Post by ShivaTD on Aug 26, 2013 12:58:29 GMT
U.S. soldier who killed Afghan villagers gets life without parole
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A decorated American soldier was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday for killing 16 unarmed Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, in two bloody nighttime forays from his military post.
Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has admitted to slaughtering the villagers in attacks on their family compounds in Kandahar province in March 2012.
TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - A decorated American soldier was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday for killing 16 unarmed Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, in two bloody nighttime forays from his military post.
Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has admitted to slaughtering the villagers in attacks on their family compounds in Kandahar province in March 2012.
This is obviously a horrific crime that Bales admitted to committing but the conviction fails to address the real cause behind the crime.
Defense attorneys had contended that Bales carried out the killings after suffering a breakdown under the pressure of the last of his four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. They said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and a brain injury even before shipping off to Kandahar province.
Post-traumatic stress syndrome is an inevitable result of being involved in war that few seem to understand. It can range from extreme cases of murder or in suicides that are associated with it often many years after the person returns home to less dramatic cases where the person manages to get by with "no apparent symptoms" but everyone is affected. Not just the soldier but their families and loved ones are also affected because of it. The number of failed marriages, broken hearts, and emotional distress suffered has negatively affected millions of Americans and no combat soldier is ever free of its effects. They may deny it but they suffer from it nonetheless.
The politicians that are responsible for the US involvement in wars that have absolutely nothing to do with defending the United States from attacks by foreign nations, which includes every war since WW II, have not been indicted for their crimes of sending fine Americans off to needless wars of political power and US imperialism. The number of lives they've diminished and destroyed of Americans alone warrants the condemnation of every American and this doesn't even address the tens of millions of people in foreign countries that have been destroyed by US military imperialism.
So we send one lone soldier to prison for life without the possibility of parole while we let the politicians that are really responsible go unindicted for their crimes against humanity by authorizing these wars. He killed 16 people while the politicians are responsible for the deaths of millions. He will spend the rest of his life in a small prison cell while the politicians will retire in luxury with a 6-figure pension.