days after the killings, and other soldiers testified that Bales had been drinking the evening of the massacre. 

A drunken 'roid rage? That's the best they can come up with?

‘‘We’ve heard that Sergeant Bales was lucid, coherent, and responsive,’’ Scanlan said in her closing argument. ‘‘We don’t know what it means to be on alcohol, steroids, and sleeping aids.’’

The investigating officer said Tuesday that he would have a recommendation by the end of the week, but that is just the start of the process. The ultimate decision will be made by the three-star general on the base. There is no clear sense of how long it will be before a decision is reached on whether to proceed to a court-martial trial.

If a court-martial takes place, it will be held at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle, and witnesses will be flown in from Afghanistan.

The military has not executed a service member since 1961, and none of the six men on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., today were convicted for atrocities against foreign civilians.

Bales faces 16 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder. The preliminary hearing, which began Nov. 5, included nighttime sessions on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for the convenience of the Afghan witnesses. Bales did not testify.

The witnesses included a 7-year-old girl, who described hiding behind her father when a gunman came to their village that night, how the stranger fired, and how her father died, cursing in pain and anger.

None of the Afghan witnesses were able to identify Bales as the shooter, but other evidence, including tests of the blood on his clothes, implicated him, according to testimony from a DNA specialist.

After the hearing, Scanlan spoke with reporters, saying that in addition to questions about Bales’s state of mind, there are questions of whether more people were involved.

During testimony, a special agent testified that months after the killings, she was able to interview the wife of a victim, who recounted having seen two US soldiers. Later, however, the woman’s brother-in-law, Mullah Baraan, who was not present at the shootings, testified that the woman says there was only one. She did not testify.

‘‘We need to know if more than one person was outside that wire,’’ Scanlan said.

Scanlan also raised the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and brain injury, noting that Bales had received a screening at the traumatic brain injury clinic at Madigan Army Medical Center.

‘‘We’re in the process of investigating that,’’ she said.

Dan Conway, a military defense lawyer based in New Hampshire, said Tuesday that PTSD must be considered as a factor in the case.

‘‘I think the defense team has an obligation to meet with doctors and determine if PTSD affected Bales’s ability to premeditate the murders,’’ Conway said. ‘‘It could play a very important role.’’

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Related: Army seeks death penalty in massacre