Robert Bales and His Handlers

Nine children and three women are among the 16 victims of the slaughter that took place in Kandahar on Sunday, March 11. President Barack Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, says that it is not a defining fact of the U.S. armed forces. The same would be said of the soldiers who, in January, were filmed urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban members.

The manipulation goes beyond imaginable levels of nastiness. The Afghans who investigated the occurrence said that, in Panjwai, they collected evidence that between 15 and 20 inebriated soldiers (on alcohol and who knows what other drugs) participated in the slaughter.

The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency claim that it was an independent action. Agencies controlled by U.S. power are distributing information on Robert Bales, who was quickly taken out of Afghanistan. On Saturday, it was announced that he was taken to Kansas. They say he is 38, with two children and a wife who went into shock upon hearing the news; he had been hurt in Iraq and did not want to return to the war. …

Little has been said of the 16 civilians killed last Sunday. We can say even less of the horror of the family members of those who survived. If some history buff were to prepare a chronicle, this one would stay in the archives as if it were simply moving.

The CIA, Barack Obama, Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton will continue to say that American troops do not act like that. They may say it without explaining why their predecessors forced dozens of governments in impoverished countries to sign an agreement not to submit an American to the International Criminal Court. President (president?) Hamid Karzai complains, so as not to be politically buried, but he knows he can do nothing.

The U.S. acts as an occupier. It leads the mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The decision was made in Washington to cover up whoever accompanied Bales … and perhaps to order bombs to be launched against villages in Afghanistan or elsewhere. Imperialism is a child murderer. …