Bales pleads guilty
Andy sends us a link to the Associated Press which reports that Robert Bales pleaded guilty today in a Joint Base Lewis McChord court room to those grisly murders in Panjwai, Kandahar, Afghanistan on March 11, 2012;
To avoid the death penalty, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder at the hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle. He then read from a statement in a clear and steady voice, describing his actions for each killing in the same terms.
Bales, 39, said he left the remote base where he was posted in southern Afghanistan and went to the nearby villages of mud-walled compounds. Once inside, Bales said he “formed the intent” of killing the victims, then shot each one.
“This act was without legal justification, sir,” Bales told the judge. Bales sat at a defense table, his handles folded in front of him.
At one point the judge, Col. Jeffery Nance, asked Bales why he committed the March 2012 killings at two villages near the remote base in southern Afghanistan where he was posted.
Bales responded: “Sir, as far as why — I’ve ask that question a million times since then. There’s not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things I did.”
Apparently, according to the article, the Afghans are pretty upset that he won’t be sentenced to death, although it’s still up to the judge whether he’ll accept the plea or not.
Category: Terror War
Since when did telling the truth become leverage for avoiding the death penalty?
With all due respect, “F–k” the Afghans and what they think. Bring the troops home, shut the wallet, and let them go back to the dark ages. Strong message to follow.
@1 Pintonag, it’s a common practice to avoid trials. It saves money and exposure. Think of Brian Nichols. If anyone deserved the DP, it was him.
I don’t like it or agree with it, but that is why they do it.
I say let it be done. There is no guarantee that they could have proven he committed the crimes, this way they are taking what they can get. Fuck the Afghans and what they want.
Part of his punishment should have been to shoot Hasan’s fucking face off.
@5 Someone would cry it’s cruel and unusual despite how much I enjoy the imagery.
@5 — His punishment should not be shooting Hasan. It would be better to put him in the same cell and change Hasan’s diaper as needed.
Life sentence or death penalty, he went out and played God. The only thing most of his victims were probably guilty of was looking like people he hated.
In another thread here, this apparently could not have happened. You see, what he did was immoral and dishonorable. That’s something the ARMY and the gov’t condone or at least turn a blind eye to. So, this didn’t happen.
So this guy slaughters a bunch of Afghans and the trial is all but over, yet Hasan slaughter’s Americans and is a traitor and the “workplace violence” trial hasn’t started yet.
I see the priorities are clearly defined.
I wish I could say that I give a damn about what the Afghanis feel about the verdict and sentencing, but I think I left my give-a-damn in my other pants pocket, along with my feelings in the green-on-blue murders.
Dude snapped. Plain and simple. I don’t condone what he did (I actually think it was horrific), but I also think there is more there in his head than most people think. I would rather him get life in prison and enough psychotherapy to figure out exactly why he did what he did. If nothing else, rather than prison, he should be locked in a comfortable rubber room for the rest of his life.
What he did was wrong, but there is more to the story than “I don’t know why I did it.” If it was a mental snap, then it most assuredly was not his fault. But that’s just my opinion; I’ve only taken four years of primarily psychology classes.
I guess it’s a horrible thing what he did….I suppose it’s a different thing to plan to kill civilians with a bullet to the face as opposed to planning to kill them with bombs…
I guess the bombs give you the advantage of saying they were not the primary target and because you didn’t pick specific civilians it somehow sits easier on the conscience….even though you know there will be dead civilians in your bombing mission, because you didn’t single out a specific family it’s okay….civilians die through the planning efforts of the military chain of command. It’s a known factor and nobody is prosecuted….perhaps this guy should have killed one taliban fighter at the compound and the rest could be deemed collateral damage….
I certainly don’t want us to have an army of murderers and rapists, but I also am not terribly upset at this. That piece of sh1t country Afghanistan has harbored people who kill women and children every day of the week and now I’m supposed to feel bad because they’ve experienced some of what they’ve allowed to develop in their country?
F$ck them, I have no tears for Afghanistan or its’ people they can all die as far as I am concerned, every last one of them. The world will not be lessened for the loss of the population of that sh1thole or several others just like it.
The article 32 hearing had witnesses seeing Bales drinking and returning at night spotted in blood and admitting to killing a bunch of civilians. Not too hard of a hard case to prove…”a slam dunker.”
Pleading guilty saved him from a death penalty… a penalty he personally carried out on WOMEN and CHILDREN.
Many served more deployments than Bales, saw more combat and and did not do the horrific acts Bales chose to do.
May he burn in hell.
VOV: have to say I think you’re way off base above.
Bombing an enemy hiding among civilians and shooting at friendlies – or hammering them with artillery, for that matter – is a regrettable necessity of war at times. But there’s always a balancing test: does the military need justify the potential damage to civilians and/or civilian infrastructure? In some cases, the answer will be “No – that’s unacceptable collateral damage; find another way to take care of the problem.”
A classic example comes from the first Gulf War. A US SF team conducting strategic recon was discovered by an Iraqi girl. The team had two choices – off the child, or let her go and maybe not get out. The chose the latter, and barely made it out.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1991/06/16/secret-warriors.html (see page 5)
What Bales did was not at all the act of a soldier. Rather, Bales deliberately went on a personal killing spree against non-threatening, non-combatant civilians in the dead of night. That’s nothing but cold-blooded, premeditated murder.
Hondo indeed it is premeditated and he appears to be dead inside himself and the military may ultimately decide to make him all over dead.
But, dead women and kids are pretty much dead women and kids.
We can tell ourselves whatever we want to sleep better at night but a deliberate fire for effect on a housing complex because the enemy is firing from that location still kills women and children and is a deliberate premeditated decision.
We can choose not to bomb that location or not to fire for effect (as the SF folks in your link did), and take the consequences of not firing.
We can choose to engage the enemy only when they are free from civilian entanglements, but we don’t tend to choose that as our only option. With drones we have determined that if we can identify someone who is a threat we will kill them and anybody nearby to make sure we get our target. That’s also a premeditated decision. Made by sober, thoughtful men.
If we determine the military need makes it acceptable to kill women and children we are acknowledging that our military will kill women and children when we deem it acceptable. That makes us killers of women and children. We can tell ourselves whatever we like about why it’s okay but in the end we will be responsible for killing women and children because we deliberately chose that path.
We are responsible as a nation for the actions of our warriors when our warriors determine a mortar round is an acceptable method of killing women and kids that is on all of us because he represents all of us.
You’ve read my posts, I don’t have any great qualms about dead civilians as a result of bombing. I’ve made the case we don’t do enough of it in our current wars. We’ve make a decision to avoid the fire bombing of cities and the resultant civilian death tolls. I believe the resulting outcomes reflect that decision to avoid those deaths.
[…] posted a brief story the other day on the guilty plea entered by Robert Bales – the guy who claims he “snapped” after a night of unauthorized drinking, then went out and […]
@16…there is a hell of a BIG fucking difference getting sniped-shot at and then calling in ordnance on a target that the enemy is hiding behind civilians than going in as a rouge nut job, and shooting up women and children then setting them on fire. Give me a fucking break. NO comparison.
@14–it MIGHT save him from the needle. My understanding is that the judge is not compelled to take the plea nor does he/she have to restrict themselves to any particular punishment.
See too many of you are acting like the prosecution had the case locked up. For all we know at this point the may not have had enough evidence to convict him. It isn’t what you know it is what you can prove. Would you have been happy if he would have walked?