Introducing: THE WAR WITHIN: THE ROBERT BALES STORY

It’s March 2012 in a region of Afghanistan known as the birthplace of the Taliban. Staff Sergeant Robert Bales leaves his base–in the dead of the night–and lays siege to two villages, killing a reported sixteen innocent Afghan civilians. The reaction from the American government is swift and severe; provoking universal condemnation and a life sentence in Fort Leavenworth military prison.

Over a decade later, the lingering question about what became known as the Kandahar Massacre remains. Why did it happen? Anchored by 18 hours of exclusive interviews from America's most notorious war criminal and complemented by a chorus of people central to this polarizing case, THE WAR WITHIN: THE ROBERT BALES STORY is a 12-episode investigative podcast that will shed new light on the inner sanctum of the military. Throughout, the series will contain explosive revelations that run the gamut, from brain injuries, to potentially toxic drugs, to possible cover-ups by the nation Robert Bales swore to protect.

Episodes drop every Thursday, starting on June 29th.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Afghanistan. Twenty twelve, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales was leading a
squad of American infantryman in a region known as the
birthplace of the Taliban. He was on his fourth poor
Beauty and considered to be an elite soldier until one night,
for some reason, Bales left his combat outpost, walked to

(00:24):
two nearby villages and opened fire. All told, sixteen Afghan
civilians were killed that night, many of them were children.
Robert Bales is a murder.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's straight up a war crime.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Hearing the name Robert Bales sends chills down my spine.
The reaction from the US government was swift and severe,
provoking universal condemnation and the life sentence Fort Leavenworth Correctional
Barracks military prison. Since then, the story of Robert Bales
has faded from the public eye until now.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Maybe I made a mistake, maybe I am wrong, but
you have to understand the way it went down.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Over the years, We've conducted a series of exclusive interviews
with one of America's most notorious war criminals. They paint
a complex portrait of a man changed by the global
War on Terror.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Nobody joins the Army after September eleventh, to be the
bad guy, you know, the idea of hurting it kid,
of killing a kid come on.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Questions remain around Baal's mindset and motivations that fateful night,
questions he seeks to answer.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
It comes into question, how could anyone do that? How
could I go that far off track? And then I
relived those days and I'm like, oh my god, I
can't believe I was still alive too to.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
That The war within the Robert Bayles Story. It's an
investigative podcast that unpacks one of the most controversial events
in American military history. You'll hear from soldiers have served
on that deployment.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
I get woken up very early in the morning and
it's like, everybody, get up, go to your battle station.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Someone is missing. Robert Bales's fiercest defenders. He saw he
saw the Taliband get ready to attack. My goal is
to get him home right so that we can be
a family. His biggest detractors. He committed brutal atrocities on us.
He took my whole family away from me. And experts

(02:29):
who uncover explosive information on this polarizing.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Case, Bail's deployment is merely a symptom of a broken army,
scraping the bottom of the barrel and sending injured and
ill service members overseas.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
It's all here in twelve episodes that will be both
gripping and revealing.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I understand why I'm here.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
I know because my nightmares.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Tell me every day.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Listen to the War within the Robert Bailes Story starting
on June twenty ninth, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.