The man who massacred Afghan civilians was sentenced today at JBLM.
A military jury on Friday sentenced a U.S. soldier who massacred 16 Afghan civilians last year to life in prison without a chance of parole.
The decision came in the case of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 40, who pleaded guilty in June in a deal to avoid the death penalty.
Bales did not recount specifics of the horrors in court when he testified Thursday or offer an explanation for the violence, but he described the killings as an “act of cowardice, behind a mask of fear, bulls— and bravado.”
I believe in the parole system, even for awful cases. And Robert Bales is certainly an awful case. So I would have liked the possibility of parole to come up at some distant point in the future. But I certainly can’t begrudge the toughest sentence available given the circumstances.
Oh, don’t worry, the next GOP president we end up with will just pardon him, ala Lt.(butterbar) Calley.
Nah. That POS is lucky to still be alive.
@1 That’s my take. He’ll be out someday. I hope it isn’t a Democratic president who springs him.
Most victims of modern war are noncombatant civilians. Militarists callously refer to them as “collateral damage” to dehumanize and minimize their deaths. The general attitude of Americans seems to be that when we send troops to a foreign country to fight a war the lives of the people who live there aren’t worth anything. There’s also an attitude in this country that we’re better than everyone else, so when American soldiers commit atrocities, pick one: (a) the victims were enemy sympathizers and had it coming, (b) it didn’t happen and anyone who says it did is a traitor, or (c) it’s not a war crime when Americans do it. An optional choice is (d) the soldier was pushed beyond breaking point by repeated deployments so he shouldn’t be held responsible for shooting up a village and murdering old people, women, and children.
My answer to (d) would be that Bales wasn’t the only soldier who served repeated deployments, was injured, and was pushed to breaking point; but none of the others did what he did, so why did he do it when they didn’t? The answer lies within him, and not in the circumstances he was put in. In other words, his murderous rampage resulted from his criminal impulses, and not from the stresses and strains of being a combat soldier.
Atrocities should not be glossed over, no matter who commits them. We executed German and Japanese war criminals for committing atrocities. The Calley case made us look like hypocrites to the rest of the world. Bales should serve his sentence, not to single him out and make an example of him, but because he committed these crimes.
He should be executed by slow torture.
The military tribunal did not take into account that this individual had several deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan where he saw combat, experienced traumatic brain injury which alters the brain and also was taking steroids to stay physically competitive and muscular in order to be up to the challenge of physical privation and combat with the Taliban. This guy was a 9/11 patriot whose whole life is now ruined due to the repeated violent events he either witnessed or suffered in terms of war injuries to his brain. In short, this guy “went off the rails” mentally after so many war deployments over ten years. Let’s face it, the guy was a “head case” and should have received a much lighter sentence with mandatory psych, mental and medical counseling and monitoring while serving his sentence. Subject someone to repeated head injuries long enough and they become like Muhammad Ali today – a wreck either physically or mentally. The military sees in black and white. The Obama Administration sees this in political terms and wanted to show the world and the Afghans they will not show mercy to their own soldiers, thus denying the Taliban a propaganda victory. Pardon Sgt. Bales after he serves a decent period of time! And get this guy some psychological and PTSD! Face it: This guy is damaged, not inherently evil!