...ta stand trial, and be punished by the Afghans.
No more excuses. Let justice be done. Nobody made this guy kill women, children, and people who were asleep in their houses...
Give him over to a 'people's court' and let them figure out how he should pay his due. Stone him? Behead him? Whatever Afghans want.
The mission there, the war has already been lost.
They want us out. Let's get out. But first things first. This man must pay with his life.
Accused US soldier flown out of Afghanistan
By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press 15 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) The American soldier accused of shooting 16 Afghan villagers in a pre-dawn killing spree was flown out of Afghanistan on Wednesday to an undisclosed location, even as many Afghans called for him to face justice in their country.
Afghan government officials did not immediately respond to calls for comment on the late-night announcement. The U.S. military said the transfer did not preclude the possibility of trying the case in Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the soldier could receive capital punishment if convicted.
Many fear a misstep by the U.S. military in handling the case could ignite a firestorm in Afghanistan that would shatter already tense relations between the two countries. The alliance appeared near the breaking point last month when the burning of Qurans in a garbage pit at a U.S. base sparked protests and retaliatory attacks that killed more than 30 people, including six U.S. soldiers.
In recent days the two nations made headway toward an agreement governing a long-term American presence here, but the massacre in Kandahar province on Sunday has called all such negotiations into question.
Afghan lawmakers have demanded that the soldier be publicly tried in Afghanistan to show that he was being brought to justice, calling on President Hamid Karzai to suspend all talks with the U.S. until that happens.
The U.S. staff sergeant, who has not been named or charged, allegedly slipped out of his small base in southern Afghanistan before dawn, crept into three houses and shot men, women and children at close range then burned some of the bodies. By sunrise, there were 16 corpses.
The soldier was held by the U.S. military in Kandahar until Wednesday evening, when he was flown out of Afghanistan "based on a legal recommendation," said Navy Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman.
"We do not have appropriate detention facilities in Afghanistan," Kirby said, explaining that he was referring to a facility for a U.S. service member "in this kind of case."
The soldier was transported aboard a U.S. military aircraft to a "pretrial confinement facility" in another country, a U.S. military official said, without saying where. The official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to release the information publicly, would not confirm if that meant an American military base or another type of facility. He said the Afghan government was informed of the move.
Kirby said the transfer did not necessarily mean the trial would be held outside Afghanistan, but the other military official said legal proceedings would continue outside Afghanistan.
U.S. officials had previously said it would be technically possible to hold proceedings in Afghanistan, noting other court-martial trials held here.
The decision to remove the soldier from the country may complicate the prosecution, said Michael Waddington, an American military defense lawyer who represented the ringleader of the 2010 thrill killings of three Afghan civilians by soldiers from the same Washington state base as the accused staff sergeant.
The prosecutors won't be able to use statements from Afghan witnesses unless the defense is able to cross-examine them, he said.
Waddington said the decision to remove the suspect was likely a security call.
"His presence in the country would put himself and other service members in jeopardy," Waddington said.
But the patience of Afghan investigators has already appeared to be wearing thin regarding the shootings in Panjwai district.
The soldier was caught on U.S. surveillance video that showed him walking up to his base, laying down his weapon and raising his arms in surrender, according to an Afghan official who viewed the footage.
The official said Wednesday there were also two to three hours of video footage covering the time of the attack that Afghan investigators are trying to get from the U.S. military. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
U.S. authorities showed their Afghan counterparts the video of the surrender to prove that only one perpetrator was involved in the shootings, the official said.
Some Afghan officials and residents in the villages that were attacked have insisted there was more than one shooter. If the disagreement persists, it could deepen the distrust between the two countries.
Panetta, in a series of meetings with troops and Afghan leaders Wednesday, said the U.S. must never lose sight of its mission in the war, despite recent violence including what appeared to be an attempted attack near the runway of a military base where he was about to land.
It wasn't clear whether it was an attempt to attack the defense chief, whose travel to southern Afghanistan was not made public before he arrived. Panetta was informed of the incident after landing.
"We will not allow individual incidents to undermine our resolve to that mission," he told about 200 Marines at Camp Leatherneck. "We will be tested we will be challenged, we'll be challenged by our enemy, we'll be challenged by ourselves, we'll be challenged by the hell of war itself. But none of that, none of that, must ever deter us from the mission that we must achieve."
According the Pentagon spokesman, an Afghan stole a vehicle at a British airfield in southern Afghanistan and drove it onto a runway, crashing into a ditch about the same time that Leon Panetta's aircraft was landing.
The pickup truck drove at high speed onto the ramp where Panetta's plane was intended to stop, Kirby said. No one in Panetta's party was injured.
Jelinek reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Sebastian Abbot contributed from Kabul, Lolita C. Baldor from Camp Leatherneck, Mirwais Khan from Kandahar, and Gene Johnson contributed from Seattle.
A couple of days ago, I said that the events over the last couple months -- the murder of 16 innocent Afghans by a soldier, the burning of Qurans, and desecration of dead bodies -- meant counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan have failed and President Obama had to end them.
Today, things only got worse, for three reasons.
First, Afghan President Karzai issued a statement calling on all NATO forces to pull out of Afghan villages. It's a move, if implemented, that would effectively end counter-insurgency operations and make NATO forces move towards an Advise, Train, and Assist (ATA) role, much like the one in Iraq in 2011.
In his statement, Karzai said, "Not a single foreign soldier should enter Afghan homes, and the entire attention should switch to the country's reconstruction and economic assistance... Afghanistan is right now ready to completely take all security responsibilities, so we demand a speedy transition and the hand-over of responsibility to the Afghans."
Now, this could be posturing by Karzai. It's possible that it isn't what he really wants, but feels that as his people turn against Americans, it is something he has to call for. Whatever the case may be, it doesn't matter. Counter-insurgency operations' entire purpose is to provide security for the population so services can be rendered by government and peace can be brokered with the opposition. It absolutely, positively requires the support of the indigenous government.
Karzai's statement calls that support into serious doubt, making counter-insurgency even more difficult than it was right after the killing of Afghan innocents just a few days ago. It quite possibly renders any counter-insurgency success impossible.
Secondly, and relatedly, talks with the Taliban have been suspended, meaning a core purpose of counter-insurgency is now on the ropes. While it seems that preconditions for talks were the reason for the suspension, there can be no doubt that the death of innocent Afghans influenced the Taliban's decision to halt talks. If there can be no negotiations with the Taliban to bring them into the fold, then there is absolutely no purpose -- no goal -- for counter-insurgency.
And finally, and underreported, are riots in the street over American immunity, and calling for it to end. That is an unacceptable condition -- we can never allow U.S. troops to be tried in a foreign court. And yet, the Afghan people are pressuring the Afghan government to call for it. This is important, because it was the hot issue when I was in Iraq in 2011. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki refused any immunity for U.S. troops if there was going to be an extension of troops post-2011, because of his own domestic political pressure. And that issue -- largely -- was the reason why the U.S. could not negotiate an extension of our troop presence there.
In Afghanistan, the issue may, once again, scuttle any long-term arrangement between Afghanistan and the West, meaning that a withdrawal from the Afghan democracy will come much sooner rather than later. It also puts in danger any negotiated counter-terror mission, which would require immunity for U.S. forces. In the meantime, however, wrangling over troop immunity makes it much more difficult for our troops to operate because, again, it means we do not have the full support of the people.
President Obama has a lot of issues to weigh, but I really hope he sides with the American troops on the ground. They're now being asked by our government to provide security to a population in a mission that is no longer wanted by the democratically elected leader of that country, making their current mission untenable and unproductive. Therefore, the only conclusion he can come to is to engage U.S. forces in a mission that can be successful. And that is an immediate transition to an ATA role, on the way towards a negotiated counter-terror mission with a very limited footprint.
-- Edited by Uke on Thursday 15th of March 2012 10:45:47 AM
Uke said
6:10 PM, 03/15/12
This one won't go away just by ignoring it. It just prolongs the agony, and reasons to abandon a lost 'mission.'
Anybody remember why the hell we got ourselves inta this mess in the first place?
In his statement, Karzai said, "Not a single foreign soldier should enter Afghan homes, and the entire attention should switch to the country's reconstruction and economic assistance... Afghanistan is right now ready to completely take all security responsibilities, so we demand a speedy transition and the hand-over of responsibility to the Afghans."
Reconstruction and ECONOMIC assistance are the
key words in that whole article Uke... Quess who
gets to pay for that... If there's no one in the
countryside then you don't know if that economic
assistance is making it there or into someones
pocket...
Uke said
7:19 PM, 03/15/12
Exactly. And there's the number one reason ta get out now. It's a no win situation no matter what Panetta, or the generals in country say. Time ta get out, bring all our troops home, and mind our own business for a change. Besides, we can use their help right here at home.
We have great needs when it comes to rebuilding communities destroyed by natural disasters... The military oughta be deployed ta protect and secure this homeland, and forget about 'nation-building,' and ousting dictators.
Plenty work right here in the good ol' US of A!
mntman said
9:15 PM, 03/15/12
Amen
Snippy said
2:16 AM, 03/16/12
Snippy is happy to build schools in other countries.
Snippy knows that there is no unmet need in the homeland.
Snippy knows that since 9/11 that all of our focus has been protecting our nation's borders.
Snippy sleeps well at night. Krink sees that evidence a lot.
FMB said
2:18 AM, 03/16/12
Snippy wrote:
Snippy sleeps well at night. Krink sees that evidence a lot.
LAMO....
The Krink said
7:42 AM, 03/16/12
I'm not sure when Snippy sleeps. He's up when I am seems all the time and yet he's around during normal hours tuu.
Snippy said
10:38 AM, 03/16/12
Krink, Snippy would like to point out that sometimes when Snippy is here, he is not here at all.
Such is the nature of properly implemented tabbed browsing with a high-speed connection to the internets using a modern era web browser such as Safari 5.1.4.
You, too, should explore the benefits of such a schema.
The Krink said
8:00 AM, 03/17/12
I cant keep up with you Snippy. You got way more planets in the 3rd house than I do. Billy Bob Thornton has "6" planets in Leo. A 5-planet conjunction of Venus-Mercury-Sun-Jupiter-Mars and Pluto all in Leo. Any thoughts on the guy?
Uke said
8:06 AM, 03/17/12
I never liked the guy, but I feel bad for him anyway cuz he gots a famly and shit...
Uke said
6:24 PM, 03/17/12
Now we know his name...
Sgt. Robert Bales: Details emerge on soldier charged with killing Afghan villagers
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales joined the Army shortly after the 911 terrorist attacks, and he served three tours in Iraq before being sent to Afghanistan. Now he sits in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, charged with killing 16 Afghan villagers.
By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer / March 17, 2012
In this Aug. 2011 photo, Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, right, participates in an exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. The man at left is unidentified. Staff Sgt. Bales is charged with killing 16 Afghan villagers.
Spc. Ryan Hallock/DVIDS/AP
Washington
The US Army has at last released the name of the soldier who went on a shooting spree nearly one week ago, killing 16 Afghan civilians including 9 children.
But there remain a number of questions surrounding precisely what led 38 year-old Staff Sergeant Robert Bales to embark on a murderous rampage.
The Pentagon released details late Friday night that begin to paint a picture of Sgt. Bales, who enlisted in the military just two months after the September 11th terrorist attacks.
His first deployment to Iraq came in November, 2004, where he served for a year. He returned in June of 2006 for an extended 15-month tour, which the Army began instituting at the height of violence in Iraq.
Bales returned to the country again in August, 2009, where he served until June of the following year.
During that time, in an interview with a local newspaper, he extolled the virtues of careful soldiering to protect the local population.
Ive never been more proud to be a part of this unit for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants, he told the Fort Lewis Northwest Guardian after a battle in Iraq in 2007. Afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us.
John Henry Browne, Bales Seattle-based lawyer, told reporters that his client had not demonstrated any animosity towards the Afghan people. Hes never said anything antagonistic about Muslims, Mr. Browne said. Hes in general very mild-mannered.
Prior to deploying to Afghanistan in December, Bales received traumatic brain injury (TBI) treatment at Fort Lewis and was deemed to be fine, according to ABC News.
Even so, Bales was surprised when he learned he would have to return to war last year, according to his lawyer.
Once he arrived in Afghanistan, he was assigned to be part of a protection unit for Special Operations Forces working with local militias.
The Pentagon release notes multiple awards and decorations for Bales, including three Army good conduct medals, two meritorious unit commendations, and the Army superior unit award.
But while Browne told reporters that Bales was highly decorated and had been injured twice in Iraq, there is no mention in Bales Pentagon-released service record of any Purple Hearts, and a recommendation for a Bronze Star for Bales was turned down.
Now he is being held in pre-trial confinement at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in a state-of-the-art, medium/minimum custody facility, according to the Pentagon release.
Bates is in special housing in his own cell and not in a four-person bay. He will be afforded time outside the cell for hygiene and recreational purposes, the release adds.
In his hometown, neighbors say they are stunned Bales stands accused of mass murder. Im shocked. Im completely shocked, Kassie Holland told CBS News. He was always happy. Happy guy, full of life I really wouldnt expect it.
The charges run contrary to Bales own words in the 2007 interview with his local newspaper as well, when he expressed disdain for any insurgent would could put his family in harms way like that, he said. I think thats the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy.
Uke said
6:54 AM, 03/18/12
Well now we know his name. And we know he had problems as well. Money problems mostly. And he was probably sick and tired of playing soldier since first enlisted ta do exactly what he was told ta do.
He enlisted right after 9/11. Worked his way up the ranks. And his story isn't anything we haven't heard before. We'll likely hear more about this guy, and others like him from our 'all volunteer' military.
Money, career woes reportedly plagued Afghan killings suspect
Aug. 23, 2011: In this Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System photo, soldiers from Blackhorse Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, including Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, left, take part in exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.
LAKE TAPPS, Wash. Bypassed for a promotion and struggling to pay for his house, Robert Bales was eyeing a way out of his job at a Washington state military base months before he allegedly gunned down 16 civilians in an Afghan war zone, records and interviews showed as a deeper picture emerged Saturday of the Army sergeant's financial troubles and brushes with the law.
While Bales, 38, sat in an isolated cell at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.'s military prison Saturday, classmates and neighbors from suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, remembered him as a "happy-go-lucky" high school football player who took care of a special needs child and watched out for troublemakers in the neighborhood.
But court records and interviews show that the 10-year veteran -- with a string of commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan -- had joined the Army after a Florida investment job went sour, had a Seattle-area home condemned, struggled to make payments on another and failed to get a promotion or a transfer a year ago.
His legal troubles included charges that he assaulted a girlfriend and, in a hit-and run accident, ran bleeding in military clothes into the woods, court records show. He told police he fell asleep at the wheel and paid a fine to get the charges dismissed, the records show.
Military officials say that after drinking on a southern Afghanistan base, Bales crept away on March 11 to two slumbering villages overnight, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine of the 16 killed were children and 11 belonged to one family.
"This is some crazy stuff if it's true," Steve Berling, a high school classmate, said of the revelations about the father of two known as "Bobby" in his hometown of Norwood, Ohio.
Bales hasn't been charged yet in the shootings, which have endangered complicated relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan and threatened to upend U.S. policy over the decade-old war.
His former platoon leader said Saturday Bales was a model soldier inspired by 9/11 to serve who saved lives in firefights on his second of three Iraq deployments.
"He's one of the best guys I ever worked with," said Army Capt. Chris Alexander, who led Bales on a 15-month deployment in Iraq.
"He is not some psychopath. He's an outstanding soldier who has given a lot for this country."
But pressing family troubles were hinted at by his wife, Kari, on multiple blogs posted with names like The Bales Family Adventures and BabyBales. A year ago, she wrote that Bales was hoping for a promotion or a transfer after nine years stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Wash.
"We are hoping to have as much control as possible" over the future, Kari Bales wrote last March 25. "Who knows where we will end up. I just hope that we are able to rent our house so that we can keep it. I think we are both still in shock."
After Bales lost out on a promotion to E7 -- a first-class sergeant -- the family hoped to go to either Germany, Italy or Hawaii for an "adventure," she said. They hoped to move by last summer; instead the Army redeployed his unit -- the 2nd Infantry Division of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, named after armored Stryker vehicles -- to Afghanistan.
It would be Bales' fourth tour in a war zone. He joined the military two months after 9/11 and spent more than three years in Iraq during three separate assignments since 2003. His attorney said he was injured twice in Iraq -- once losing part of his foot -- but his 20 or so commendations do not include the Purple Heart, given to soldiers wounded in combat.
Alexander said Bales wasn't injured while he oversaw him during their deployment -- Bales' second in Iraq. He called Bales a "very solid" noncommissioned officer who didn't have more difficulty than his fellow soldiers with battlefield stress. Bales shot at a man aiming a rocket-propelled grenade at his platoon's vehicle in Mosul, Iraq, sending the grenade flying over the vehicle.
"There's no doubt he saved lives that day," Alexander said. The charges he killed civilians is "100 percent out of character for him," he said.
Bales always loved the military and war history, even as a teenager, said Berling, who played football with him in the early 1990s on a team that included Marc Edwards, a future NFL player and Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots.
"I remember him and the teacher just going back and forth on something like talking about the details of the Battle of Bunker Hill," he said. "He knew history, all the wars."
Bales exulted in the role once he finally achieved it. Plunged into battle in Iraq, he told an interviewer for a Fort Lewis base newspaper in 2009 that he and his comrades proved "the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy."
Bales joined the Army, Berling said, after studying business at Ohio State University -- he attended three years but didn't graduate -- and handled investments before the market downturn pushed him out of the business. Florida records show that Bales was a director at an inactive company called Spartina Investments Inc. in Doral, Fla.; his brother, Mark Bales, and a Mark Edwards were also listed as directors.
"I guess he didn't like it when people lost money," Berling said.
He was struggling to keep payments on his own home in Lake Tapps, a rural reservoir community about 35 miles south of Seattle; his wife asked to put the house on the market three days before the shootings, real estate Philip Rodocker said.
"She told him she was behind in our payments," Rodocker told The New York Times. "She said he was on his fourth tour and it was getting kind of old and they needed to stabilize their finances."
The house was not officially put on the market until Monday; on Tuesday, Rodocker said, Bales' wife called and asked to take the house off the market, talking of a family emergency.
Bales and his wife bought the Lake Tapps home in 2005, according to records, for $280,000; it was listed this week at $229,000. Overflowing boxes were piled on the front porch, and a U.S. flag leaned against the siding.
The sale may have been a sign of financial troubles. Bales and his wife also own a home in Auburn, about 10 miles north, according to county records, but abandoned it about two years ago, homeowners' association president Bob Baggett said. Now signs posted on the front door and window by the city warn against occupying the house.
"It was ramshackled," Baggett said. "They were not dependable. When they left there were vehicles parts left on the front yard...we'd given up on the owners."
The diverging portrait of the sergeant rippled across the country on Saturday.
"It's our Bobby. He was the local hero," said Michael Blevins, who grew up down the street from him in Norwood, Ohio. The youngest of five boys respected older residents, admonished troublemakers and loved children, even helping another boy in the area who had special needs.
In Washington state, court records showed a 2002 arrest for assault on a girlfriend. Bales pleaded not guilty and was required to undergo 20 hours of anger management counseling, after which the case was dismissed.
A separate hit-and-run charge was dismissed in Sumner, Wash.'s municipal court three years ago, according to records. It isn't clear from court documents what Bales hit; witnesses saw a man in a military-style uniform, with a shaved head and bleeding, running away.
When deputies found him in the woods, Bales told them he fell asleep at the wheel. He paid about $1,000 in fines and restitution and the case was dismissed in October 2009.
Dan Conway, a military attorney who represented one of four Lewis-McChord soldiers convicted in the deliberate killings of three Afghan civilians in 2010, said whether legal scrapes affect a soldier's career depends in part on whether they prompt the Army to issue administrative penalties. The punishments are typically recorded in official personnel files.
Over the past decade, Conway said, the military has sometimes been lax in administering such punishments. As a result, soldiers who might be bad apples sometimes remain in service longer than they otherwise might have.
"It's something you want to note," Conway said. "The best predictor of future violence is past violence."
Bales' lawyer, John Henry Browne of Seattle, said he didn't know if his client had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of the shootings, but said it could be an issue at trial if experts believe it's relevant.
He also said Friday he didn't know if his client had been drinking the night of the massacre.
I stand by what I said in my first post. Send Bales back ta stand trial in Afghanistan, by an all Afghan court of citizens of the province where the murders took place.
If found guilty of all charges, let Afghan law prevail. Let Afghan law take its course. Bales must face an Afghan court.
...ta stand trial, and be punished by the Afghans.
No more excuses. Let justice be done. Nobody made this guy kill women, children, and people who were asleep in their houses...
Give him over to a 'people's court' and let them figure out how he should pay his due. Stone him? Behead him? Whatever Afghans want.
The mission there, the war has already been lost.
They want us out. Let's get out. But first things first. This man must pay with his life.
By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press 15 minutes ago
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) The American soldier accused of shooting 16 Afghan villagers in a pre-dawn killing spree was flown out of Afghanistan on Wednesday to an undisclosed location, even as many Afghans called for him to face justice in their country.
Afghan government officials did not immediately respond to calls for comment on the late-night announcement. The U.S. military said the transfer did not preclude the possibility of trying the case in Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the soldier could receive capital punishment if convicted.
Many fear a misstep by the U.S. military in handling the case could ignite a firestorm in Afghanistan that would shatter already tense relations between the two countries. The alliance appeared near the breaking point last month when the burning of Qurans in a garbage pit at a U.S. base sparked protests and retaliatory attacks that killed more than 30 people, including six U.S. soldiers.
In recent days the two nations made headway toward an agreement governing a long-term American presence here, but the massacre in Kandahar province on Sunday has called all such negotiations into question.
Afghan lawmakers have demanded that the soldier be publicly tried in Afghanistan to show that he was being brought to justice, calling on President Hamid Karzai to suspend all talks with the U.S. until that happens.
The U.S. staff sergeant, who has not been named or charged, allegedly slipped out of his small base in southern Afghanistan before dawn, crept into three houses and shot men, women and children at close range then burned some of the bodies. By sunrise, there were 16 corpses.
The soldier was held by the U.S. military in Kandahar until Wednesday evening, when he was flown out of Afghanistan "based on a legal recommendation," said Navy Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman.
"We do not have appropriate detention facilities in Afghanistan," Kirby said, explaining that he was referring to a facility for a U.S. service member "in this kind of case."
The soldier was transported aboard a U.S. military aircraft to a "pretrial confinement facility" in another country, a U.S. military official said, without saying where. The official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to release the information publicly, would not confirm if that meant an American military base or another type of facility. He said the Afghan government was informed of the move.
Kirby said the transfer did not necessarily mean the trial would be held outside Afghanistan, but the other military official said legal proceedings would continue outside Afghanistan.
U.S. officials had previously said it would be technically possible to hold proceedings in Afghanistan, noting other court-martial trials held here.
The decision to remove the soldier from the country may complicate the prosecution, said Michael Waddington, an American military defense lawyer who represented the ringleader of the 2010 thrill killings of three Afghan civilians by soldiers from the same Washington state base as the accused staff sergeant.
The prosecutors won't be able to use statements from Afghan witnesses unless the defense is able to cross-examine them, he said.
Waddington said the decision to remove the suspect was likely a security call.
"His presence in the country would put himself and other service members in jeopardy," Waddington said.
But the patience of Afghan investigators has already appeared to be wearing thin regarding the shootings in Panjwai district.
The soldier was caught on U.S. surveillance video that showed him walking up to his base, laying down his weapon and raising his arms in surrender, according to an Afghan official who viewed the footage.
The official said Wednesday there were also two to three hours of video footage covering the time of the attack that Afghan investigators are trying to get from the U.S. military. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
U.S. authorities showed their Afghan counterparts the video of the surrender to prove that only one perpetrator was involved in the shootings, the official said.
Some Afghan officials and residents in the villages that were attacked have insisted there was more than one shooter. If the disagreement persists, it could deepen the distrust between the two countries.
Panetta, in a series of meetings with troops and Afghan leaders Wednesday, said the U.S. must never lose sight of its mission in the war, despite recent violence including what appeared to be an attempted attack near the runway of a military base where he was about to land.
It wasn't clear whether it was an attempt to attack the defense chief, whose travel to southern Afghanistan was not made public before he arrived. Panetta was informed of the incident after landing.
"We will not allow individual incidents to undermine our resolve to that mission," he told about 200 Marines at Camp Leatherneck. "We will be tested we will be challenged, we'll be challenged by our enemy, we'll be challenged by ourselves, we'll be challenged by the hell of war itself. But none of that, none of that, must ever deter us from the mission that we must achieve."
According the Pentagon spokesman, an Afghan stole a vehicle at a British airfield in southern Afghanistan and drove it onto a runway, crashing into a ditch about the same time that Leon Panetta's aircraft was landing.
The pickup truck drove at high speed onto the ramp where Panetta's plane was intended to stop, Kirby said. No one in Panetta's party was injured.
Jelinek reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Sebastian Abbot contributed from Kabul, Lolita C. Baldor from Camp Leatherneck, Mirwais Khan from Kandahar, and Gene Johnson contributed from Seattle.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
-- Edited by Uke on Wednesday 14th of March 2012 02:15:31 PM
The Situation in Afghanistan Gets Worse
Jon Soltz: The Situation in Afghanistan Gets Worse
Co-Founder of VoteVets.org, Iraq War Veteran
A couple of days ago, I said that the events over the last couple months -- the murder of 16 innocent Afghans by a soldier, the burning of Qurans, and desecration of dead bodies -- meant counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan have failed and President Obama had to end them.
Today, things only got worse, for three reasons.
First, Afghan President Karzai issued a statement calling on all NATO forces to pull out of Afghan villages. It's a move, if implemented, that would effectively end counter-insurgency operations and make NATO forces move towards an Advise, Train, and Assist (ATA) role, much like the one in Iraq in 2011.
In his statement, Karzai said, "Not a single foreign soldier should enter Afghan homes, and the entire attention should switch to the country's reconstruction and economic assistance... Afghanistan is right now ready to completely take all security responsibilities, so we demand a speedy transition and the hand-over of responsibility to the Afghans."
Now, this could be posturing by Karzai. It's possible that it isn't what he really wants, but feels that as his people turn against Americans, it is something he has to call for. Whatever the case may be, it doesn't matter. Counter-insurgency operations' entire purpose is to provide security for the population so services can be rendered by government and peace can be brokered with the opposition. It absolutely, positively requires the support of the indigenous government.
Karzai's statement calls that support into serious doubt, making counter-insurgency even more difficult than it was right after the killing of Afghan innocents just a few days ago. It quite possibly renders any counter-insurgency success impossible.
Secondly, and relatedly, talks with the Taliban have been suspended, meaning a core purpose of counter-insurgency is now on the ropes. While it seems that preconditions for talks were the reason for the suspension, there can be no doubt that the death of innocent Afghans influenced the Taliban's decision to halt talks. If there can be no negotiations with the Taliban to bring them into the fold, then there is absolutely no purpose -- no goal -- for counter-insurgency.
And finally, and underreported, are riots in the street over American immunity, and calling for it to end. That is an unacceptable condition -- we can never allow U.S. troops to be tried in a foreign court. And yet, the Afghan people are pressuring the Afghan government to call for it. This is important, because it was the hot issue when I was in Iraq in 2011. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki refused any immunity for U.S. troops if there was going to be an extension of troops post-2011, because of his own domestic political pressure. And that issue -- largely -- was the reason why the U.S. could not negotiate an extension of our troop presence there.
In Afghanistan, the issue may, once again, scuttle any long-term arrangement between Afghanistan and the West, meaning that a withdrawal from the Afghan democracy will come much sooner rather than later. It also puts in danger any negotiated counter-terror mission, which would require immunity for U.S. forces. In the meantime, however, wrangling over troop immunity makes it much more difficult for our troops to operate because, again, it means we do not have the full support of the people.
President Obama has a lot of issues to weigh, but I really hope he sides with the American troops on the ground. They're now being asked by our government to provide security to a population in a mission that is no longer wanted by the democratically elected leader of that country, making their current mission untenable and unproductive. Therefore, the only conclusion he can come to is to engage U.S. forces in a mission that can be successful. And that is an immediate transition to an ATA role, on the way towards a negotiated counter-terror mission with a very limited footprint.
-- Edited by Uke on Thursday 15th of March 2012 10:45:47 AM
This one won't go away just by ignoring it. It just prolongs the agony, and reasons to abandon a lost 'mission.'
Anybody remember why the hell we got ourselves inta this mess in the first place?
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/03/201231593938401477.html
In his statement, Karzai said, "Not a single foreign soldier should enter Afghan homes, and the entire attention should switch to the country's reconstruction and economic assistance... Afghanistan is right now ready to completely take all security responsibilities, so we demand a speedy transition and the hand-over of responsibility to the Afghans."
Reconstruction and ECONOMIC assistance are the
key words in that whole article Uke... Quess who
gets to pay for that... If there's no one in the
countryside then you don't know if that economic
assistance is making it there or into someones
pocket...
We have great needs when it comes to rebuilding communities destroyed by natural disasters... The military oughta be deployed ta protect and secure this homeland, and forget about 'nation-building,' and ousting dictators.
Plenty work right here in the good ol' US of A!
Amen
Snippy knows that there is no unmet need in the homeland.
Snippy knows that since 9/11 that all of our focus has been protecting our nation's borders.
Snippy sleeps well at night. Krink sees that evidence a lot.
LAMO....
and yet he's around during normal hours tuu.
Such is the nature of properly implemented tabbed browsing with a high-speed connection to the internets using a modern era web browser such as Safari 5.1.4.
You, too, should explore the benefits of such a schema.
3rd house than I do. Billy Bob Thornton has "6" planets in Leo.
A 5-planet conjunction of Venus-Mercury-Sun-Jupiter-Mars and
Pluto all in Leo. Any thoughts on the guy?
Sgt. Robert Bales: Details emerge on soldier charged with killing Afghan villagers
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales joined the Army shortly after the 911 terrorist attacks, and he served three tours in Iraq before being sent to Afghanistan. Now he sits in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, charged with killing 16 Afghan villagers.
By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer / March 17, 2012
In this Aug. 2011 photo, Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, right, participates in an exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. The man at left is unidentified. Staff Sgt. Bales is charged with killing 16 Afghan villagers.
Spc. Ryan Hallock/DVIDS/AP
Washington
The US Army has at last released the name of the soldier who went on a shooting spree nearly one week ago, killing 16 Afghan civilians including 9 children.
But there remain a number of questions surrounding precisely what led 38 year-old Staff Sergeant Robert Bales to embark on a murderous rampage.
The Pentagon released details late Friday night that begin to paint a picture of Sgt. Bales, who enlisted in the military just two months after the September 11th terrorist attacks.
His first deployment to Iraq came in November, 2004, where he served for a year. He returned in June of 2006 for an extended 15-month tour, which the Army began instituting at the height of violence in Iraq.
Bales returned to the country again in August, 2009, where he served until June of the following year.
During that time, in an interview with a local newspaper, he extolled the virtues of careful soldiering to protect the local population.
Ive never been more proud to be a part of this unit for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants, he told the Fort Lewis Northwest Guardian after a battle in Iraq in 2007. Afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us.
John Henry Browne, Bales Seattle-based lawyer, told reporters that his client had not demonstrated any animosity towards the Afghan people. Hes never said anything antagonistic about Muslims, Mr. Browne said. Hes in general very mild-mannered.
Prior to deploying to Afghanistan in December, Bales received traumatic brain injury (TBI) treatment at Fort Lewis and was deemed to be fine, according to ABC News.
Even so, Bales was surprised when he learned he would have to return to war last year, according to his lawyer.
Once he arrived in Afghanistan, he was assigned to be part of a protection unit for Special Operations Forces working with local militias.
The Pentagon release notes multiple awards and decorations for Bales, including three Army good conduct medals, two meritorious unit commendations, and the Army superior unit award.
But while Browne told reporters that Bales was highly decorated and had been injured twice in Iraq, there is no mention in Bales Pentagon-released service record of any Purple Hearts, and a recommendation for a Bronze Star for Bales was turned down.
Now he is being held in pre-trial confinement at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in a state-of-the-art, medium/minimum custody facility, according to the Pentagon release.
Bates is in special housing in his own cell and not in a four-person bay. He will be afforded time outside the cell for hygiene and recreational purposes, the release adds.
In his hometown, neighbors say they are stunned Bales stands accused of mass murder. Im shocked. Im completely shocked, Kassie Holland told CBS News. He was always happy. Happy guy, full of life I really wouldnt expect it.
The charges run contrary to Bales own words in the 2007 interview with his local newspaper as well, when he expressed disdain for any insurgent would could put his family in harms way like that, he said. I think thats the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy.
Well now we know his name. And we know he had problems as well. Money problems mostly. And he was probably sick and tired of playing soldier since first enlisted ta do exactly what he was told ta do.
He enlisted right after 9/11. Worked his way up the ranks. And his story isn't anything we haven't heard before. We'll likely hear more about this guy, and others like him from our 'all volunteer' military.
Money, career woes reportedly plagued Afghan killings suspect
Published March 18, 2012
| Associated Press
AP/DVIDS
Aug. 23, 2011: In this Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System photo, soldiers from Blackhorse Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, including Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, left, take part in exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.
LAKE TAPPS, Wash. Bypassed for a promotion and struggling to pay for his house, Robert Bales was eyeing a way out of his job at a Washington state military base months before he allegedly gunned down 16 civilians in an Afghan war zone, records and interviews showed as a deeper picture emerged Saturday of the Army sergeant's financial troubles and brushes with the law.
While Bales, 38, sat in an isolated cell at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.'s military prison Saturday, classmates and neighbors from suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, remembered him as a "happy-go-lucky" high school football player who took care of a special needs child and watched out for troublemakers in the neighborhood.
But court records and interviews show that the 10-year veteran -- with a string of commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan -- had joined the Army after a Florida investment job went sour, had a Seattle-area home condemned, struggled to make payments on another and failed to get a promotion or a transfer a year ago.
His legal troubles included charges that he assaulted a girlfriend and, in a hit-and run accident, ran bleeding in military clothes into the woods, court records show. He told police he fell asleep at the wheel and paid a fine to get the charges dismissed, the records show.
Military officials say that after drinking on a southern Afghanistan base, Bales crept away on March 11 to two slumbering villages overnight, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine of the 16 killed were children and 11 belonged to one family.
"This is some crazy stuff if it's true," Steve Berling, a high school classmate, said of the revelations about the father of two known as "Bobby" in his hometown of Norwood, Ohio.
Bales hasn't been charged yet in the shootings, which have endangered complicated relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan and threatened to upend U.S. policy over the decade-old war.
His former platoon leader said Saturday Bales was a model soldier inspired by 9/11 to serve who saved lives in firefights on his second of three Iraq deployments.
"He's one of the best guys I ever worked with," said Army Capt. Chris Alexander, who led Bales on a 15-month deployment in Iraq.
"He is not some psychopath. He's an outstanding soldier who has given a lot for this country."
But pressing family troubles were hinted at by his wife, Kari, on multiple blogs posted with names like The Bales Family Adventures and BabyBales. A year ago, she wrote that Bales was hoping for a promotion or a transfer after nine years stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Wash.
"We are hoping to have as much control as possible" over the future, Kari Bales wrote last March 25. "Who knows where we will end up. I just hope that we are able to rent our house so that we can keep it. I think we are both still in shock."
After Bales lost out on a promotion to E7 -- a first-class sergeant -- the family hoped to go to either Germany, Italy or Hawaii for an "adventure," she said. They hoped to move by last summer; instead the Army redeployed his unit -- the 2nd Infantry Division of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, named after armored Stryker vehicles -- to Afghanistan.
It would be Bales' fourth tour in a war zone. He joined the military two months after 9/11 and spent more than three years in Iraq during three separate assignments since 2003. His attorney said he was injured twice in Iraq -- once losing part of his foot -- but his 20 or so commendations do not include the Purple Heart, given to soldiers wounded in combat.
Alexander said Bales wasn't injured while he oversaw him during their deployment -- Bales' second in Iraq. He called Bales a "very solid" noncommissioned officer who didn't have more difficulty than his fellow soldiers with battlefield stress. Bales shot at a man aiming a rocket-propelled grenade at his platoon's vehicle in Mosul, Iraq, sending the grenade flying over the vehicle.
"There's no doubt he saved lives that day," Alexander said. The charges he killed civilians is "100 percent out of character for him," he said.
Bales always loved the military and war history, even as a teenager, said Berling, who played football with him in the early 1990s on a team that included Marc Edwards, a future NFL player and Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots.
"I remember him and the teacher just going back and forth on something like talking about the details of the Battle of Bunker Hill," he said. "He knew history, all the wars."
Bales exulted in the role once he finally achieved it. Plunged into battle in Iraq, he told an interviewer for a Fort Lewis base newspaper in 2009 that he and his comrades proved "the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy."
Bales joined the Army, Berling said, after studying business at Ohio State University -- he attended three years but didn't graduate -- and handled investments before the market downturn pushed him out of the business. Florida records show that Bales was a director at an inactive company called Spartina Investments Inc. in Doral, Fla.; his brother, Mark Bales, and a Mark Edwards were also listed as directors.
"I guess he didn't like it when people lost money," Berling said.
He was struggling to keep payments on his own home in Lake Tapps, a rural reservoir community about 35 miles south of Seattle; his wife asked to put the house on the market three days before the shootings, real estate Philip Rodocker said.
"She told him she was behind in our payments," Rodocker told The New York Times. "She said he was on his fourth tour and it was getting kind of old and they needed to stabilize their finances."
The house was not officially put on the market until Monday; on Tuesday, Rodocker said, Bales' wife called and asked to take the house off the market, talking of a family emergency.
Bales and his wife bought the Lake Tapps home in 2005, according to records, for $280,000; it was listed this week at $229,000. Overflowing boxes were piled on the front porch, and a U.S. flag leaned against the siding.
The sale may have been a sign of financial troubles. Bales and his wife also own a home in Auburn, about 10 miles north, according to county records, but abandoned it about two years ago, homeowners' association president Bob Baggett said. Now signs posted on the front door and window by the city warn against occupying the house.
"It was ramshackled," Baggett said. "They were not dependable. When they left there were vehicles parts left on the front yard...we'd given up on the owners."
The diverging portrait of the sergeant rippled across the country on Saturday.
"It's our Bobby. He was the local hero," said Michael Blevins, who grew up down the street from him in Norwood, Ohio. The youngest of five boys respected older residents, admonished troublemakers and loved children, even helping another boy in the area who had special needs.
In Washington state, court records showed a 2002 arrest for assault on a girlfriend. Bales pleaded not guilty and was required to undergo 20 hours of anger management counseling, after which the case was dismissed.
A separate hit-and-run charge was dismissed in Sumner, Wash.'s municipal court three years ago, according to records. It isn't clear from court documents what Bales hit; witnesses saw a man in a military-style uniform, with a shaved head and bleeding, running away.
When deputies found him in the woods, Bales told them he fell asleep at the wheel. He paid about $1,000 in fines and restitution and the case was dismissed in October 2009.
Dan Conway, a military attorney who represented one of four Lewis-McChord soldiers convicted in the deliberate killings of three Afghan civilians in 2010, said whether legal scrapes affect a soldier's career depends in part on whether they prompt the Army to issue administrative penalties. The punishments are typically recorded in official personnel files.
Over the past decade, Conway said, the military has sometimes been lax in administering such punishments. As a result, soldiers who might be bad apples sometimes remain in service longer than they otherwise might have.
"It's something you want to note," Conway said. "The best predictor of future violence is past violence."
Bales' lawyer, John Henry Browne of Seattle, said he didn't know if his client had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of the shootings, but said it could be an issue at trial if experts believe it's relevant.
He also said Friday he didn't know if his client had been drinking the night of the massacre.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/18/money-career-woes-reportedly-plagued-afghan-killings-suspect/#ixzz1pS7V9oz6
I stand by what I said in my first post. Send Bales back ta stand trial in Afghanistan, by an all Afghan court of citizens of the province where the murders took place.
If found guilty of all charges, let Afghan law prevail. Let Afghan law take its course. Bales must face an Afghan court.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/03/afghan-murder-suspect-had-08-violence-case-in-wash-state/