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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: Robert Bales – Lone Nut or Scapegoat? 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. The villagers are saying this was an act of revenge, but doesn’t that accurately describe the entire Afghan campaign in a nutshell? Short of actually getting Osama bin Laden at the outset of the invasion, revenge for the 9/11 attacks was clearly the reason we stayed after the battle of Tora Bora. The thin pretext given by the Bush administration — and, subsequently, the Obama administration – was that we had to stay in order to deprive al-Qaeda of a "safe haven." When it was discovered al-Qaeda was no longer around, the War Party turned to its fallback position: we can’t leave, they said, because the real "safe haven" is in Pakistan, and we need to guard the Afghan-Pakistan border to not only prevent the terrorists’ return but also to strike at them in their newfound lair. The latest massacre has put the administration in a precarious position, not only with our Afghan allies but also with the American public. Story after story of nasty atrocities isn’t helping the battle for hearts and minds on the home front: polls show most Americans want out sooner rather than later. A deluge of sympathetic stories about the accused killer isn’t going to change this. What remains to be seen, however, is how this crime is going to be investigated – or not investigated – by the US military. If the testimony of the villagers contradicting the "lone nut" theory continues to be ignored by the Americans, we’ll know a cover up is in progress. Poster Comment: Lone nut, or lone patsy? Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 23.
#1. To: Original_Intent (#0)
Raimondo... You seem to have forgotten, THIS IS WAR. Back up, start again with war as the all encompassing, deriving force. Kill and or be killed is the order of every day.
War or no War slaughtering women and children are not the actions of an honorable man or honorable nation. There is NO excuse. These are the actions of barbarians.
There is NO excuse. These are the actions of barbarians You and I know that, however there is but one rule in war time, KILL OR BE KILLED. IN this endless war there is no defined enemy, a man wearing a uniform, that is missing. We say nothing, there is no recrimination from us when dozens of people are killed by a man thousands of miles away, they call it collateral damage when innocents are blown away. Not a word, we are so silent, yet the innocents are still dead. When the drone pilot, the man that pushed the button, finishes his day of "work" he goes home to dinner with his family and WE SAY NOTHING. He is at home 7000 miles from the war, no pressure, a happy and rewarded life. Now the man that has spent...FOUR LONG YEARS ON THE GROUND...KILLING AND AVOIDING BEING KILLED...finally can take it no longer and slaughters people. What right have we, that have not been there, those four long years, to hold that man up to standards that we have NEVER HAD TO MEET, Go back to My Lia, UNTOLD DOZENS WERE SLAUGHTERED. The men that actually did the killing, pulled the triggers, never went to prison. It is war, we hire these men, we pay them, so that our children and grand children may stay safe at home.
Except that your premise is not logically valid. This massacre - this murder, and it was murder most foul, was not conducted in the heat of battle. Therefore your premise is inappropriate and not connected logically, or ethically, to your argument. Perhaps I am, as a friend once described, a realist with romantic tendencies, but I actually believe in all of that chivalry stuff. Yes, sometimes one must act to defend others and under those circumstances killing someone may well be ethically demanded, but that was not the case here. I do not compromise my ethical standards because it was done by "our boys". Our boys know better and they should be held to a higher standard not a lower standard. I do not buy the justifications for criminal behavior and they are just that justifications. They do not validate nor do they sanction these kinds of crimes. I walked the walk too, and I hold these men to the same standards to which I held myself. It is the job of the American Fighting Man to defend the weak, to protect women and children - not to kill them defenseless in the night like some mad dog. So, is your argument that because it was a state sanctioned crime it was somehow not a crime? One always has a choice and if we do not raise our voice against such criminality then we do become complicit. What you mean WE? Got a mouse in your pocket? I am not paying these men to go kill innocents in foreign lands and their actions are doing nothing in the interests of the American People. At no time have I ever expressed support for wanton killing conducted by the government in the District of Corruption. The men now in uniform are at best a half step above mercenaries who kill only for money, and when they behave as mad dogs then they should be treated as mad dogs - not "poor misguided strays". Is that the standard by which we wish to judge the actions of our Fighting Men? I think not. Not in any just and noble nation. We have allowed our standards to dip toward a darkness deep past the gutter. I will not accept it now or ever though I be the last voice in opposition. I do not countenance these actions, I do not sanction these actions, and the guilty should be tried and then hung by the neck until dead.
That is a personal opinion, and does not stand the test of wartime reality. You of all people here understand brain washing and programming. Given that, there is nothing logical about killing another person. Killing because YOU HAVE BEEN TRAINED TO DO SO AUTOMATICALLY ELIMINATES LOGIC. Add to that prolonged mental and physical stress, we have a candidate for killing. The overwhelming majority do manage to maintain sanity and the moral aversion to killing, A FEW DO NOT. Those few CANNOT absorb the stress any longer. Eddie Slovik was shot because he refused to kill, he would not stand and fight, kill others, so a self righteous Eisenhower had him shot. Eisenhower had never one day in his career, faced death, not one, but he made the decision that Slovik must die, because he was weak and WOULD NOT KILL. Let that be a lesson to American soldiers, kill on command or we will shoot you. Its called war.
Its called war. I was disappointed at OI's post to you. I hope he now understands your message. I was visiting at a relative's home many years ago, when a WWII veteran was relating an event during his military service. It took place when the U.S. soldiers liberated France. The description the man gave was of the response of a half dozen U.S. soldiers to their discovery of several German soldiers hiding in the barn of a French family who had been tortured for weeks by the Germans. It was not a comforting story by any stretch of the imagination, but my introduction to the facts of war. By the way, the aunt and uncle who I was visiting at the time had lost their only son. He had been shot down over Germany during the war. I can only imagine now, after all these years of "growing", how they must have felt as they listened to this man relate his experiences. My curiosity, and the members of my family lost during war time, prompted me to spend years reading what was published by diverse former soldiers regarding their service in theater. I sure can't speak from personal experience, but what I have read and heard from those who served surely left me with a different perspective.
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