U.s. Soldier To Plead Guilty Of Massacring 16 Afghan Villagers To Avoid Execution

[News_Editor]

TACOMA, WASHINGTON (BNO NEWS) -- A United States soldier is expected to plea guilty in a southern Afghanistan massacre to avoid the death penalty, prosecutors said.

U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, 39, in order to avoid execution, has agreed to plea guilty of massacring at least 16 Afghan villagers on March 11, 2012 in the district of Pajwai in the southern province of Kandahar. The victims, most of them women and children, were shot or stabbed to death.

Bales' attorney told media outlets that the special operations soldier has agreed to plea guilty during his scheduled June 5 court hearing. However, lawyers have also stated that Bales had taken Valium, steroids, and alcohol, given to him by his colleagues, prior to the attack.

The statement is expected to be given after his guilty plea in order to determine whether Bales will be eligible for parole. In addition, lawyers have argued that Bales might have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder or a traumatic brain injury, as he was on his fourth combat tour.

(Copyright 2013 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: [email protected].)

[ABCer]

Let me see.

Commuting Death Sentence = Parole??? Just for pleading guilty after the trial???

Massacre of 'at least 16' women and children ? How many exactly?

'Special Op Soldier' ? What kind of combat are they specializing at ? Or is this Classified??? Is this an equivalent of 'Spetsnaz' ?

I have been on Valium and Alcohol for years ( about 20 years ago) ? Did I missed some opportunities in life ?

Steroids are supposed to make us bigger and stronger. Why nobody mentioned they make us crazy/stupid as well???

PTSD ? Traumatic Brain Injury from his fourth combat tour ? The man is not guilty... but those who sent and kept him there maybe are???

Not passing any judgments. Just asking questions is subversive enough...

Edited May 31, 2013 by ABCer

[cup-O-coffee]

Is this a matter for the military courts or civilian courts? These guys are trained killers to begin with. What they endure through basic and special training pretty much creates a machine that only serves the purpose to fulfill an order. Over there in Afghanistan, I am pretty sure that guerrilla warfare will mess with the mind when you have seen kids and women and the elderly walk into camps with explosives strapped their bodies and blow your mates away. Adding anything else to that to "get them psyched" or is a recipe for disaster. Getting hopped up on adrenalin, a 4th tour and psychological problems, and adding the other substances tells me that not only he should be investigated, but the way the entire situation is being ran over there.

What a mess.

[ABCer]

Is this a matter for the military courts or civilian courts? These guys are trained killers to begin with. What they endure through basic and special training pretty much creates a machine that only serves the purpose to fulfill an order. Over there in Afghanistan, I am pretty sure that guerrilla warfare will mess with the mind when you have seen kids and women and the elderly walk into camps with explosives strapped their bodies and blow your mates away. Adding anything else to that to "get them psyched" or is a recipe for disaster. Getting hopped up on adrenalin, a 4th tour and psychological problems, and adding the other substances tells me that not only he should be investigated, but the way the entire situation is being ran over there.

What a mess.

Now you are being more subversive than I... cup-O-coffee, what you'll do when the bad boys come for you???

[uptheos]

Over there in Afghanistan, I am pretty sure that guerrilla warfare will mess with the mind when you have seen kids and women and the elderly walk into camps with explosives strapped their bodies and blow your mates away.

I feel sorry for him, just can't imagine how stressful it must be, thinking everyone is a potential suicide bomber. I hope he gets the help he needs.

[NeverSure]

Let me see.

Commuting Death Sentence = Parole??? Just for pleading guilty after the trial???

Massacre of 'at least 16' women and children ? How many exactly?

'Special Op Soldier' ? What kind of combat are they specializing at ? Or is this Classified??? Is this an equivalent of 'Spetsnaz' ?

I have been on Valium and Alcohol for years ( about 20 years ago) ? Did I missed some opportunities in life ?

Steroids are supposed to make us bigger and stronger. Why nobody mentioned they make us crazy/stupid as well???

PTSD ? Traumatic Brain Injury from his fourth combat tour ? The man is not guilty... but those who sent and kept him there maybe are???

Not passing any judgments. Just asking questions is subversive enough...

It sounds as if he made a plea deal to get life in prison instead of execution. Next, after his sentence, there will be an investigation to see if there were mitigating circumstances which might make him eligible for parole eventually. If he really did suffer a brain injury or any number of things, instead of life without parole, he might be eligible for parole after, say, 20 years or whatever the court decides.

He won't walk free.

I agree that the whole process is damaging to the person. First he is made into a killer in basic training. Then if he was, as it sounds like, special ops, he would have been made into far more of a killer. Then he would be walking around seeing his buddies shot and blown up by civilians, and never sure who to trust. If he had any other issues he could get downright paranoid. He could also get seething anger from the horrific things he saw. Then he might explode and do something horrible.

I'm not excusing it, but it happens.

[simple1]

Media reports claim the mass murder was trigerred by one of his friends losing a leg in an IED attack a few days prior. During the killing spree Mohammed Wazir, had 11 family members killed, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter.

[bangkockney]

The guy has a clear medical history.

He was not SF.

It was pre-meditated murder and he should be punished accordingly.

[uptheos]

"For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers," vowed Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter.

Who knows what goes on in the stressed mind of a combatant on his fourth tour of duty?

I must be really tough on him and his family.

I hope something can be done for him.

[ABCer]

Let me see.

Commuting Death Sentence = Parole??? Just for pleading guilty after the trial???

Massacre of 'at least 16' women and children ? How many exactly?

'Special Op Soldier' ? What kind of combat are they specializing at ? Or is this Classified??? Is this an equivalent of 'Spetsnaz' ?

I have been on Valium and Alcohol for years ( about 20 years ago) ? Did I missed some opportunities in life ?

Steroids are supposed to make us bigger and stronger. Why nobody mentioned they make us crazy/stupid as well???

PTSD ? Traumatic Brain Injury from his fourth combat tour ? The man is not guilty... but those who sent and kept him there maybe are???

Not passing any judgments. Just asking questions is subversive enough...

It sounds as if he made a plea deal to get life in prison instead of execution. Next, after his sentence, there will be an investigation to see if there were mitigating circumstances which might make him eligible for parole eventually. If he really did suffer a brain injury or any number of things, instead of life without parole, he might be eligible for parole after, say, 20 years or whatever the court decides.

He won't walk free.

I agree that the whole process is damaging to the person. First he is made into a killer in basic training. Then if he was, as it sounds like, special ops, he would have been made into far more of a killer. Then he would be walking around seeing his buddies shot and blown up by civilians, and never sure who to trust. If he had any other issues he could get downright paranoid. He could also get seething anger from the horrific things he saw. Then he might explode and do something horrible.

I'm not excusing it, but it happens.

I agree. I understand. I know.

I do not blame the man.

His Lawyers are stupid. His superiors have used him along with many others.

The only people to blame are his Gov't. None of them should have been there.

I was trying to show that the whole case is not cleverly presented.

[PoodMaiDai]

Over there in Afghanistan, I am pretty sure that guerrilla warfare will mess with the mind when you have seen kids and women and the elderly walk into camps with explosives strapped their bodies and blow your mates away.

I feel sorry for him, just can't imagine how stressful it must be, thinking everyone is a potential suicide bomber. I hope he gets the help he needs.

My close friend spent 6 years there. The stories he has told me about things he witnessed are horrific. He's a mess. It is fair to say he is a mentally and morally broken man now.

[simple1]

"For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers," vowed Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter.

Who knows what goes on in the stressed mind of a combatant on his fourth tour of duty?

I must be really tough on him and his family.

I hope something can be done for him.

There are plenty of US citizens who make similar statements against Muslims. Kill them all, nuke them etc etc.

It was an act of terrorism by the accused. No idea what those serving in Afghanistan would have been thinking at the time, but combat operations for all of Afghanistan were put on hold for three weeks as a direct outcome of the mass murder.

Edited June 1, 2013 by simple1

[krisb]

Perhaps they were hiding the weapons of mass destruction under this poor mans dead childrens beds?

[philw]

"For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers," vowed Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter.

Who knows what goes on in the stressed mind of a combatant on his fourth tour of duty?

I must be really tough on him and his family.

I hope something can be done for him.

Lock him up.

It's murder.

[Ulysses G.]

"For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers," vowed Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter.[/size]

Who knows what goes on in the stressed mind of a combatant on his fourth tour of duty?

I must be really tough on him and his family.

I hope something can be done for him.

Lock him up.

It's murder.

I agree. I might feel more sympathy for him than some other killers, but he is still a murderer and deserves to pay.

[F430murci]

He is paying, He will be gone for life and never get paroled. Candidly, prosecutors probably pled him for a litany of reasons including a PTSD defense that a jury could have conceivably dropped him down to a lesser included such as 2nd degree or manslaughter.

[NeverSure]

He is paying, He will be gone for life and never get paroled. Candidly, prosecutors probably pled him for a litany of reasons including a PTSD defense that a jury could have conceivably dropped him down to a lesser included such as 2nd degree or manslaughter.

I'm not sure. Remember that Florida gal named Casey Anthony who walked on a not guilty verdict while tried for killing her little daughter, Caylee Anthony?

I'm not sure how military courts work, but jury interviews after the Casey trial showed that had she been charged with a lessor offense she would have been found guilty. But prosecutors went for the whole deal - first degree murder - and the jury couldn't be sure of that "beyond a reasonable doubt."

They didn't have the option to lower the charge because it wasn't made by prosecution. It was all or nothing. First degree murder is premeditated, for one thing. Second degree doesn't require that. It can be a sudden burst of anger. There's a lesser one called negligent homicide that probably would have gotten her a bunch of prison.

I don't think, but I'm not positive, that a person can be convicted of something he isn't charged with. I think the guy's only hope at trial might be insanity or temporary insanity and that one hardly ever works. If it did, we might think that every killer must be insane and that would cause a mess. Insanity requires proving that the guy didn't know that what he was doing was wrong. PTSD or anger won't cut it if he knew it was wrong.

They trip up the insanity defense by showing the guy tried to hide it or something. If the guy did anything like that, then he knew it was at least illegal and he's toast.

We'll have to see how this plays out with his guilty plea, and hearing on extenuating circumstances.

[IMA_FARANG]

As I recall ( I may be wrong) he was on a monitoring PRP (Personal Reliability Program) program due to stress from his first 3 combat tours and an Army psychologist had already recommended he NOT be sent to Afghanistan based on his psychological problems.

In order to have qualified as a Special Forces troop, he would have undergone training and psychological testing most normal people would have failed quickly (only 1 in 100 actually pass through to be a Special Forces team member)

The real dirty secret is that the Army (and the military) does not have enough qualified and experienced people to send to those areas (Iraq and Afghanistan).

That's why he was back in Afghanistan against the doctor's recommendation.

But the Army will do everything it can to cover up that dirty little secret.

Because, disclosing that the military is squeezed by the wars it is fighting in those two areas is "under minding the confidence of the American public" in their military heroes.

And the politicians who sent them there (with no real reason) don't dare say that.

Yes, the direct trigger was the loss of his friends leg to an IED.

But the real cause was the politicians who sent him back against his desire and his Army doctor's recommendation.

Edited June 3, 2013 by IMA_FARANG

[mopar71]

Perhaps they were hiding the weapons of mass destruction under this poor mans dead childrens beds?

If they had them, you can bet that's where they would hide them.

[F430murci]

He is paying, He will be gone for life and never get paroled. Candidly, prosecutors probably pled him for a litany of reasons including a PTSD defense that a jury could have conceivably dropped him down to a lesser included such as 2nd degree or manslaughter.

I'm not sure. Remember that Florida gal named Casey Anthony who walked on a not guilty verdict while tried for killing her little daughter, Caylee Anthony?

I'm not sure how military courts work, but jury interviews after the Casey trial showed that had she been charged with a lessor offense she would have been found guilty. But prosecutors went for the whole deal - first degree murder - and the jury couldn't be sure of that "beyond a reasonable doubt."

They didn't have the option to lower the charge because it wasn't made by prosecution. It was all or nothing. First degree murder is premeditated, for one thing. Second degree doesn't require that. It can be a sudden burst of anger. There's a lesser one called negligent homicide that probably would have gotten her a bunch of prison.

I don't think, but I'm not positive, that a person can be convicted of something he isn't charged with. I think the guy's only hope at trial might be insanity or temporary insanity and that one hardly ever works. If it did, we might think that every killer must be insane and that would cause a mess. Insanity requires proving that the guy didn't know that what he was doing was wrong. PTSD or anger won't cut it if he knew it was wrong.

They trip up the insanity defense by showing the guy tried to hide it or something. If the guy did anything like that, then he knew it was at least illegal and he's toast.

We'll have to see how this plays out with his guilty plea, and hearing on extenuating circumstances.

What in the world are you talking about?

If someone pleads out to first degree to avoid death, the case does not go to a jury on guilt or lesser included offenses.

Looks like he will have a sentencing hearing to determine appropriate sentence for crime to which he has pled guilty, premeditated murder.

RE: Lesser included offenses

A guilt phase issue. Past that with a guilty plea to premeditated murder.

My recollection is that it is error for judge not to charge all lesser included offenses of the indicted offense.

Casey Anthony was indicted on and a jury found not guilty on 1st degree, manslaughter and aggravated child abuse. The doubt related to defense of baby drowning in parents' pool and being disposed of by them. Nothing to do with mens rea.

PTSD would be a diminished capacity defense on mens rea which has nothing to do with Casey Anthony case defense.

My only point is that ALL prosecutors take into consideration the availability and likelihood of a successful defenses such as a diminished capacity defense when pleading a death eligible crime to a life sentence.

Edited June 3, 2013 by F430murci

[Sing_Sling]

"For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers," vowed Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter.

Who knows what goes on in the stressed mind of a combatant on his fourth tour of duty?

I must be really tough on him and his family.

I hope something can be done for him.

Ah, the foolish man who lost 11 family members - how dare he be upset at a brave US soldier just doing what he was trained to do.

Uptheos - I'm sure the murderers of 911 were also stressed . . . you would have to agree

Perhaps they were hiding the weapons of mass destruction under this poor mans dead childrens beds?

If they had them, you can bet that's where they would hide them.

Because that's where you would hide them? Just because you'd be depraved enough to do so doesn't mean others would

[metisdead]

Off topic posts and replies have been removed.

[simple1]

On Wednesday, Judge Colonel Jeffery Nance ordered that Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who admitted 16 counts of premeditated murder southern Afghanistan in March 2012, should spend the rest of his life behind bars without eligibility for parole. Apparently a jury will review the sentence in August to decide if he should be eligible for parole at some time in the future or not.

News reports state that he had shot 22 civilians, many in the head, 17 of whom were women and children - six people survived. Some of the victims' bodies were burned by Bales after he had shot them.