Damage Control and Murderers on the Loose

Days pass and more macabre details come to light, as if the first version of the killing of civilians in Afghanistan was not sufficiently terrible. The idea that a lone U.S. soldier had massacred 16 people, among them three women and nine girls, in dwellings very far from one another, appeared unconvincing from the start. Voices are being raised, each time more forcefully denouncing this being an act perpetrated by a group of U.S. troops, who diverted themselves with their misdeeds for a long time.

A commission consisting of Afghan legislators is investigating the occurrence and asserts that between 15 and 20 soldiers aided by two helicopters acted in the moment of the murders. This thesis is far off from the one asserted by the Pentagon that insists in placing all of the responsibility on 38-year-old Sgt. Robert Bales, whom they accuse of insanity caused by prior missions in Iraq.

Coincidentally, only now have this soldier’s confrontations with the law gotten out in the U.S. According to ABC News, he was convicted of assault and a tribunal ordered him to control his attacks of rage. Where were the military assessors or doctors when his superiors approved his enlistment and he was sent to Afghanistan in December 2011?

Not only was this an issue of a nocturnal invasion into the home of Afghan civilians in the middle of the night (as is the habitual procedure of the occupying forces) and the intimidation and death of the victims in cold blood without distinction as to their ages, it is also an issue of the rape of at least two of the women. Parliamentarian Hamidzai Lali, after testimony collected in the area, recounted that “the U.S. troops captured two women, raped them, and then killed them with firearms.”

One of the witnesses, interviewed by Telesur, maintained that the soldiers (always in plural), frightened the children with their shouts and did not even respect the sleep of a two-month-old baby. Imagine the desperation of these mothers, the impotence the men of these families must have felt in those terrible minutes!

The soldiers, including Sgt. Bales, did as they had already planned out, because it is hardly believable that they were going to encounter “enemies” in these homes. Finally, they did that for which they, self-proclaimed as green, were meticulously trained: they harassed and killed.

After all, it would have been an error, yet another lamentable personal blunder. Of course, then came the parade of apologies and promises of investigation and punishment for “the responsible party.” As always, they hope for it to be forgotten. However, although history struggles to repeat itself, it is not so simple following ten years of unpunished repetition in Afghanistan and Iraq. To top it all off, this time the U.S. military commander is also hindering the investigation carried forward by the Afghan government. In fact, the president of the Central Asian nation suggested that Washington could be hiding facts and asked for the withdrawal of occupying troops to their bases for the next year.

“This has been going on for too long…You have heard me before. It is by all means the end of the rope here. …This form of activity, this behavior cannot be tolerated. It is past, past, past the time,” warned Hamid Karzai.

In an attempt to put out the fire that has also grown in recent weeks due to the burning of thousands of copies of the Quran in the Bagram base and incited by the most recent events, U.S. president Barack Obama called on Karzai to promote revision of the war strategy. As expected, “damage control.”

However, the supersonic removal of the lone transgressor to North American territory and the lineup of a defense team, including at least one military lawyer, identifies the same modus operandi as always or in the “best” cases; punishment for the scapegoat, with the rest free to continue killing in the streets of Kandahar, Kabul, or any other Afghan city or neighborhood.

Strikingly, Bales, the murderer of almost a score of human beings (who now does not remember anything of the event, according to his lawyer), receives treatment very distinct from Sgt. Bradley Manning, who was submitted to torture, solitary confinement, and denied a fair trial, and whose offense was bringing to light proof of still more of the excesses of the U.S. army.

The killing of men, women, and children in southern Afghanistan increases the extremely extensive record of U.S. crimes abroad wherever it goes. Meanwhile, no one can bring back to life the young Afghans who ought to have been able to grow up, or their mothers and fathers. The murderers continue on the loose.