Here are two versions of what happened the night of March 11, when 17 Afghan villagers were shot to death.
First, the Army version: Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, troubled by marriage woes, drunkenly left Camp Belambai, 12 miles from Kandahar, with a pistol and an automatic rifle and killed six people as they slept. Bales then returned to the base and left again for another village, this time killing 11. He acted alone and he admitted to the killings, according to the Army.
Then there is the account that child witnesses provided Yalda Hakim, a journalist for SBS Dateline in Australia. Hakim, who was born in Afghanistan and immigrated to Australia as a child, is the first international journalist to interview the surviving witnesses. She said American investigators tried to prevent her from interviewing the children, saying her questions could traumatize them. She said she appealed to village leaders, who arranged for her to interview the witnesses.
In the video, the children told Hakim that other Americans were present during the rampage, holding flashlights in the yard.
Noorbinak, 8, told Hakim that the shooter first shot her father’s dog. Then, Noorbinak said in the video, he shot her father in the foot and dragged her mother by the hair. When her father started screaming, he shot her father, the child says. Then he turned the gun on Noorbinak and shot her in the leg.
“One man entered the room and the others were standing in the yard, holding lights,” Noorbinak said in the video.
A brother of one victim told Hakim that his brother’s children mentioned more than one soldier wearing a headlamp. They also had lights at the end of their guns, he said.
“They don’t know whether there were 15 or 20, however many there were,” he said in the video.
Army officials have repeatedly denied that others were involved in the massacre, emphasizing that Bales acted alone.
Bales, who was flown to a maximum-security military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., was charged last week with 17 counts of murder and six attempts of attempted murder.
The massacre came several days after a roadside bomb attack that cost one soldier his leg. Village residents told reporters and Afghan government officials that after the roadside bomb attack, U.S. troops lined up men from the village against a wall and told them they would pay a price. The Pentagon has denied those allegations.
Gen. Karimi, assigned by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to investigate the murders, told Hakim that he, too, wonders whether Bales acted alone and how he could left the base without notice.
“Village elders said several soldiers took part and that there is boot prints in the area,” Karimi told Hakim. He said villagers told him that they saw three or four individuals kneeling and that helicopters were overhead during the rampage.
“To search for him?” Karimi said he asked them.
“No,” he said they told him. “They were there from the very beginning.”
This is interesting. So why are we not looking for the others? Why is one man made to stand this alone. And if there were others, than it seems to weaken Bales position, as well. It would look more like something planned rather than someone that broke mentally. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
My husband & I had a talk about this. Our thoughts:
-Already traumatized children were asked what kind of questions by the reporter? How were they phrased? Were they leading questions? Need to read the transcript.
-Footprints? How is that proved? Witnesses may or may not be reliable. If there were other soldiers, they could have indeed been out for revenge.
-Forensics are difficult at best, too. It’s unlikely that the Afghans would allow the bodies to be exhumed.
-It was a small compound not heavily watched or guarded that Bales was familiar with and he could have slipped out unnoticed.
-For there to have been a helicopter, an officer would have had to have been involved.
His thought at this point in time is: Afghans are trying to get more money out of this.
Sandy --- "His thought at this time is Afghans are trying to get more money out of this"
Your hubby and mine are of the same thought. Mine says he thinks it impossible that this man acted alone.
Wonder if the military is hiding something?
Remember, there are still unanswered questions as to many things that happened in Vietnam!
Why didn't they want the reporter to question the children?
It will be interesting to see the results. I hope that this one soldier is taking all the blame if it was indeed a group. That would be a travesty!
Oh I would agree with both of your husbands on that, as does my daughter. I can't ask my son any questions about it as he is not in a position that he could answer them anyway; I respect this and just don't put him in that position.
Yes, the children could be too traumatized, they could not fully understand the questions asked them, they could be coached by other Afghani adults, etc. There are too many variables to see them as totally reliable witnesses.
There is just too much that is being left out I suspect. It is going to be interesting to watch.