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Subscribe to RSSKari Bales, the wife of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the soldier who stands accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians, talks exclusively to TODAY's Matt Lauer about the "devastating" accusations against her husband, saying "this is not him."
The Army said Monday that an unborn child was not among the 17 victims in the shooting massacre of civilians in two villages in Afghanistan allegedly perpetrated by Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, contradicting an Afghan official who spoke to The New York Times.
Kandahar Province Police Chief Brig. Gen. Abdul Raziq told The New York Times that one of the slain females was pregnant and Americans were counting her unborn fetus as a victim. But Army Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings, Jr., told msnbc.com a fetus was not among the victims of the March 11 attacks in which Bales, 38, is charged with premeditated murder.
“The information that we have collected up to now, this is not true,” Cummings, a spokesman for NATO's ISAF & U.S. Forces - Afghanistan, wrote in an email to msnbc.com. “The 17th is not from a pregnant female or any of the wounded passing away. At this time, the evidence available to the prosecution team indicates 17 victims of premeditated murder and 6 victims of assault and attempted premeditated murder.”
The death toll breaks down to four men and women each, and nine children, Cummings wrote. One man and one woman, plus four more children, were wounded.
“I think one of the things you can assume is that it was difficult to collect evidence in this case and it was difficult for them to necessarily identify every victim right away,” said Michael Navarre, a director of the National Institute of Military Justice and a former Navy prosecutor and defense counsel.
New details emerged over the weekend in the case. Military prosecutors told NBC News that the attacks came in two waves, with Bales allegedly returning to his base after the first attack and then slipping out again.
Military prosecutors allege that Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of a deadly rampage which left 17 Afghan civilians dead, came in two waves, with Bales returning to his base after the first attack and then slipping out again. NBC's John Yang reports.
The father of two from Bellevue, Wash., was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, six counts of attempted murder and six counts of assault. He is being held at a U.S. military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
His wife, Karilyn Bales, said she did not believe her husband had done this.
“I don't think anything will really change my mind in believing that he did not do this,’’ she told TODAY’s Matt Lauer in an exclusive interview that aired Monday. “This is not what it appears to be.’’
Military wives rally around Karilyn Bales
“I just don't think he was involved,’’ she said. “I don't know enough information. This is not him. It's not him."
The timeline of the killings remains unclear. One Afghan guard working from midnight to 2 a.m. saw a U.S. soldier return at 1:30 a.m., and the guard’s replacement saw a U.S. soldier leaving the base at 2:30 a.m., but it was unclear whether it was the same soldier.
There are reports that there is surveillance video, and that Bales allegedly walked back to the base and turned himself in.
For alleged Afghan shooter, death penalty unlikely
Karilyn Bales said her husband was fit for a fourth deployment and that she was not aware of any obvious signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or the traumatic brain injury that he allegedly suffered on one of his tours.
Bales was on his fourth tour in a war zone since signing up for the Army after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. He had spent three years in Iraq on his previous tours, during which time he lost part of a foot and suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to a vehicle rollover, media reports say. Two days before he allegedly attacked the Afghan villagers, he saw the aftermath of a bombing in which a fellow soldier had his leg blown off, The Associated Press reported.
Some military law experts interviewed by msnbc.com said they expect the defense to mount a legal pincer attack, in which Bales’ attorneys may try to win acquittal by attacking the evidence but have a fallback position aimed at winning a lesser sentence than the death penalty -- which Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said could be sought in this case.
How Staff Sgt. Bales' lawyers are fighting for his life
Gary Solis, former head of the Marine Corps’ Military Law Branch and current adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law School, said the fact that the crime occurred in a combat zone in a distant country complicates the task for prosecutors given the possibility of numerous crime scene complications. But they agreed that pursuing an insanity defense based on PTSD would be a difficult case to make, too.
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Oh well that's a relief.
So when do we get to watch the public execution? Is that still TBA?
Obviously you didn't read the story did you!! So willing to pass judgement without the facts!!
So is that a Yes?
New to this whole trolling thing, journal journal? You know perfectly well that there are no public executions any more; further, it would be decades before it happened, if it happened, which is not tremendously likely.
What you needed to do was to have some sort of sarcastic, pointed comment targeting some other point that would agitate people: some off-the-wall statement about people wearing laundry on their heads (suggesting that Afghanis are primitive), or about small children being a real and present threat (apparently, even when they are sleeping in their own beds), or about how you are a service person and nobody else gets to have an opinion because your service puts you beyond criticism (as though no one else has a job that puts them in real danger).
Try again--I'm sure you'll get the knack eventually.
Another troll angle might have been that you are active military in Afghanistan and are have considered doing this 100 times. Kudos for your troll attempt, and not saying I'm a superior troll but to be honest it struggles to get 2 stars on a good day.
If he only worked for Blackwater, it wouldn't even be an issue. He'd still be over there kicking butts.
If we weren't over there, this wouldn't have happen. The American people letting their corrupt government is the cause. But yeah lets burn this guy because it's so much easier to treat the symptoms instead of the disease.
Duh, it would just be a fetus...
It's a fetus in America. It's an unborn child in Afghanistan. Get the difference?
Adult life is cheap.... it's the fetuses that really count.
I salute my fellow troll who got all you nincompoops to think this was fetus related as opposed to bad counting in the first place. A milltary denial is a tremendous achievement.
Yeah, the difference is between a secular government based on civil liberties and a far-right religious government. One is the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, and the other consistently ranks in the bottom ten slots of the Human Development Index every year.
Actually, the police chief in Afghanistan said Americans were considering an unborn fetus one of the dead not the other way around.
Wow so this scumbag killed a pregnant woman while she was sleeping? Nice.
Nik-2688917 -The US military said that there was not a pregnant female among the victims.
Do you find the Afghan military more truthful than our own ?
Yep. For all we know, Bales is innocent and is just the sacrificial lamb.
For all we know, this could be the work of another kill team.
We only have the information fed to us.
We can believe it or not. It's our choice, and no matter what we choose, we likely have a list of reasons for believing it, or not believing it.
out in the woods -- and they know from looking at a dead body whether it was pregnant or not? Because they didn't do autopsies...
His poor wife is in such denial.... I would be too, how could you possibly believe your husband did this.
I cannot speak for his guilt, but it does not look good for him.
Americans should be subject to the detention law as well as foreigners. "It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided "TERORRIST" on par to Al Qaeda or Taliban killing innocent lives as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next, And when they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them, 'Shut up. You don't get a lawyer.You at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely should be the place for him charge as "Terorrist".
Why he got civilian Attorney?Doesn't the crime happened in War .He should be at The Haque charge under War Crime.?
Many Americans believes,detaing a citizen without the court trial is not American.
WHY before that, The Commander-in-Charge give Military, go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial ?
Gosh This Mess LOOK bad for all Americans from World propectives. !
This is a most tragic incident, both the victims and for the accused and I find it inappropriate to crack jokes about it. Think.....
You people are ridiculous. Before you condemn this guy to eternal hell, how about we make sure all the facts have been uncovered and the drama removed from the typical way news agencies portray stories like this. I am not defending him nor am I pointing a finger at him. Unless ANY of you have spent time in a war zone and had to deal with being shot at or had the prospect of being shot at as your reality everyday, I think you all should be a little less hostile that up until this happened, you didn't know him or probably didn't care that he was part of US defense against terrorism.
If he was Muslim or a brown guy in America, you wouldn't give him the same benefit! Just because he is white or black and an American GI he gets the benefit of doubt even though he slaughtered 17 unarmed people while they were sound asleep! Your bias is telling.
What is a "brown guy"? Bias - if there is any bias here, it's you!!! You have already condemned him with words like "slaughtered" in your response. If it is discovered that he didn't do this and there in FACT was someone else involved, what do you say then - My bad?
Seems you have never heard of the term or phase, "Innocent UNTIL proven guilty". There is no flippin bias in that statement, it is what it is.
I mean a south Asian or Middle Easterner. Its pretty amazing that people liked your comment. It just goes to show you that most Americans have not changed at all in the past 50 years. We look back on the Mai Lai massacre now like it was evil and anyone who supported it as evil as well, but people are still supporting this guy whether out in the open or quietly in their own homes.
ExMilitary--many of us deal with the reality of being shot at every day. Police officers deal with it, anyone who lives in the inner city deals with it, teachers with emotionally disturbed students deal with it (virtually all colleges and universities). Living in the US, with so many guns around, it is foolish to think that only the military when overseas has to be concerned with being shot or shot at.
The military has already paid reparations for the dead people--as you know full well (or should, if you really are ex-military), the military wouldn't have acknowledged wrong-doing if they could get away with it. They wouldn't even have admitted that a US soldier did it--they would have claimed it was Taliban dressed up in US uniforms to confuse the villagers.
Did he do it--pretty much certainly. Will he get convicted--far more iffy. A person is innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law. People can draw any conclusions that they want. For example, Casey Anthony may be not guilty--but she's far from innocent as far as I am concerned, and this means that I think new laws should be passed that would make a similar crime punishable on the basis of the data we had available in that case.
The law has to treat this fellow as innocent. I don't. It's clear, however, from the fact that he was found off base and armed (with armament that apparently had been fired) that he is guilty of dereliction of duty and disobeying commands. I'm quite sure they'll get him on those charges, if nothing else. But, please stop being naive--none of us is required to sit around and refuse to consider the information until there is a verdict and withhold an opinion until then.
Now, if you want to pass a law to make it illegal to provide a person's name in the media, or picture in the media, until that person is convicted--well now, I'll go along. But, one still gets to discuss current events. Have a great day.
Ex-militaryman
Sorry to say this,Your agurment dont hold any water.
Seems you have never heard of the term or phase, "Innocent UNTIL proven guilty". There is no flippin bias in that statement, it is what it is.
ALL Guantánamo Bay detainees being held indefinitely without the chances as what you claimed " the term or phase, "Innocent UNTIL proven guilty".Even the Worst terrorist Bin Laden dont have that priviledge .
what we do? ,Nukes or bombarded them to death..
ExMilitary: You are conflating two different issues. First you make the completely reasonable point that the facts aren't know. "Before you condemn this guy to eternal hell, how about we make sure all the facts have been uncovered and the drama removed from the typical way news agencies portray stories like this." That is completely fair. After all, it may be the case that Bales had nothing to do with this and has been falsely accused.
But then you go blathering on about how stressful a warzone is, implicitly assuming that he did in fact do it but that us civilians have no right to complain about it. ( Unless ANY of you have spent time in a war zone and had to deal with being shot at or had the prospect of being shot at as your reality everyday, I think you all should be a little less hostile.)
It would be nice if we could deal with these two issues separately: 1) Did he do it? 2) Assuming he did it, should we condemn him.
Beanathome: There is a HUGE difference between the risk you take in being shot or shot at and the risk someone in a war zone takes. Largely in part that when deployed in that environment there IS someone right outside the base that wants to see you dead. There is no getting away from it until your time is up and you get to fly home. For the most part there are very few people living in America that have someone right outside their home that directly wants to see them die.
I've deployed twice into places where when you went to sleep you didn't know if you were waking up. I wasn't even there as long as Army personnel are and I'll be the first to tell you it can easily mess with you and stress you out.
Oh, for christs sake. Are we supposed to be relieved that in the midst of all that carnage and death and damage a fetus wasn't included?
Media tends to try a case in public and clearly you are guilty until proven innocent. People are not all lawyers, but mostly don't trust lawyers for the guilty who have gone free on technical loopholes. It's 'Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" for Criminal, and "Preponderence of the evidence" for Civil, before conviction. But I have seen too many falsely accused, lives ruined, when they didn't even go to a trial or else the jury was tainted.
It doesn't seem logical on one hand that he snapped two separate times to the crime scene, and without reliable witnesses, he can be an escape goat! On the other hand, he had enough trauma he went through and saw that would make many of his prematurely judging him snap as well if seeing all that horror for so long. Everyone has a breaking point, no? Not to diminish the tragedy in any way, why don't we just get out of Afghanistan already to avoid more retaliation, more breakdowns, etc. Gwenne
Your first statement says it all Gwenne, and it holds true for those who are condemning him and his ALLEGED actions.
I doubt you really are a former member of the armed forces.
Think About This....
After reading about the US soldier who shot up Afghanistan civilians, I couldn’t help noticing an irony. There is all this clamor to try this guy quickly and execute him, never mind his having suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Yet Major Hasan, who shot up Fort Hood while screaming Allah akbar, still hasn’t stood trial, and they are still debating whether he was insane, even with the clear evidence regarding his motive: slay as many infidels as possible.
So,we have a guy in a war zone who cracks, and he must be executed immediately. But a Muslim psychiatrist who was stateside in a nice safe office all day murders 13, wounds 29 of our own guys, and they try to argue the poor lad suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome, from listening to real soldiers who had actual battle experience.
Two and a half years later, they still haven’t tried him.
Bart...Hasan was upset because he was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq, poor baby (sarcastic). The army blew this one because psychiatrists saw a problem with him before he was sent to Fort Hood. Based on what I have read about him, they should have severed him from the Army, not deployed him to a war zone. The man was, and is, far from insane. An insane defense is fairly hard to prove in the UCMJ. So good luck to his lawyers. My brother is retired AF and he is wondering why Hasan is still waiting for trial since, according to his understanding of the UMCJ, Hasan should have been tried within 15 days of his indictment.
Think About This....
After reading about the US soldier who shot up Afghanistan civilians, I couldn’t help noticing an irony. There is all this clamor to try this guy quickly and execute him, never mind his having suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Yet Major Hasan, who shot up Fort Hood while screaming Allah akbar, still hasn’t stood trial, and they are still debating whether he was insane, even with the clear evidence regarding his motive: slay as many infidels as possible.
So,we have a guy in a war zone who cracks, and he must be executed immediately. But a Muslim psychiatrist who was stateside in a nice safe office all day murders 13, wounds 29 of our own guys, and they try to argue the poor lad suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome, from listening to real soldiers who had actual battle experience.
Two and a half years later, they still haven’t tried him.
Oh, I can see that this is going to be a HOT topic. The 'when does life begin" debate that no one ever sees eye to eye on.
This story is confusing. Someone blatantly killed 16 people. If it happened here on American soil by someone from Afghanistan we would be upset, too. And want justice. If this soldier did, in fact, commit this heartless crime, he needs to be punished. But how can so many miss the signs of a mentally ill homicidal person?
May We agreed to say that all Terrorists are "SICK"?
I would like to hear more of the out-dated way the VA doctors use on checking brain injuries. I would like to hear more from the VA employees that have blogged that the doctors are issuing pills and immediately sending the soldier back into a war-zone tour. I would like to hear from one of these puppet Generals state war-tours of 2-3-4-5-6, is putting stress on our soldiers,stating we don't have the foot soldiers that we need. I would like to hear more of the suicides of our soldiers that couldn't cope anymore from these war-tours. I want to know how many of our soldiers from Iraq and Afghastan war tours that got a medical honorable discharge from the stress factor of the brain.
Until than, I can't judge this Sergeant. Without the above info, it would be easy to cruify this Sergeant. We all know it's wrong to kill women and children. But I see alot more wrongs that are being covered up by the questions I have of the above.
As a Vietnam Vet, I wonder about our Media being controlled by the government. I see MSNBC are great on looking at and reporting this Sgt. civilian life. While I don't see hardly anything reported on the questions I have of the above. It looks to me, the Media is apart of the cover-up.
But no fetuses. I have been reading an unbelievable amount of posts from the "pro-life" crowd applauding this guy, so obviously now a fetus isn't important, the hypocrisy rolls on.
Quantify and qualify your unsubstantiated hyperbole that's under the guise of "rational commentary."
Ridiculous.
Besides, we all know that abortions would be forbidden in a nation such as Afghanistan. Abortions and the mocking and hatred of fetuses is something only is horrifically protected in "first world" nations such as our own.
Exactly what "pro-life" crowd was applauding this guy? You sir are an idiot. I have not even seen any posts by communists, socialists, environmentalists, or any group actually applauding this guy. Some people wonder if he is actually guilty or not quilty by reason of insanity but no one is applauding him, certainly not "pro-life" people.
Poor delusional woman. I have no sympathy whatsoever for him and could not imagine defending my husband if he did something this atrocious. If he hadn't done this overseas, he would have done it here in America. Crazy is what crazy does. I hope he is tried to the fullest extent.
"If he hadn't done this overseas, he would have done it here in America." AGREED.
I'm waiting for Nancy Grace to tell me how I should think about this case
Being as Sgt Bales claims that he does not remember any of this, is it possible that the whole thing is a setup to make the US look bad? Could it be that Sgt Bales was slipped a "mickey" and some terrorist wore his clothes and killed these people? It seems like this could be a great way for them to put a big "black eye" on the US military.
Just wondering....
I dont think so,
this what I feels..
Sggt Bale must be following advice Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, once two of the most powerful men in this country, are now suffering from Balzheimer's disease. Why didn't I see it before?he must be saying to himself, Balzheimer's is a terrible illness that attacks the memory and gives its victims the balls to attack others for things they themselves made a career of.
Best of all , There is no known cure
I think that what we need to do, and remember, is that this took place in one of the most divisive places in the world. I can't be convinced as to who's respnosible for this horror until all the facts have been verified. It's not outside the realm of possibility that this is an extreme attempt to cause more problems with any peace process. There are known terror groups well able to perpetrate something like this, and in so doing, make us look as bad as possible. So, try to save any recriminations until all facts are in.
This man will never be procecuted, war crimes by the US citizens are not punishable. We have to look no further than Bush administration. It this man had brain injuries why was he allow to continue to stay in the military. I hope we are not running out of uneducated 18 to 24 year olds to fight for the 1%ers. How many more are there in in Afganistan with the same problem. Let these boys in the service do a couple tours then get some new blood. Romney and Santorum both have sons why can't they help out.
There is no way a fetus could have been a victim!
Fetus's aren't living people untill they are born and draw their first independent breath.
Idiot.
Media crucified OJ Simpson and Robert Blake too. But, when it went to court, they walked. Ya just never know how things are going to turn out until the actual proof is submitted. Meanwhile, people can believe whatever they choose. Even our media. Thus far he's been convicted in the media and on newsvine, but, not one person since the incident on newsvine has the facts. All they have is the media hype which seems to change daily. I don't know if he's guilty. I don't know if he's innocent. I don't have the facts, don't claim to be psychic and don't have Nostradamus up my ass. So, I don't know. However, I agree we're all entitled to our opinions. I think it's really sad that people here would judge his wife. She's standing up for her man and stating her opinion. She's entitled to one as well. She has done nothing wrong.
Can we still call it a "fetus" or are we calling it a "non-viable tissue mass" these days?
Only in Massechusetts. ( j/k )
A good point was raised above about this being a war crime. We ought to look at serving justice, international justice, in an international court.
I don't believe justice will be served in the end. I think it's a given that no punishment will be exacted. There is too much to lose for the war machine if accountability is assigned, if justice is done. There is simply too much money and power at stake here for the wheels of justice to move along without corruption and bias. You can't run a war machine and be moral at the same time. The war machine will take good care of itself.
Try this in an international court, if you want justice. That makes good sense.
I like how the whole fetus this is apparently a big deal because apparently they count as a human in America? If if does in Afghanistan, OK. But he is being held in an American base, so it's not like it really seems as if he's going to have an Afghani trial. *headdesk*
Story's dead, MSNBC.
Everything's focused on the Zimmerman/ Martin thing. Our serviceman will now be left to the four winds...
The media wants it to be the late 1960's so bad. They made an awful lot of money back then.