GUILTY Afghanistan - US Soldier guns down 16 civilians, 2012 Kandahar massacre

[jjenny]

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


http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/army-bales-accused-fraud-stock-rip-off/story?id=15957215#.T2ezNtkyCSo

 

[michmi]

I happened to be watching the CBS Evening News and they showed photos I'd never seen before--I immediately thought he must have a steroids history in his past too--the photos I saw showed a VERY bulky upper body, very stereotypical of someone who was abusing steroids along with heavy bodybuilding.

When I went to search for any information on him and steroids, I found references from December 2010 where an Army investigation found steroid abuse at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

 

[michmi]

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


http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/army-bales-accused-fraud-stock-rip-off/story?id=15957215#.T2ezNtkyCSo

So much for Mr. Nice Guy, huh?

 

[Dr.Fessel]

Sgt. wife's statement.

http://blog.thenewstribune.com/street/2012/03/19/wife-of-alleged-afghan-shooter-releases-statement/

 

[Trino]

Sgt. wife's statement.

http://blog.thenewstribune.com/street/2012/03/19/wife-of-alleged-afghan-shooter-releases-statement/

One of the first people I thought about was his wife (and children) and how this would affect them personally and economically. If he's charged, will he still get paid? Will his family suffer financially? I wonder how his children are dealing with this.

 

[mrsu]

Having a father that was on one of the front lines in Desert Storm I have very strong feelings about the military...and while I'm grateful to our soldiers, none of my feelings are very favorable.

My father was never the same after he came back. Much like the situation someone posted above, he is no longer in my life. I have no doubt he had PTSD as some of the things he did upon his return were just bizarre. He would line up his guns and march around them, even shooting them off at random sometimes in the back yard. Every time there was a storm he would hide in the bathtub in the dark bathroom. Much like the other person stated, he was just a "shell" when he came back. I will never forget the stories he told of having to kill innocent children and shoot everything in his path...I know he won't forget it either.

My parents were separated during all of it, but once he returned, he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I've accepted that now and moved on. He's now a guard at a maximum security prison and the thought that he carries a gun on a daily basis scares the crap out of me.

The only thing I know is that the military needs to have MANDATORY counseling for anyone who is deployed. It needs to be understood by all soldiers that it happens regardless. If they don't agree to go after the fact, there has to be some sort of consequence, like not receiving a part of their pay or something. So many people are "too proud" to consider counseling...but after being deployed, especially to a war zone, it's absolutely necessary. Someone said above that many of the soldiers go into LE after they are discharged so they don't want to be diagnosed as PSTD. All the reason for mandatory counseling, IMO. Do we really want these men/women as our LE? To carry a gun on a daily basis? Some of them likely to explode at any minute? They should be labeled as PSTD so that we don't have to worry about the mental state of our LE, etc. If a regular citizen could not pass the screening to become LE, there should be no special exceptions for former soldiers either.

MOO

 

[Trino]

"His wife, Karilyn Bales, is a project manager at Amaxra, a Redmond marketing and public-relations firm. Records show she also had worked as a project manager at now-defunct Washington Mutual.

The couple bought their house in Lake Tapps in November 2005, county records show. They paid $280,000 for a four-bedroom, two-story home built in 1990. The house was listed for sale March 12."

"The house was put on the market Monday for $51,000 less than the couple paid for it in 2005, according to Seattle-based Zillow."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/avantgo/2017770505.html

 

[Trino]

She and her children are now being kept at an army base, presumeably for protection.

 

[MsFacetious]

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be charged with 17 counts of murder and six counts of assault and attempted murder related to a March 11 shooting spree in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

The charges are expected to be announced Friday.
The official could not explain why the count is now 17, when 16 have been reported killed in the incident.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/22/justice/afghanistan-bales-charges/?hpt=hp_t1

One of the first people I thought about was his wife (and children) and how this would affect them personally and economically. If he's charged, will he still get paid? Will his family suffer financially? I wonder how his children are dealing with this.

They were also some of the first people I thought about.
His children are only 3 and 4. So hopefully, they don't even know about this. lease:
I can't imagine his wife trying to wrap her brain around the fact that HER husband... the father of HER children did this.

 

[SoBeCzar]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/robert-bales-malaria-drug_n_1378671.html

He possibly had been on the anti malaria drug which has paranoid and psychotic effects. Also it is never to be given to anyone with a previous brain injury and he had that also. This drug has been limited once again due to the serious problems it has caused. It has been implicated in numerous homicides and suicides. The gov. will not say if he was given this drug citing his privacy.

 

[essies]

[video=youtube;Ahzy4iT_FAY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahzy4iT_FAY[/video]

 

[Peliman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/robert-bales-malaria-drug_n_1378671.html

He possibly had been on the anti malaria drug which has paranoid and psychotic effects. Also it is never to be given to anyone with a previous brain injury and he had that also. This drug has been limited once again due to the serious problems it has caused. It has been implicated in numerous homicides and suicides. The gov. will not say if he was given this drug citing his privacy.

Pre-1970 in Vietnam we were given an anti-malaria big orange pill every Monday. Against some objections including myself we were instructed to take it anyway. I think we were all a part of a medical study. I remember cuffing the pill and not taking it but didn't get away with it always. I remember something about it being written that it was an experimental drug. I remember the article was in the playboy magazine. ( I only bought playboy for the articles)<cough>

I'll have to look more into it since the drug was introduced in the market post vietnam. I just remember the drug didn't make me feel well so i tried to avoid it. I'll have to look into it, I'm sure some Afghanistan vets will speak out about anti-malaria treatment.

From the Wiki

United States military

On 2 February 2009, Lieutenant General Eric Schoomaker, Army Surgeon General, issued the following directive:

"In areas where doxycycline and mefloquine are equally efficacious in preventing malaria, doxycycline is the drug of choice. Mefloquine should only be used for personnel with contraindications to doxycycline and who do not have any contraindications to the use of mefloquine . . . . Mefloquine should not be given to soldiers with recent history of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) or who have symptoms from a previous TBI. Malarone would be the treatment of choice for these soldiers who cannot take doxycycline or mefloquine."[19]

 

[SoBeCzar]

Peliman, that info from wiki is curious. My sis and ex both were given malerone even though they had no problem with any other drugs. This was by seperate drs. when they each were taking trips to Africa. I have heard bad stuff about all malaria drugs. Seems they make you feel bad and get the runs etc. The Gov. should give their troops safe meds. But they have always used their men as guinea pigs.
The gov. is refusing to say whether Bales took the drug. Guess it will come out in the trial?

 

[essies]

[video=youtube;fgzDft_g7GQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgzDft_g7GQ[/video]

curteousy of Dateline SBS Australia

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/601431/n/Anatomy-of-a-Massacre

Anatomy Of A Massacre

"My mother was screaming and he held a gun to her. My father said "leave her alone" and then he shot him." Noorbinak, massacre survivor

What really happened on the night of March 11 when 17 Afghan civilians were massacred in Kandahar province?

Many Afghans, including some of the survivors that night, believe more than one U.S. soldier was present in the two villages where the killings took place.

With unprecedented access to Afghan military investigators, Yalda Hakim travels to the villages where the massacre took place and interviews survivors of the attack, as well as Afghan guards at the US military base that housed the alleged gunman.

US soldier Robert Bales is in custody, facing charges of mass murder, but Afghan investigators suspect there may have been at least one other killer involved.

Following Dateline's broadcast, The Pentagon rejected the claims that Bales didn't act alone

================================================== =============

The Kandahar massacre occurred in the early morning of Sunday, 11 March 2012, when seventeen civilians were killed and five wounded in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Among the dead were four men, four women, two boys, and seven girls; eleven of these victims were from the same family. Some of the corpses were partially burned. United States Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, age 38, from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, was taken into custody and charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of assault and attempted murder.

 

[Blondie in Spokane]

Suspect in Afghan massacre took steroids, Army says

http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20120602/NEWS0107/206020364/

 

[Reader]

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales awaits hearing on Afghan killings at Joint Base Lewis-McChord

For the first time since he was taken into custody seven months ago, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is back at Joint Base Lewis-McChord awaiting a pretrial hearing on charges that he murdered 16 Afghan civilians during his deployment with a local Stryker brigade.

Bales, a former Lake Tapps resident and father of two, had been in confinement at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. since the Army sprinted him out of Afghanistan following the March 11 killings. An Army spokesman confirmed that he arrived at Lewis-McChord’s Regional Confinement Center Monday evening.

He is expected to have a two-week pretrial hearing beginning Nov. 5 at Lewis-McChord where his defense attorney can interview all of the prosecution’s witnesses, including Afghan civilians from the rural Panjwai District in Kandahar Province where Bales allegedly slipped out of his combat outpost and massacred noncombatants in two villages.

His confinement at Lewis-McChord allows him to communicate more easily with his family in the Puget Sound and with his defense team.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/10/16/171610/staff-sgt-robert-bales-awaits.html#storylink=cpy

 

[i.b.nora]

Preliminary hearing on this starts tomorrow. Expected to run two weeks.

Here is one report:

Happened to run across this at The Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ILDREN-speaks-eve-military-court-hearing.html

 

[Blondie in Spokane]

Wife of Sgt Robert Bales: My Husband Did Not Do This

http://abcnews.go.com/US/kari-bales-wife-sgt-robert-bales-soldier-accused/t/story?id=17638216

 

[Reader]

Prosecutor: US soldier had blood of victims on him

http://www.centurylink.net/news/read.php?id=19131230&ps=1011&cat=&cps=0&lang=en

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. (AP) — The soldier accused of killing 16 villagers in a nighttime rampage in Afghanistan returned to his base wearing a cape and with the blood of his victims on his rifle, belt, shirt and pants, a military prosecutor said Monday.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was incredulous when fellow U.S. soldiers drew their weapons on him when he returned to Camp Belambay in southern Afghanistan last March, prosecutor Lt. Col. Jay Morse said as a preliminary hearing opened at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

Bales then turned to one sergeant at the scene and said: "Mac, if you rat me out ..." Morse said.............

Morse said Bales seemed utterly normal in the hours before the March 11 killings. With his colleagues, Bales watched the movie "Man on Fire," a fictional account of a former CIA operative on a revenge rampage.

Just before he left the base, Morse said, 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 a roadside bomb attack that claimed one soldier's leg.

"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, coherent and responsive...............


More at link.....

 

[i.b.nora]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...ver-alleged-massacre-of-afghan-civilians?lite

Hearing begins for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales over alleged massacre of Afghan civilians

By NBC News wire services
"Updated at*6:45 p.m. ET: In pretrial hearings for U.S. Army Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a nighttime massacre in March, prosecutors described to a military court on Monday how the sergeant allegedly returned to his base in Kandahar province with the blood of his victims on his rifle, belt, shirt and shoes and then seemed stunned to be confronted by fellow soldiers."

And

"Prosecutor Lt. Col Jay Morse said*Bales had been drinking and briefly visited the room of a fellow soldier before he left the Army post, called Camp Belambay, and went to a village where he committed the first set of slayings.

Morse said Bales then returned to the camp, told some others what he had done and left again, moving on to a different village and committing additional killings. He called Bales' actions "deliberate, methodical."

The prosecution also showed a video shot by night-vision camera from a surveillance balloon over the camp, showing a figure they identified as Bales walking back to the post wearing what they described as a cape.

The man is seen being confronted by three soldiers, who order him to drop his weapons and take him into custody as he is heard saying, "Are you @!$%#ing kidding me?""

Much More...