Staff Seargant Robert Bales (courtesy dailymail.co.uk)

” A U.S. Army sergeant charged with killing 16 Afghan civilians in cold blood was due in court on Wednesday for a court-martial proceeding in which he is expected to plead guilty under a deal with military prosecutors to avoid the death penalty,” news.yahoo.com reports. “Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is accused of roaming off his Army post in the Afghan province of Kandahar last March and gunning down [more than 16] unarmed villagers, mostly women and children, in attacks on their family compounds.” The coverage is all over the net today. Yet I can only find a single story [via nydailynews.com] detailing the firearms Bales used in his horrific attack . . .

Bales walked off the American base dressed in full combat gear and packing a 9-mm. pistol and an M-4 rifle outfitted with a grenade launcher.

The Army-issued Beretta pistol carries a 15-bullet magazine, while the gas-operated M-4 — a compact version of the better-known M-16 — fires a 5.56-mm. round at a rate of 700 bullets per minute.

Maybe “weapons of war” that “belong on the battlefield” should be banned, too. Or not. But it’s nice to see that the press doesn’t spend a moment blaming the guns for the spree killing. Right?

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54 COMMENTS

  1. Guns are bad, ummKay. Crazy humans are worse, let’s ban mental illnesses…

    Any others wondering why we should have to feed and shelter this guy? Plea my ass they have enough evidence to skip the plee.

    • Sometimes you need a plea to avoid the risk of losing at trial (perhaps for lack of solid enough evidence). And I’d rather pay to imprison a military convict who put his life on the line in four combat tours, than some welfare derelict who never did a good thing in his life for anyone else.

      To address Robert Farago’s point: as far as I can tell from the coverage of American wars, the press is always happy to rush to blame American soldiers (and not their guns) for killing civilians. This treatment is reserved only for soldiers, because, as we all are supposed to know since Vietnam, American soldiers are violent imperial oppressors (unlike, say, Che Guevara who was really, really cool).

      For every other shooter, however, the gun is the problem – not the shooter, nor his broken home, nor his gang history, nor his drug problem, etc.

    • Crazy is bad enough, but to be really “safe” you gotta ban stupid-crazy. Ban everyone selling the idea that they can protect you, because reliance on that is the best path to becoming a statistic.

      They can’t even make you safe on death row (because the guards can kill you).

      The sooner you can live there, and live with that notion, the better chance you have to affecting your life and wrapping your mind around the B.S. of safety-a-tude that the gun-grabbers are using as their excuse to subjugate you.

  2. I do not know, or have any idea for sure, if this man did, or didn’t, kill those he is accused of killing.

    For a moment if we consider he, indeed, did, then that leaves us to ponder what the future would hold for us if we allow ourselves to be brought under a militarism control as we become separated from our civil liberties.

    Would this be the norm?

    Would this be what we could expect from our military elitist rulers?

    Is not the directions these thoughts lead us the very reason that the ancients Right to bear arms was codified in the 2nd Amendment?

      • Gtfoxy got a bit wordy, lost the gist.

        Basically, if the well-armed military professional goes nuts just like civilians do, then maybe the statist goal of only letting the police and armed forces have the weapons is a really, really bad idea.

        Just pretty much like aware human beings who are willing to defend themselves have known since the invention of the spear.

      • I think it’s possible someone with a head shaped like that should avoid select-fire weapons with grenade launchers.

    • This has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment, but a direct conflict with all the LIBERAL non-sense that is being taught in our schools. It creats an abrogation within the thought process. This then causes the person in question to under go a conflict within themself.

      The individual becomes confused, and under goes a transformation that can only be described as HULK-mania. This is a phenomenom that occurs when a person transforms from liberal stooge commie, to manic depressive.
      Why does this happen? It is a process that happens when the LIBERAL compendium begins to breakdown, and the subject begins to realize, they have been lied to. In some cases, such as we have here, the subject went from slave status liberal, to uncontroled HULKOID.

      In a situation such as this, the person by-passes rational controlled reason, and reacts to the pressures that have been brought to bear upon them. As a result they are not responsible for what they do. No, rather it is the LIBERALISM that was forced fed to them that is at fault. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I submitt my client is not guilty of which he is charged, but rather a VICTIM of some, yet undesclosed teacher, that foeced this young man to believe the lies and tales of the subject matter, and never once disclosed that what was being taught was in fact govt. control.
      This young man is a product of their doing. He is a product of the very nonsense which they have indoctrinated within our children. THEY own this, THEY are the ones responsible, and THEY are the ones which should be on trial. Defense rests.

  3. I am not sure I care. I am tired of the courtroom circuses and this will be massively politicized. We have so many larger issues to deal with that one more murderer is just noise. The military will take care of it and problems like the IRS scandals are much more important.

    • Never knew looks were a requirement of serving in the military.
      If so how did you manage to get in if you got in at all.

      • You are correct, as always. You can never tell ANYTHING about another human being by looking at them. And one’s conduct is irrelevant when they wear a uniform.

  6. I remember this story. Supposedly he killed everyone in the homes of those that were suspected of being the ones who were planting IED’s.
    Interesting that when the male heads of the homes came home they found their families executed. Where were they at 3 int he morning that they weren’t there to defend their families?

    • Blaming victims is unbecoming. If this guy murdered innocent people, he is to blame for it. Are you really asserting that you’ve never been away from your family overnight?

    • Because it’s OK to slaughter civilians because the male head of the household happens to be gone at night?

      I guess you don’t leave your house much.

    • 1) Women and children can outnumber the male members in the home.
      2) The men can very well be out tending sheep or even serving to fight against enemy troops with US soldiers.
      3) The men can be doing the dirty work w/o the family being involved.

      That being said can’t say for sure that any were innocent or not. In either case killing the cub so that it can’t grow up to become a tiger stance is a bit much.

    • If foreign invaders were in my country shooting my neighbors and family and telling us what we could and couldn’t do… I’d be planting IED’s too.

      They are completely justified in shooting Americans in the face. Just as you would be doing if Chinese solders were shooting your friends and neighbors and attempting to dictate your country’s actions.

      • If you would prefer to live under the Taliban, then your moral compass is so far out of whack that I’m not surprised you’d be willing to plant IEDs.

        • The problem is that the government that Americans put in place to replace the Taliban is not particularly better. It’s still hardline Islamist; did you know that the new Constitution of Afghanistan says that “Sharia is the supreme law of the land”, and states that any provision of that Constitution or any other law that contradicts Sharia is null and void. Did you know that they have death penalty for apostasy from Islam, and it is actually practiced (there was one well-publicized case where the government had to declare the guy insane to smuggle him out of the country to safety, by request of Western authorities; many others weren’t so lucky)?

          In some ways, Taliban can actually be better. For example, Taliban burned poppy fields and executed poppy growers, whereas under the current administration, Afghanistan is the source of most of the world’s heroin. From locals’ perspective, Taliban suppressed the local custom of raping teenage boys (the “beardless”), making it a capital crime – indeed, Taliban began when mullah Omar and his students apprehended and hanged a local warlord for raping a kid in one of the villages his war party was passing through. The warlords currently in power there all have harems of many such boys.

          So, no, US does not have any moral high ground here. It replaced bad guys that weren’t its friends with a different kind of bad guys that pretend to be its friends (and even that facade is crumbling lately).

          • Do you have any links to share for that information?

            I know about the death penalty for apostasy – that’s standard in the Muslim world – but it would be useful to see articles about the harems and the Taliban’s execution of drug dealers.

            In any case, even if the Taliban sometimes does good as well as bad, it’s going a little far to equate them with the tribal leaders. Hezbollah offers “social services” in addition to waging terrorist war on innocents and using innocent civilians as shields, but offering those social services don’t exactly put Hezbollah on an equal moral footing with other local communities, even if those local communities have some bad practices.

        • Thing is, Taliban did not wage “terrorist war” on anyone. They were one of the factions in the civil war, and while they did their share of atrocities in it, it was not really any different from any other side. That’s how civil wars in a feudal country work.

          Taliban’s relationship with opium production changed over time. Initially they used it to fund their war. When they were firmly in control, they declared it un-Islamic on the same grounds as the usual prohibition on alcohol: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/24/world/at-heroin-s-source-taliban-do-what-just-say-no-could-not.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm. After they were attacked, they reverted back to using it for funding, and they do it to this day.

          Regarding harems of teenage boys, first of all, read this army report – this provides the necessary cultural context:
          http://publicintelligence.net/afghanistan-human-terrain-team-pashtun-homosexuality-report/

          And for Taliban’s involvement in such, here’s one version of their founding story:
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar#Forming_the_Taliban
          (it varies depending on the source, and many variations recount boys being involved as well as girls)

          Now, don’t get me wrong here. I’m far from supporting any fanatical theocratic group. My point simply is that Americans didn’t really “liberate” the county in a sense of establishing a democratic society based on consent of the governed with protection for minorities. They kicked out hardline Islamists and replaced them with less-hardline Islamists who are also notoriously more corrupt. From the perspective of locals on the ground, this is not necessarily an improvement: it sucks to have your daughter whipped for not covering her face fully, but it sucks even more to see her raped by the entourage of the warlord that is now the local “governor”. So it stands to reason that they are not particularly friendly to foreign occupation forces.

          • Thanks for taking the time to provide links and information. I’ll take a look at all the articles.

            And I’m not getting you wrong. Your point has been clear. I’m not sure I agree that the conflict between the tribes and the Taliban is merely a civil war, given the involvement of Pakistan and al-Qaeda. But regardless of the facts in this case, I certainly agree that it is a serious error for the U.S. to make establishing free, representative government one of the goals of every single war we fight. (Seems like every president since Wilson has given in to that temptation.) It’s often not in anyone’s interest to attempt it, and it’s not necessary for the legitimacy of a war.

        • If you would prefer to live under the Taliban, then your moral compass is so far out of whack that I’m not surprised you’d be willing to plant IEDs.

          We live under the United States Federal Government… a world police organization that murders and kills women and children practically daily. Is that where your moral compass points?

          Believe it or not. Afghanistan should be left to Afghan people. They are a sovereign nation and we should not be meddling in their affairs. Would you want China or Russia or any other nation dictating our laws, our choices, and our sovereignty?

        • The opinion to the Afghan people and Afghan government of “us Americans are here to help you get outside your barbaric traditions and strange religion” is analogous of liberal progressive east coast government officials dictating and lecturing Texans about gun control.

  7. Stating the rate of fire leaves the low info voter with the impression it’s possible to fire 700 rounds continuously.

  9. I am still amazed at the speed of which the public has cried out to rush him to trial and execute him even without credible witnesses (I can’t trust someone whose goal it is to see me dead), while they tread softly around Nidal Hassan who walked through an SRP center executing Americans and was caught in the act.

    • Oh Hassan’s shooting was only “workplace violence,” and he’s still getting paychecks, and when he yelled “Allahu Akhbar” he meant “I love Obama,” so don’t you worry about that.

        • Uh, William, do you know any of the facts about Nidal? Or are you just too much of an idiot to care? I’m guessing the latter, but I’ll give you a shot.

  10. Damn, being arrested and charged with murder by the same people who shipped you over there to murder people. That’s a real bitch.

  11. But it’s nice to see that the press doesn’t spend a moment blaming the guns for the spree killing. Right?

    To the liberal media, if regular Joes have guns then guns are bad. If military uses guns in a criminal fashion then … it was the man behind the gun.

    Regardless, what are we doing in Afghanistan!??@? I can’t believe my gargantuan tax payments are still being used to fund soldiers and transportation (doing what???) in/to Afghanistan. Meanwhile we are using the villagers for target practice.

    I would prefer it if they would just fire these millions of government workers and give me my money back.

    My guess is… the Sergeant is a a fall guy. Those villagers must have discovered confidential information. “Confidential”

    • All defense spending is 25% of the federal budget. It’s also one of the few constitutionally-sanctioned parts of the budget. You have at least 50% of the federal budget to cut – mostly the massive welfare programs – before you even get to defense. Focusing on defense first rather than other parts of the budget just plays into the hands of the statists.

      • Welfare and defense both need to go. This offense is the best defense garbage needs to go. We are not defending our nation – we are terrorizing other nations offensively. Invading other sovereign nations with Tanks, gestapo looking solders, and UAV’s is not defense. There is nothing defensive about it. It is aggressively offensive. Welfare and military alike need to get off the teat and go find something privately productive to do… something not on my and your’s dollar.

      • “Defense” spending. Right. Except most of that money is used for OFFENSE by repeatedly invading countries that pose no threat to us, they merely don’t share our socioeconomic views and thus the government wants to force them to share our views. I fully support funding to defend our country, but I am 100% opposed to funding for trying to build an unofficial “American Empire” through intimidation and violence against those who are not harming us.

    • Don’t lose sight of the fact your tax dollars are funding U.S. soldiers to guard the Taliban/CIA’s poppy crop! What do you have against the CIA? Without Heroin, they can’t fund their black budget, because guys like you are too stingy to fund them outright… Some patriot YOU are!

  12. The fact that a mass murderer of children and other helpless civilians is allowed to live is a disgrace. He needs to be made an example of what happens when you commit murder in uniform.

    • Meanwhile several drones flown by obese people in the States were dropping bombs around the country, killing many, many people. High 5’s were given all around.

    • He needs to be made an example of what happens when you commit murder in uniform.

      So you believe that all the countless soldiers from the Korean War through now who invaded a country that posed no threat to us and killed people should be executed as well? I’m going to go with “no” because you’re OK with them committing murder because they were “just following orders”, yet doing it without being ordered to is different in your mind.

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