Soldier Pleads Guilty to Murdering 16 Afghan Civilians
June 6th, 2013The following provides excerpts from the testimony of individuals who told our research team that they had survived or witnessed drone strikes, or lost family members in strikes.
Via: Reuters:
A U.S. Army sergeant who killed 16 Afghan civilians in cold blood last year pleaded guilty on Wednesday to premeditated murder and other charges under a deal with military prosecutors that spares him from the death penalty.
Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, admitted to leaving his Army post in the Afghan province of Kandahar last March to gun down and set fire to unarmed villagers, mostly women and children, in attacks on their family compounds.
“As far as why, I’ve asked that question a million times since then,” Bales said, in a calm, steady voice, when the judge pressed him for an explanation. “There is not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things that I did.”
The slayings marked the worst case of civilian slaughter blamed on a single, rogue U.S. soldier since the Vietnam War and further strained U.S.-Afghan relations after more than a decade of conflict in that country.
US Covers up Afghan Massacre
Top 25 of 2013 Oct 10, 2012
Although the March 2012 massacre of sixteen unarmed Afghan civilians, nine of whom were children, received a great deal of news coverage, independent news sources have focused on whether one US solider acting alone—as US officials have insisted—or multiple US soldiers—as Afghan witnesses and Afghan President Hamid Karzai contend—bear direct responsibility for the killings. These reports highlight the fundamental responsibility of US high military command, including President Obama, for the crimes committed by its troops….
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/23-us-covers-up-afghan-massacre/