The Army staff sergeant charged with slaughtering 16 villagers in one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war will plead guilty to avoid the death penalty in a deal that requires him to recount the horrific attack for the first time, his attorney told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was "crazed" and "broken" when he slipped away from his remote southern Afghanistan outpost and attacked mud-walled compounds in two slumbering villages nearby, lawyer John Henry Browne said. But his client's mental state didn't rise to the level of a legal insanity defense, Browne said, and Bales will plead guilty next week.
The outcome of the case carries high stakes. The Army had been trying to have Bales executed, and Afghan villagers have demanded it. In interviews with the AP in Kandahar last month, relatives of the victims became outraged at the notion Bales might escape the death penalty
"For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers," vowed Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter.
"A prison sentence doesn't mean anything," said Said Jan, whose wife and three other relatives died. "I know we have no power now. But I will become stronger, and if he does not hang, I will have my revenge."
In this 'kindler, gentler world', the satanic leer might be emblematic of Bales determination to escape the death penalty. One wonders what more he could tell the court to make it worth allowing him to continue his existence at the cost of justice.
I don't blame the testifying survivor for being outraged at the news that Bales may possibly not be executed for his crimes; if anyone deserves the death penalty, it is a mass murderer capable of expressing his rage so destructively.
Near as I can tell, the Army is waffling because not all steps in the legal process has been completed.
It's hard to be sure now days, when Our Dear Leaders tend to conflate terrorists with criminals.
"Jan" and others are making threats which may be specific to their culture, but the concept of "an eye for an eye" is not foreign to the American culture, either. Maybe it's a little primitive to threaten American soldiers in retaliation, but maybe it's a little primitive to retaliate against all Islamic Terrorists for the actions on 9/11. (On the other hand we suffered from terrorist attacks by Islamic Terrorists for decades before America finally, finally declared war on the beast.)
What's that you say? The comparison is wrong? We can't equate the two? Perhaps on a difference of scale, certainly, and certainly the actions of Sgt. Bales were those of a single terrorist while 9/11 was a coordinated assault planned and executed by an coherent organization. And no, I'm not saying it's "right" to kill American soldiers because the American Army refuses to do the right thing.
What I AM saying, is ...
Baloney! Terrorism is similar to pornography in the sense that it's hard to get a definition that everyone can agree on, but we know it when we see it. The penalty should be the same for all terrorists; prove their guilt and string 'em up. Our terrorists are no better than their terrorists. So if the American army thinks it's "justice" to let this terrorist live, we might as well send everyone home from Gitmo.
There's a political reason for executing terrorists, and that's so that we establish America as a society which has the sense to abhor all terrorists equally.
There's a realpolitik reason for executing OUR terrorists, and that's so we don't make ourselves look like a terrorist supporting society. You know, like the reason we invaded Iraq?
And there's an ethical reason for executing terrorists; "Thou Shalt Not suffer a mass murderer to live." It's in the Bible, you can look it up.
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