The answers to what might have allowed the worst U.S. war crime of the Afghanistan War to unfold may be found in an investigation conducted by U.S. Central Command.
But the command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, has so far declined to release the results of an Army Regulation 15-6 report, prompting a group of journalism organizations to write a letter last week to Gen. Lloyd Austin III, Centcom’s commander, seeking the immediate release of those documents,
This story starts on the morning of March 11, 2012. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales had been drinking contraband alcohol, snorting Valium from another soldier, and taking steroids, according to a story from Military Times. He then walked away from his remote southern Afghanistan outpost at Camp Belambay, approached nearby villages and slaughtered 16 civilians, including 11 members of one family.
It was this generation’s My Lai moment. Only it wasn’t revealed later by an investigative reporter, as with the My Lai massacre, but on the same day Bales was arrested.
In the years since, through investigations, the court martial, conviction and sentencing to life imprisonment, much has been learned about Bales. He suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and traumatic brain injury. He had financial troubles and endured multiple deployments. His lawyer blamed the Army for sending him back into combat.
Robert Bales exhibited the strains of war experienced by hundreds of thousands of troops who fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and many, many more who battled in Vietnam and Korea and around the globe in World War II and in every conflict ever fought.
Yet unlike the vast majority of those troops, Bales took it out on innocent civilians, wiping out men, women and children by shooting and burning them.
More than three years later, no one can really say why.
Not even Bales. When questioned by the judge while entering the guilty plea that spared him a death sentence, he seemed “baffled,” according to the New York Times.
“There’s not a good reason in this world for why I did the horrible things I did,” he told the judge.
Bales may not have been able to offer a good reason, but with about 10,000 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, 3,500 in Iraq and more than 100,000 others spread out around the world, often in harm’s way, we as a society need to do all we can to find the answer that eluded the murderer.
It is for the good of our troops, the populations where they are stationed, and a nation that holds itself to a higher standard.
To help find those answers, news organizations who have covered this story from the start — like the News Tribune of Tacoma, The Seattle Times and NPR’s Seattle affiliate KUOW — filed federal Freedom of Information Act requests for documents that could shed light on this.
The Army turned over the results of the Army Criminal Investigation Command investigations. But all three news organizations, which cover Joint Base Lewis McChord where Bales’ military trial was held, sought the results of the Army Regulation 15-6 investigation.
It was commissioned in this case to determine whether anything could have been done to prevent the massacre. The investigation was conducted by Centcom. And each FOIA request and each subsequent appeal was denied by Centcom.
So last week, Military Reporters and Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists and Northwestern University’s National Security Journalism Initiative sent a joint letter to Austin, “requesting the immediate declassification of the investigation into Staff Sgt. Robert Bales’ killing spree.”
The letter was initially sent to the Army last month, but the Army punted to Centcom because it’s Centcom’s investigation.
Centcom initially rejected The News Tribune’s first request for the Bales 15-6 in January 2014, according to the letter, because among other things, releasing the report could jeopardize ongoing operations, obstruct law enforcement and impair Bales’ right to a fair and impartial trial.
The News Tribune filed an appeal to this denial. A Centcom FOIA officer told the newspaper on June 30 its latest appeal would be denied, citing “an exception that allows the government to withhold information that could influence an ongoing law enforcement investigation,” according to the letter.
However, the letter pointed out that Army Special Operations Command had finished its investigation of three soldiers it punished, while senior leaders from Bales’ battalion and brigade were given promotions and greater responsibilities, “suggesting that the military determined they were not culpable for Bales’ crimes.”
Things have changed since Centcom’s initial denial. And that, the signatories argue, warrants “an immediate reconsideration of CENTCOM’s withholding of the Bales 15-6.”
His sentence was upheld. U.S. forces are no longer stationed at combat outposts near the site of the massacre. And “Bales is past the point when a jury may consider evidence in his case. His fate now rests solely with military appeals,” according to the letter.
Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan at the time of the massacre, commissioned the report just after the massacre. He assured the public the military would do everything it could to learn from Bales’ killings, according to the letter.
“I will be satisfied when I get the report that we have looked closely at the potential contributing factors that might have permitted this event to have unfolded tragically,” Allen told reporters in March 2012, two weeks after the killings, the letter states.
“Bales committed a terrible crime and is serving his sentence,” according to the letter to Austin. “The public and the press still deserve the answers to the questions Allen aired when he announced the 15-6.”
Amy McCullough, president of Military Reporters and Editors, says the signatories hope the report “will shed light on the command climate at the time and whether there was anything leadership could have done to prevent the massacre.”
As Allen pointed out, “there certainly is a risk of retaliation for a crime of this magnitude,” McCullough says. But “enough time has passed and the Army already has released several documents pertaining to the Bales’ case, so I don’t believe this report will incite a renewed threat to service members. This was one of the most, if not the most, heinous crimes committed by an American during the Afghanistan war and the public absolutely has a right to know what the Defense Department is doing to ensure something like this never happens again.”
McCullough says that on July 8, the News Tribune learned the Defense Department’s FOIA office recommended Centcom reopen the paper’s initial file and conduct a new review of the documents.
That same day, Army Maj. Curtis Kellogg, a Centcom spokesman, told me the command “has received the letter from the Military Reporters and Editors Association and Centcom staff is reviewing their request.”
Here’s hoping that not only does the command review the request, but that it turns over the report, which I have since requested as well.
We may never know exactly why Bales became unhinged.
But for all the reasons I mentioned, we certainly need to know, as Gen. Allen said, the potential factors that may have allowed the massacre to take place.
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The Pentagon announced no new troop deaths in support of ongoing operations last week.
There have been 2,347 U.S. troop deaths in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, seven in support of the anti-ISIS campaign Operation Inherent Resolve, and two U.S. troop deaths and one civilian Department of Defense employee death in support of the followup Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan.
Questions linger years after soldier guns down 16 in Afghanistan
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