September 7, 2023 • 42 mins
The final episode of THE WAR WITHIN considers the impact of the Kandahar Massacre on the withdrawal of American troops from Kabul in 2021, while gathering final thoughts from many of the people affected by this tragedy – including, of course, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales himself.
THE WAR WITHIN was produced Bungalow Media + Entertainment, Check Point Productions, and Mosquito Park Pictures, in association with iHeart Podcasts.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
The devisions to as your opinion about America changed because
of this massacre, we.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Have a different opinion about America because Allah Almighty prophesies
that you cannot satisfy Jews and the Christians until you
obey him to follow his path. Our opinion about every
disbeliever is different.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
This is because of Isla.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Because Allah Almighty says to unite, but for my sake,
if and separate for my sake, be friends with the
one who is my friend, that which is my enemy,
separate from it.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
In the spring of twenty twenty two, the Afghan survivors
from Alakosai Najbien offered us their poignant reflections on the
Kanahar massacre. They come from villages without internet or infrastructure.
In all likelihood they'll never hear this podcast. Still, they
hope to share their perspective on this tragedy to the world.
(01:11):
For them, what happened on March eleventh, twenty twelve was
intensely personal.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Here's Mulla Baran is.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
My brother was my right hand and now my right hand.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
Is cut off.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Although eleven years have passed since that sadness and I
have some distance from my brother. For me, it feels
the same as that first night. I used to have
five brothers. Now we are left with four. Every time
we meet, I talk about the sadness of that first night.
It's a sadness that has not forgotten in life until death.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
Previously, on the war within, I.
Speaker 6 (01:58):
Think the situation in Afghanist remained so complicated, and Robert
Bales is a depiction of the complexities of this conflict Afghanistan.
Speaker 7 (02:10):
It got demonstrably worse after Bales was gone.
Speaker 8 (02:13):
This whole thing became shrouded in mystery and secrecy.
Speaker 7 (02:16):
It is my belief that Baals was helped in some
way to commit these crimes.
Speaker 9 (02:21):
But.
Speaker 10 (02:23):
Didn't they.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Believe It just seemed fundamentally unfair to me that someone.
Speaker 10 (02:30):
Who we created should be treated the way it was
being treated.
Speaker 11 (02:34):
We already know the dangers of PTSD. You cannot see
a person get blown up into chunks and be okay.
Speaker 12 (02:41):
You're going to get a excepensive, very bored in recessed suse.
Speaker 13 (02:44):
The Arab is so plain and prejudicial.
Speaker 14 (02:47):
You know, it's a heinous act that is very difficult
to judge with American eyes. But I understand how I
got where I was.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
I'm Mike McGinnis.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
This is the war within the Robert Bailes story. The
Taliban took control over Afghanistan in the late summer of
twenty twenty one, but they had been gaining ground for
a long time before the formal transfer of power. Hick
(03:18):
Matula da Wu, who lost his dad to Robert Bales,
was born during wartime. At age nineteen, He's now old
enough to fight himself.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I want to say that if I had an axe,
I would fight against these Americans, and if I can,
I will go to America and take my revenge on
Robert Bayals. He killed my father, he threatened my brother
who was four months old. All of this is so
(03:50):
painful for me. This is the life I lead in
the situation I've been telled. Sometimes I have a dream
that Robert Fales will come to Afghanistan once again and
I can finally give him what he deserves.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
The villagers of Panzwe are a complex group, and each
one has processed this devastation of family and of country
in different ways, somewhat retribution. Others like Haji Wazir, simply
ask for peace after decades of conflict.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I want the Almighty God to settle our country and calm.
My Afghanistans that there will be no more killing and
war here. Our dream is that our country can be prosperous.
May God keep us away from more calamities and not
bring disaster and war to our homeland. This is our government,
this is our life, and it is acceptable to us.
(04:48):
We neither need nor want anybody else.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Just as the massacre change the lives of these individuals forever,
it also significantly impacted the tenor of the Afghan war.
Even before the Bail shooting, a sense of unease around
the conduct of US soldiers had been building for some time.
As Private James Alexander recalls, I.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
Think it was a few weeks earlier that some Marines
had piss on the Quran, right, and so the Taliban
and the Afghans were all, I mean, understandably, it's their
secret texts, and they're you know, up at arms about it.
Speaker 15 (05:25):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
This incident from January of twenty twelve, where a group
of soldiers were caught on video urinating on a Quran,
sparked protests around Afghanistan. With the Bales killing coming two
months later, there seemed to be a growing sentiment of
negativity towards American troops. Here's journalist Yealda Hakim who was
(05:46):
in country at the time.
Speaker 16 (05:48):
This was a very dramatic moment.
Speaker 17 (05:50):
The Telabama gave the ground, the wall was intensifying, and
then when incidents lacked, the Quran burning and then the.
Speaker 18 (05:58):
Roulb of Bales thing, it was like a series of
incidents took place that I think at a.
Speaker 16 (06:03):
Very critical time in the country.
Speaker 17 (06:05):
And the war shaped how the next almost decade would look.
This lack of trust, security spiraling out of control, Afghan's
increasingly becoming frustrated in the angry Obama was trying to
find a solution with a partner that then President Hamid
Karzai was increasingly being backed into a corner and description
(06:30):
for Karzi, it's all.
Speaker 19 (06:32):
About the relationships.
Speaker 20 (06:34):
It just felt like.
Speaker 8 (06:35):
The Obama administration didn't manage that relationship with him, and
it went darker and darker and darker to the point where.
Speaker 15 (06:44):
It hit rock quorder.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Amid stories of American wrongdoing making headlines during an election year,
President Barack Obama took action, traveling to Afghanistan to sign
an agreement with Hamad Karzai.
Speaker 8 (06:59):
It was the talking point of all of our conversations
will the afghanstign this security agreement? I think kars I
at that point had so many grievances that he used
the agreement as leverage and a bargaining chip.
Speaker 21 (07:14):
There was a powerplay being played where Karzi was sort
of really trying to show Obama that he doesn't hold
all the cards, and oh, really you want this deal,
do you? Well, we're not quite sure if I'm going
to sign it, And given what had taken place in
Iraq and the withdrawal, it was kind of like, let's
not make the same sort of mistakes.
Speaker 8 (07:34):
That's have a proper agreement in place.
Speaker 22 (07:36):
I've come to Afghanistan to mark a historic moment for
our two nations, and to do so on Afghan soil.
Speaker 12 (07:44):
I'm here to affirm the.
Speaker 22 (07:45):
Bonds between our countries and to look forward to a
future peace and security and greater prosperity for our nations.
And today we're agreeing to be long term partners in
combating terrorism and training after and security forces, in strengthening
democratic institutions, and supporting development and protecting human rights of
(08:07):
all Afghans.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Obama and Karzai ended up signing their strategic partnership agreement
on May first, twenty twelve, the one year anniversary of
Osama Binlin's death, in less than two months after the massacre.
The deal promised to quote strengthen Afghan sovereignty, stability, and prosperity,
and contribute to our shared goal of defeating al Qaeda
(08:31):
and its extremist affiliates. So what did that mean for
the region of banshwek my.
Speaker 14 (08:38):
Situation created a good opportunity for the Taliban to use
my situation here to try to recruit other people and
try to force American policy in the area to a
certain degree. He provided the offensive information opportunity for the
Taliban to say, look at American soldiers and what they're
doing to our people.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
This is actually where my personal experience comes into play.
I've mentioned that I was in Afghanistan in twenty twelve,
deployed only thirty miles or so from Robert bales I
woulness the change that took place in the aftermath. My
platoon learned about the massacre from the army newspaper Stars
and Stripes.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Once we read what happened and.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Got together to talk about it, we knew that this
would make our jobs much harder. Panjwai podcast host Curtis
Grace also has some expertise on the province during this era.
Speaker 23 (09:35):
In March of twenty twelve, the Panjoy massacre weakened the
central government's power in the area. They appeared weak because
Bobby Bils never went on trial in Afghanistan. And then
from twenty fourteen, and this is no shit for real,
from twenty fourteen to twenty nineteen, there was no violence
in Panjway. There was nothing like. The Afghan army didn't
get hit, the Afghan local police didn't get hit. They
(09:56):
weren't bombings. I flew over Pandway all time, never had
an engagement, never I had a mission in Pandway. It
was weird and I just never bought it. Our theory
is there was a deal, you know, basically the Afghan
government I think lost some of their bargaining power and
they made a deal with the Taliban said hey, we
will let you do your thing in Pandua. So I
(10:17):
think the Pandoi massacre was kind of the nail in
the coffin for any chance to really control Pandway.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Just two years after Bales walked off as VSP, the
American presence in the birthplace of the Taliban was either
vastly diminished or gone completely. In that context, it's worth
considering whether the staff sergeant's actions were seen as a
referendum on the United States's policy of counterinsurgency.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
I like to say the Kandahart massacre was the day
that we lost the war. I know it sounds really
crazy to say that, but when your strategy is we're
going to put good hearted Americans in these villages and
sort of sway that people with their good heartedness, and
they're going to see that we're helping, and in fact,
one guy goes crazy and kills a bunch of people,
like that's the end of that strategy. The VSP strategy
is not going to be successful after that.
Speaker 23 (11:08):
Right, Panjwai was always a Talban powerhouse. You're not going
to change it. And we got really close. We showed
the patch show people what it could be like to
live in a modern society, for women to be able
to vote, for women to able to go to school,
for people to be educated, to have modern infrastructure. But
now that everything's falling apart, we're not going back anytime soon.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Robert Bales made the following comments in twenty nineteen, long
before the official end of America's longest war.
Speaker 14 (11:39):
It's going to take a generation to change things, and
we're not, as Americans at this point in the history,
willing to do that. So why put more Americans in
an arm's way for something that we're not going to
see through. We're not going to finish this, you know.
I think the Taliban, we're just waiting. I don't think
(12:01):
that it was a conversion of philosophies. I don't think
one day they were like, Hey, we like the Americans,
now we want to live like them. I think the
idea was, Oh, they're going to leave, let's accumulate all
the assets we can. Let's grab as much stuff as
we can before they leave, and once they're gone, we'll
take back over.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Bales would basically be proven right. As the last American
soldiers fled Afghanistan. On August thirtieth of twenty twenty one,
the Taliban flag was raised in the capital city of Kabu.
Western occupation was over and Islamist extremism ruled again. Journalist
Kathy Gannon braced out why, in hindsight, this was always
(12:49):
going to be the most likely result of an invasion
that had begun two decades prior.
Speaker 20 (12:54):
I don't know what the strategy was, Okay, America was
attacked by Kaida, but I think from the beginning America
wanted to.
Speaker 19 (13:02):
Go to Iraq.
Speaker 20 (13:04):
Two thousand and three, you went to Iraq. You began
twenty year old long before then, Afghanistan was what what
was the strategy? From day one, the level of corruption started,
and the Americans were actively involved in that as well,
because it was expedient. You partnered with people who had
(13:24):
a history of corruption and lawlessness. You partnered with them willingly,
and you gave them a free rate and did nothing
to control that. So it wasn't in twenty twenty one
that this happened. This was twenty years of mismanagement.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
That led to it.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
The hope was always that a regime could be established,
supported by the civilians that could stand up to the Taliban.
But when the US started to withdraw its troops, it
became clear that their Afghanalyzed did stand a chance.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
As Yalda Hakim explains.
Speaker 16 (14:00):
Had become so dependent on the US military for even
the most basic.
Speaker 19 (14:05):
Of decision making.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
There was a reliance there.
Speaker 19 (14:08):
And when you take that.
Speaker 21 (14:10):
Rug away from under their feet.
Speaker 8 (14:12):
And kind of essentially handicap them and tie their hands
behind their backs, and tie their feet and blindfold them
and gag.
Speaker 18 (14:19):
Them and then just say here's a weapon, try and
use it.
Speaker 8 (14:23):
That is essentially what happened.
Speaker 18 (14:26):
There wasn't really, in the end, a fight that was
put up, because when you feel handicapped and this corruption,
you're not quite sure what the aim of the purpose
of all of this is, and your partner, the people
offering you air support, all that disappears.
Speaker 8 (14:42):
You know, you realize that.
Speaker 16 (14:44):
Okay, well, if all that didn't mean anything, what matters?
Speaker 21 (14:47):
You know what ultimately matters?
Speaker 19 (14:48):
Do I want to lose my life?
Speaker 8 (14:50):
Do I want my wife to be a widow?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
The Taliban, it would seem, will be in power for
the foreseeable future. Here's what Bob Bales had to say
about the current state of affairs in Afghanistan speaking to
US in December of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 10 (15:11):
You know, I'm going to sit in prison for the
rest of my life, never have the opportunity to go
out there and do anything. And the talent banner sitting
there running their country. I don't understand. I guess I'm
confused and it makes you frustrated every day while I've
been in prison, I've earned my college degree, I'm six
(15:32):
classes away from having my master's degree. I've taken rehabilitation classes.
I've done everything I can do to be a better person.
Then let's compare that to the Taliban. What have they done?
What did they do to oppress women? Children? Move their
country back twenty years? I guess America has decided the
(15:53):
talent ban deserves a second chance. Not me.
Speaker 23 (15:57):
I knew that Coooble would fall eventually. It was really surprising,
but it does kind of force you to reflect to like,
what was the fucking point?
Speaker 10 (16:06):
Man?
Speaker 23 (16:07):
Why did we spend twenty years here for it to
fall apart in two weeks.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Most of the other veterans interviewed for this podcast seem
to have mixed feelings about the war and the role
they played. Like Curtis Grace.
Speaker 23 (16:21):
I think you frame your service in the proper perspective.
We got orders, we went out and we did what
we were supposed to do, and we came home. That's
a success. And we showed and basically a generation and
a half of Afghan's what freedom was like, you know,
and they're not going to forget that overnight. It's not
like now the talle band's in charge are just going
to completely forget about it.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Special Forces Captain Danny Fields tries to see the good
that came from his service along with the bad.
Speaker 9 (16:49):
It's hard to kind of come to terms with the
fact that you know, you deployed multiple times to a location,
You've lost friends, You've got friends who are still alive
but are permanently disabled as a result of it.
Speaker 19 (17:01):
It's hard to.
Speaker 9 (17:02):
Come to terms with that and know that, you know,
there's this kind of very quick and immediate failure that
occurred in the course of just a few weeks after
we pulled out. But what I focus on is what
good did I do while.
Speaker 19 (17:16):
I was there?
Speaker 9 (17:16):
Did I impact something while I was there? And certainly
the bail situation changes the calculus a lot.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
It's customary in the States that think a veteran for
their service, but when your time in the military is
linked with an incident like the Canahar massacre, it puts
the idea of fighting for your country in a different line.
James Alexander recalls the tense atmosphere around their squad after
they had left BSB Bellumby and returned to the US.
Speaker 19 (17:49):
We're all just drinking to kind of cope with it.
Speaker 7 (17:52):
I'm surprised not more happened to us, Like I mean,
we were honestly reckless, just completely just acting out because
we were just like so enraged with like all of
these feelings and emotions that like we just didn't know
what to do with it. We pretty much destroyed the barracks,
you know. It's like we're breaking stuff and beer bottles everywhere.
It just didn't didn't care, which is angry, angry young men.
Speaker 19 (18:18):
With no outlet.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Many of the soldiers, such as Gavin Jones, directed their
frustrations inward.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
I couldn't live with myself.
Speaker 24 (18:28):
I felt like such a fraud, you know, knowing that
there's parents that are gonna live out the rest of
their like shitty lives, doing shitty afghan any things without
their kids. Just the sight of halfway burned carcasses being
paraded in front of you from someone that is your
leadership really soured my view of authority backed up by violence.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Gavin was so affected by the killings that he opted
to distance himself from his service completely.
Speaker 24 (18:56):
After everything went down, I was able to get out
under the conscientious objector cause because after everything that I
witnessed firsthand, I really didn't really want to serve a
military that I'm not going to say propped up that
kind of behavior, but certainly was negligent. You know, running
(19:16):
into enemy fire, helping out your buddy, you know, that's
what I like, but not when really vulnerable people and
a lot of children get caught up in the mix.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
After a talk with one of his squad mates, Alexander
started putting in the work to heal his psyche from
this traumatic experience.
Speaker 19 (19:38):
When we talk about like PTSD and all of these issues, like.
Speaker 7 (19:42):
We were going through it, and that was probably my
first recognition like, oh man, I'm just not gonna go
to beat this myself. And that's when I started talking
to like behavior health people and like therapists and being
really authentic and honest with them and having a cathartic
experience of talking with them about the situation, how I
well and getting it off my chest. And that's what
(20:03):
saved my career in my life. Honestly, the reason why
I was so able to do this is because of
past trauma. I was involved in a school shooting much
like Columbine back in nineteen ninety six, this guy named
Thomas Hamilton, who was my boy scout troop leader and coach,
went into a school and.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yep, for Alexander, one of the most scarring events one
might ever witness, felt like it.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
Had repeated itself. It begs the question.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Of whether Robert Bales can be classified as yet another
assailant in the American epidemic of mass shootings. In the
eyes of Bob's wife, the answer is clear.
Speaker 25 (20:53):
They're trying to liken it to Sandy Hook. That is
completely not true. From his person. He was doing what
had to be done, and that was protecting his men.
He didn't go out to kill innocent civilians.
Speaker 19 (21:08):
That was not what he was to do.
Speaker 25 (21:11):
Both of the places they had been to previously and
had searched, and they were, you know, known Taliban.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Had found sniper rifles, they'd found IID making material, So
I believe it was a very scary place to be.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Brendan Vaughan, who wrote the.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
GQ piece on Bails, also draws a distinction between something
like Ceeney Hook and the Kanahar massacre, but only up
to a point.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
The context is certainly different. Is it any less bad. No,
is it different?
Speaker 26 (21:47):
Yes, the setting is completely different.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
What he was out doing.
Speaker 12 (21:52):
On control on a regular basis.
Speaker 26 (21:55):
The difference between that and what the Aurora shooter and
other school shooters are doing in their daily lives. But
I don't think that makes what Bails did any less
of a murder that's worthy of the exact same punishment
as a school shooter.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
When faced with this comparison, Bob's friend David Wesley focused
more on the public response to racially motivated shooting some
places like South Carolina in Buffalo, New York.
Speaker 11 (22:22):
So Bob went out and he killed some Afghani people.
This man in Buffalo, legit, went and did a recon
talked to a guy video teamed, then came back and
killed those people solely because they were black.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
I haven't heard the local.
Speaker 12 (22:44):
Media called for his death. Yet.
Speaker 11 (22:48):
What I did hear was they say that he was sick.
What I did hear about Dylan Ruth when he killed
nine black individuals, that he had mental problems, that he.
Speaker 12 (22:59):
Was a lo This isn't Buffalo.
Speaker 11 (23:04):
This is not one rogue man that just couldn't fit
in a society that business.
Speaker 12 (23:10):
Right.
Speaker 11 (23:11):
This was a well trained soldier that had gotten broken.
I don't know the circumstances of what made Bob duty did.
I just know that the Bob that did that was
broken by its system.
Speaker 8 (23:28):
I think that the American people are good people, and
they have a set of values, and they believe that
when their military goes out to defend those set of values, it.
Speaker 19 (23:40):
Is for a purpose.
Speaker 16 (23:42):
But I think the situation in Afghanistan was and remains
so complicated, and Robert Bales is a depiction of the
complexities of this conflict, of the misunderstandings of this conflict,
all the murkiness of what was happening that I'm frankly
(24:08):
surprised that we didn't have more cases like the Robert
Bayles case.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yolda Hakim raises an important question, why was it only Baales?
Why didn't this kind of attack on Afghan civilians happen
more often? But journalist Kathy Gannon has a counter question,
are you sure that it wasn't only Bailes who committed
unauthorized attacks?
Speaker 20 (24:34):
Bales was not an aberration.
Speaker 19 (24:37):
This did happen often.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
How much was reported this is another thing.
Speaker 19 (24:41):
But it didn't happen often, and of.
Speaker 20 (24:44):
At one point the UN report. They put out a
report and there were more civilians killed in bombing rates
than they were by the Tatabut, So I think that
should have been looked into there. I wasn't anybody look
the inter it, you know, I wasn't important.
Speaker 12 (25:05):
In the.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Incidents like the Kanahar massacre were toxic to the military
from a public relations perspective. It wasn't long before the
people in charge at BSP Bellum Buying, including Captain Danny Fields,
were considered to be radioactive.
Speaker 9 (25:22):
Within the ranks, really loved what I did. But on
the heels of the Bails incident, I was having a
discussion with my battalion commander. You know, I asked him genuinely,
I say, hey, what does this mean for my career?
And you know, at the time, I wanted to stay
in I wanted to do other things with special operations.
He told me, hey, look, most likely this incident is
(25:44):
going to follow you around for your career. I think
there was a lot of resentment that I had towards
Bails in the beginning, not for just sidetracking my career,
but the careers of other people that I worked with,
people who are just in of old people. So I
had a lot of resentment, had a lot of anger.
You know, A long time has passed, though, Do I
(26:06):
still have resentment towards him?
Speaker 15 (26:08):
Sure?
Speaker 9 (26:08):
Yeah, I still think there's a part of me who
probably hasn't it, probably will never forgive him for what
he did.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Soldier X was another guy whose career, whose outlook on
life would never be the same.
Speaker 15 (26:22):
I was furious. I was still infurious. So I'm a
lot of anger what that man did, not just to me,
but to all those dudes who I was there time
to show their country that there there to be patriots,
and he took that away from ever seeing one of
those guys. And I felt a lot of shame. My
(26:43):
family had to feel that shame. My kid, my premier kid.
I came. I'm know, I was just gone. My wife's
all the time. I be physically present, just to be
somewhere else, you know, just angry, angry, ang bails, angry
(27:03):
at myself. There was Charlenger in so the.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
East men like Soldier EX and Danny Fields, James Alexander
and Gavin Jones who deployed to VESP Belling Buy, They've
expressed a fair amount of animosity toward the former staff sergeant.
But zoom out a little further and other vets who've
known Robert Bales have found more room to empathize with
(27:27):
his plan. Take Executive Officer Nick Beasley, who first linked
up with Bales during their days in Iraq.
Speaker 27 (27:34):
People know Bales and knew the story, but for me,
he was a great friend. The frustrating thing for me
is that there's been nobody that's really looked at Bails
the person, and there hasn't been any deep dive in
what he is because everyone wants him to be that
lightning rod monster that they can keep in a cage.
That's the thing that kills me. We really abandoned somebody
(27:57):
that spent four years deployed servant country, being a tremendous NCO,
making a difference in a lot of people's lives that
were soldiers, and made a horrible, horrible mistake. I want
some record out there that he was a good dude.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
He is a good dude, having spent time in the
most kinetic situations in Iraq. David Wesley can't help but
see things from the point of view of an American
veteran scarred by war.
Speaker 11 (28:24):
I don't think we ask a person if you're capable
of murder?
Speaker 12 (28:28):
Right?
Speaker 11 (28:29):
I don't think that's a fair question, but I think
the best way to answer it is, what would you
be capable of if you spent three years of your
life looking at death, sending your friends home in refrigerated coffins,
being bombed routine, not knowing whether just going to take
(28:52):
a shit, whether a mortar would impact and you would
die on the shitter.
Speaker 12 (28:58):
What would you be capable of?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Have you been in contact with him over the best
in years.
Speaker 12 (29:05):
I haven't.
Speaker 11 (29:07):
Because I don't know what to say, because a part
of me wants to say, how the fuck dare you?
Speaker 5 (29:13):
And how did you let them break you?
Speaker 11 (29:16):
I want to yell at him, I want to screaming,
but I don't think he needs it, you know, I
think he does that to himself enough.
Speaker 14 (29:32):
Even if I'm sitting on the couch watching TV, or
whether I'm in a prison cell, you know, it comes back.
There's not a day that I don't relive seeing that
little girl. Nobody joins the infantry to be the bad guy.
(29:56):
Nobody joins the army after September eleventh, be the bad guy.
I sit back and I ask, you know, why, how
did I get to where I'm at, Like, how did
I get from, you know, being the good guy, being
the leader of my group, to being what I think
(30:19):
I was a very good soldier to being in prison
for the rest of my life?
Speaker 12 (30:23):
How did I go from one to the other?
Speaker 14 (30:25):
And what purpose was this in God's grand design or
God's grand scheme of things.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
A life sentence in Fort Lennworth has given Bails plenty
of time to examine his life, frequently through the lens
of religion.
Speaker 12 (30:42):
In prison, I've.
Speaker 14 (30:43):
Had a lot of time to reflect on it, you know,
and I remember hating you know, this is all in
retrospect and reflecting back on it and thinking about God.
Speaker 12 (30:52):
My view on religion.
Speaker 14 (30:53):
As of all over time from if you you know,
if you do the wrong thing, you're going to burn
into hell. My favorite aunt uncle, they had a different
perspective of religion other than this yelling and screaming and
you're going to die and go to hell. Hey, there's
this God of love over here. And it was very,
very much more into the compassion side of things. And
(31:16):
so I was really attracted that I think.
Speaker 9 (31:18):
You live and you learn.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Bob learns things that he goes forward and he learns things,
and he goes forward, and he has strong ideas of God,
family and friends, and those things are the most important.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Thing for all of Robert Bales's self actualization. There will
always be people that feel a life sentence in prison
is a punishment that fits the crime.
Speaker 7 (31:43):
They can't walk him away long enough, like this man
cannot get out like ever just can't. Why have jails
if you're not going to put people on him in
you know, I think if he gets out, it's a
I mean, the legal system already has issues, but that
in it's health.
Speaker 19 (32:00):
I think. I just like, on its face of it,
it's a non start.
Speaker 15 (32:05):
I think the more this gets drived on and the
more he tries to appeal and Mike, I'm thing about yourself, dude,
not thinking about every single families that you destroyed.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
At the same time, and his corner remains a small cadre,
including as always John Mayer.
Speaker 13 (32:23):
I've accepted the case. I take honor in it. I
believe it's my duty. I don't feel pressure. I feel
that this is a case. There's monumental impacts potentially here
for the law, for the Army, for the Bugan Drug Administration,
for pharmaceutical manufacturers and for any other coalition trooper. Democracy
(32:44):
abhors a secret and prefers sunshine. We're trying to put
some sunshine on it.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
A lot of.
Speaker 28 (32:51):
People think that the Bob Bails case is really open
and shut, black and white, good versus evil. However, as
with most things in life, it's much more complicated than that.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Lieutenant Colonel bulgerfind is the CEO of United American Patriots,
an organization dedicated to helping warriors convicted of crimes in
the military Arena. UAP bank rolls Bails' defense.
Speaker 29 (33:16):
People in general tend to be emotionally driven, and so
I tend to address things rationally with the facts.
Speaker 30 (33:28):
First, Bob Bales was not given a presumption of innocence.
I mean, you can imagine if the President of the
United States here's this and said, hold on a second,
let's find out exactly what happened. Might we have come
to the same conclusion. Perhaps, But we don't know. We
(33:48):
never will know who the high ranking Taliban enemy combatants
are that Bob claims he killed. We just have the
evidence that the Taliban provided to the United States. I
believe that.
Speaker 29 (34:02):
Our country is coming to a perspective of we've been
misled by our emotions. I'd like to believe our society
is getting tired of this polarization and it's going to
start being more rational first and saying, all right, I
just saw a headline. Let me read the article, let
(34:25):
me get into the facts.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
While the legal battle plays out, Carrie Bales continues to
raise her two kids in the hopes that someday her
husband will return home to share their lives.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
She can't see this story ending any other way.
Speaker 25 (34:45):
I remember the first time, you know, you sit down
and you have to.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Pro and columns.
Speaker 25 (34:50):
Of yourself, and I thought about it, like, what would
have you like to not be married and to get
divorced and not be a home's life and not take
the kings to see their.
Speaker 19 (34:59):
Dad, not be and have another life.
Speaker 31 (35:02):
And I just couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine my life
like that, and how sad it would be. He is
not just my husband, it's more like my best friend.
And we've been through tough times before and got through it.
And not a lot of military people are still married.
Speaker 25 (35:18):
We hit seventeen years this last March, and I think
we're even more closer than a lot of people.
Speaker 19 (35:23):
That do live together.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
This is the right path, this is this is where
I want to be.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Quincy Bales, Bob's oldest child, shares the worldview that was
instilled by her mom and dad.
Speaker 32 (35:36):
My parents as a whole have always taught us to
be positive. My dad always says that we're never down,
either up or getting up. And I think that that's
definitely taken a big toll on helping us because our
situation does suck, but it leaves room for like feeling
sorry for ourselves, but we always keep a positive outlook
(35:57):
on things, and we're also very hopeful.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Even so, Bails is well aware of the myriad ways
that his actions in Afghanistan changed everything for his two children.
Speaker 14 (36:08):
Looking at where I'm at today, you know, I don't
know that I want my kid going in the army.
Speaker 12 (36:15):
It's just kind of the way it is.
Speaker 14 (36:16):
But you're asking someone to do something that isn't natural.
You're asking someone to take away everything they've been taught.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
You don't kill people.
Speaker 12 (36:28):
You know, it's not okay to kill someone, and now.
Speaker 14 (36:30):
You're giving them a weapon, and you're saying, not only
is it okay to do it, it's honorable to do it,
and it is the right thing to do. I don't
want my kid going in the military. Yes it's very honorable,
Yes it's needed. Yes it's a service. I don't want
my kids doing it, you know what I mean, I
just don't.
Speaker 12 (36:50):
I want them to live a good life, you know,
better life.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
After all this time, Carrie doesn't blame her husband or
even the military for the fracturing of their family unit.
She understands the struggle that Bob Bails was facing.
Speaker 25 (37:10):
It was just the perfect storm of events. I mean,
I'm a very god fearing person, and yeah, I'll say
there's no coincidences. Obviously, I believe it could have been prevented.
I don't know how at this point, right this many
years later, it could have should.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Have wound us all of those things.
Speaker 25 (37:36):
I just think that he was backed into a corner
where he did it.
Speaker 24 (37:40):
I think, I don't think.
Speaker 29 (37:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Is that's probably the hardest question.
Speaker 14 (37:52):
My intent was not the killed children. I wrote a
letter for Bobby and Quincy while we were bell and By.
One of the things I wrote to them is that
the kids in Afghanistan are a different than the kids
in America.
Speaker 12 (38:08):
You know, I'd sit there and I juggle rocks form.
You know, we didn't have toys. We juggle rocks.
Speaker 15 (38:13):
You know.
Speaker 12 (38:14):
I tried to build those relationships with the kids.
Speaker 14 (38:16):
So to have someone think that I'm such a cold
heart advassard that I just go in there and kill
those kids without any thought or any There's more to
the story than just a guy that lost his shit
and went out there and just blew up a bunch
of kids and women.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
On March eleventh, twenty twelve, in the dead of night,
Robert Baal snuck outside the wire of his village stability
platform and walked to the villages of Ala Kosai in Najabien.
What happened that night was an unequivocal tragedy that will
echo for eternity. A thousand talking points on a thousand
(38:52):
topical issue stem from the idea of the Canahearm massacre,
and this series has endeavored to cover many of them.
But at the end of the day, for Robert Bayles,
leaving out his years in his cell in the middle
of Kansas, it all boils down to one decision. In
the midst of what seems like an existential threat. Do
(39:14):
you take action or do you just go back to sleep.
This was and continues to be Robert Bayles' is war within.
Speaker 14 (39:28):
One of the things that helps me as I sit
in the USD be on a daily basis is still
the belief that there's no way I walk out of
there alive.
Speaker 12 (39:36):
Had I not done what I did.
Speaker 14 (39:39):
And moreover, there's no way that the people they were
with me walk out of there alive with all their
body parts had I not done something that day, If
we would have continued on doing the status quo, at
least more of us would have been dead, injured, killed.
Speaker 10 (39:53):
Or maine.
Speaker 14 (39:54):
I believe that wholeheartedly. I said that at the time,
and I still believe it today. You know, whether the
rest of the world bell leave that or not, that's
up for them to decide. I said back, and I
think about it, and I'm like, you know, they drew
down the Afghan War after I did what I did.
(40:15):
You know, we're talking about a troop surge prior to that,
and they kind of stopped that conversation, and they maybe
held back some dudes from going over and maybe all
those dudes that VSP had I not down what I did,
maybe they would all be dead.
Speaker 12 (40:30):
Maybe they would have sent.
Speaker 14 (40:30):
More people in Afghanistan, maybe more Afghanistan people would be dead,
and so maybe you know, and I know this is
all speculation obviously, but in my mind I come to that,
and you know, I trust God.
Speaker 12 (40:42):
I trust that there is a plan.
Speaker 14 (40:44):
And maybe there's something there that we can take and
make good right, like won't be overcome by evil or
overcome evil with good. And I think that as I'm
sitting alone in my cell at night, it's the only
thing that allows me to keep going.
Speaker 12 (41:01):
Sometimes, does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (41:17):
The War Within the Robert Bailes Story is production of
Bungalow Media and Entertainment, Checkpoint Productions and Mosquito Park Pictures
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series was created by
executive producers Paul Polowski and David check Executive producers for
Bungalow Media and Entertainment are Robert Friedman and Mike Powers.
(41:38):
The podcast was written and produced by Max Nelson and
hosted by me Mike McGinnis. Editing was done by Anna Hoverman,
sound design and mix by John Gardner. Teddy Gannon was
an archival producer. Leila Ahmadzai was an associate producer. And
Peter Solataroff was production assistant. Special thanks to Liz Yelle Marsh,
(41:59):
Nicole Reuben, Marcy Barkain, Zach Burpie, and Meerwi Satal, as
well as all of the people who are interviewed for
the podcast. Listen and subscribe to The War Within on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The devisions to as your opinion about America changed because
of this massacre, we.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Have a different opinion about America because Allah Almighty prophesies
that you cannot satisfy Jews and the Christians until you
obey him to follow his path. Our opinion about every
disbeliever is different.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
This is because of Isla.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Because Allah Almighty says to unite, but for my sake,
if and separate for my sake, be friends with the
one who is my friend, that which is my enemy,
separate from it.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
In the spring of twenty twenty two, the Afghan survivors
from Alakosai Najbien offered us their poignant reflections on the
Kanahar massacre. They come from villages without internet or infrastructure.
In all likelihood they'll never hear this podcast. Still, they
hope to share their perspective on this tragedy to the world.
(01:11):
For them, what happened on March eleventh, twenty twelve was
intensely personal.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Here's Mulla Baran is.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
My brother was my right hand and now my right hand.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
Is cut off.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Although eleven years have passed since that sadness and I
have some distance from my brother. For me, it feels
the same as that first night. I used to have
five brothers. Now we are left with four. Every time
we meet, I talk about the sadness of that first night.
It's a sadness that has not forgotten in life until death.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
Previously, on the war within, I.
Speaker 6 (01:58):
Think the situation in Afghanist remained so complicated, and Robert
Bales is a depiction of the complexities of this conflict Afghanistan.
Speaker 7 (02:10):
It got demonstrably worse after Bales was gone.
Speaker 8 (02:13):
This whole thing became shrouded in mystery and secrecy.
Speaker 7 (02:16):
It is my belief that Baals was helped in some
way to commit these crimes.
Speaker 9 (02:21):
But.
Speaker 10 (02:23):
Didn't they.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Believe It just seemed fundamentally unfair to me that someone.
Speaker 10 (02:30):
Who we created should be treated the way it was
being treated.
Speaker 11 (02:34):
We already know the dangers of PTSD. You cannot see
a person get blown up into chunks and be okay.
Speaker 12 (02:41):
You're going to get a excepensive, very bored in recessed suse.
Speaker 13 (02:44):
The Arab is so plain and prejudicial.
Speaker 14 (02:47):
You know, it's a heinous act that is very difficult
to judge with American eyes. But I understand how I
got where I was.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
I'm Mike McGinnis.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
This is the war within the Robert Bailes story. The
Taliban took control over Afghanistan in the late summer of
twenty twenty one, but they had been gaining ground for
a long time before the formal transfer of power. Hick
(03:18):
Matula da Wu, who lost his dad to Robert Bales,
was born during wartime. At age nineteen, He's now old
enough to fight himself.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I want to say that if I had an axe,
I would fight against these Americans, and if I can,
I will go to America and take my revenge on
Robert Bayals. He killed my father, he threatened my brother
who was four months old. All of this is so
(03:50):
painful for me. This is the life I lead in
the situation I've been telled. Sometimes I have a dream
that Robert Fales will come to Afghanistan once again and
I can finally give him what he deserves.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
The villagers of Panzwe are a complex group, and each
one has processed this devastation of family and of country
in different ways, somewhat retribution. Others like Haji Wazir, simply
ask for peace after decades of conflict.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I want the Almighty God to settle our country and calm.
My Afghanistans that there will be no more killing and
war here. Our dream is that our country can be prosperous.
May God keep us away from more calamities and not
bring disaster and war to our homeland. This is our government,
this is our life, and it is acceptable to us.
(04:48):
We neither need nor want anybody else.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Just as the massacre change the lives of these individuals forever,
it also significantly impacted the tenor of the Afghan war.
Even before the Bail shooting, a sense of unease around
the conduct of US soldiers had been building for some time.
As Private James Alexander recalls, I.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
Think it was a few weeks earlier that some Marines
had piss on the Quran, right, and so the Taliban
and the Afghans were all, I mean, understandably, it's their
secret texts, and they're you know, up at arms about it.
Speaker 15 (05:25):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
This incident from January of twenty twelve, where a group
of soldiers were caught on video urinating on a Quran,
sparked protests around Afghanistan. With the Bales killing coming two
months later, there seemed to be a growing sentiment of
negativity towards American troops. Here's journalist Yealda Hakim who was
(05:46):
in country at the time.
Speaker 16 (05:48):
This was a very dramatic moment.
Speaker 17 (05:50):
The Telabama gave the ground, the wall was intensifying, and
then when incidents lacked, the Quran burning and then the.
Speaker 18 (05:58):
Roulb of Bales thing, it was like a series of
incidents took place that I think at a.
Speaker 16 (06:03):
Very critical time in the country.
Speaker 17 (06:05):
And the war shaped how the next almost decade would look.
This lack of trust, security spiraling out of control, Afghan's
increasingly becoming frustrated in the angry Obama was trying to
find a solution with a partner that then President Hamid
Karzai was increasingly being backed into a corner and description
(06:30):
for Karzi, it's all.
Speaker 19 (06:32):
About the relationships.
Speaker 20 (06:34):
It just felt like.
Speaker 8 (06:35):
The Obama administration didn't manage that relationship with him, and
it went darker and darker and darker to the point where.
Speaker 15 (06:44):
It hit rock quorder.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Amid stories of American wrongdoing making headlines during an election year,
President Barack Obama took action, traveling to Afghanistan to sign
an agreement with Hamad Karzai.
Speaker 8 (06:59):
It was the talking point of all of our conversations
will the afghanstign this security agreement? I think kars I
at that point had so many grievances that he used
the agreement as leverage and a bargaining chip.
Speaker 21 (07:14):
There was a powerplay being played where Karzi was sort
of really trying to show Obama that he doesn't hold
all the cards, and oh, really you want this deal,
do you? Well, we're not quite sure if I'm going
to sign it, And given what had taken place in
Iraq and the withdrawal, it was kind of like, let's
not make the same sort of mistakes.
Speaker 8 (07:34):
That's have a proper agreement in place.
Speaker 22 (07:36):
I've come to Afghanistan to mark a historic moment for
our two nations, and to do so on Afghan soil.
Speaker 12 (07:44):
I'm here to affirm the.
Speaker 22 (07:45):
Bonds between our countries and to look forward to a
future peace and security and greater prosperity for our nations.
And today we're agreeing to be long term partners in
combating terrorism and training after and security forces, in strengthening
democratic institutions, and supporting development and protecting human rights of
(08:07):
all Afghans.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Obama and Karzai ended up signing their strategic partnership agreement
on May first, twenty twelve, the one year anniversary of
Osama Binlin's death, in less than two months after the massacre.
The deal promised to quote strengthen Afghan sovereignty, stability, and prosperity,
and contribute to our shared goal of defeating al Qaeda
(08:31):
and its extremist affiliates. So what did that mean for
the region of banshwek my.
Speaker 14 (08:38):
Situation created a good opportunity for the Taliban to use
my situation here to try to recruit other people and
try to force American policy in the area to a
certain degree. He provided the offensive information opportunity for the
Taliban to say, look at American soldiers and what they're
doing to our people.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
This is actually where my personal experience comes into play.
I've mentioned that I was in Afghanistan in twenty twelve,
deployed only thirty miles or so from Robert bales I
woulness the change that took place in the aftermath. My
platoon learned about the massacre from the army newspaper Stars
and Stripes.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Once we read what happened and.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Got together to talk about it, we knew that this
would make our jobs much harder. Panjwai podcast host Curtis
Grace also has some expertise on the province during this era.
Speaker 23 (09:35):
In March of twenty twelve, the Panjoy massacre weakened the
central government's power in the area. They appeared weak because
Bobby Bils never went on trial in Afghanistan. And then
from twenty fourteen, and this is no shit for real,
from twenty fourteen to twenty nineteen, there was no violence
in Panjway. There was nothing like. The Afghan army didn't
get hit, the Afghan local police didn't get hit. They
(09:56):
weren't bombings. I flew over Pandway all time, never had
an engagement, never I had a mission in Pandway. It
was weird and I just never bought it. Our theory
is there was a deal, you know, basically the Afghan
government I think lost some of their bargaining power and
they made a deal with the Taliban said hey, we
will let you do your thing in Pandua. So I
(10:17):
think the Pandoi massacre was kind of the nail in
the coffin for any chance to really control Pandway.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Just two years after Bales walked off as VSP, the
American presence in the birthplace of the Taliban was either
vastly diminished or gone completely. In that context, it's worth
considering whether the staff sergeant's actions were seen as a
referendum on the United States's policy of counterinsurgency.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
I like to say the Kandahart massacre was the day
that we lost the war. I know it sounds really
crazy to say that, but when your strategy is we're
going to put good hearted Americans in these villages and
sort of sway that people with their good heartedness, and
they're going to see that we're helping, and in fact,
one guy goes crazy and kills a bunch of people,
like that's the end of that strategy. The VSP strategy
is not going to be successful after that.
Speaker 23 (11:08):
Right, Panjwai was always a Talban powerhouse. You're not going
to change it. And we got really close. We showed
the patch show people what it could be like to
live in a modern society, for women to be able
to vote, for women to able to go to school,
for people to be educated, to have modern infrastructure. But
now that everything's falling apart, we're not going back anytime soon.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Robert Bales made the following comments in twenty nineteen, long
before the official end of America's longest war.
Speaker 14 (11:39):
It's going to take a generation to change things, and
we're not, as Americans at this point in the history,
willing to do that. So why put more Americans in
an arm's way for something that we're not going to
see through. We're not going to finish this, you know.
I think the Taliban, we're just waiting. I don't think
(12:01):
that it was a conversion of philosophies. I don't think
one day they were like, Hey, we like the Americans,
now we want to live like them. I think the
idea was, Oh, they're going to leave, let's accumulate all
the assets we can. Let's grab as much stuff as
we can before they leave, and once they're gone, we'll
take back over.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Bales would basically be proven right. As the last American
soldiers fled Afghanistan. On August thirtieth of twenty twenty one,
the Taliban flag was raised in the capital city of Kabu.
Western occupation was over and Islamist extremism ruled again. Journalist
Kathy Gannon braced out why, in hindsight, this was always
(12:49):
going to be the most likely result of an invasion
that had begun two decades prior.
Speaker 20 (12:54):
I don't know what the strategy was, Okay, America was
attacked by Kaida, but I think from the beginning America
wanted to.
Speaker 19 (13:02):
Go to Iraq.
Speaker 20 (13:04):
Two thousand and three, you went to Iraq. You began
twenty year old long before then, Afghanistan was what what
was the strategy? From day one, the level of corruption started,
and the Americans were actively involved in that as well,
because it was expedient. You partnered with people who had
(13:24):
a history of corruption and lawlessness. You partnered with them willingly,
and you gave them a free rate and did nothing
to control that. So it wasn't in twenty twenty one
that this happened. This was twenty years of mismanagement.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
That led to it.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
The hope was always that a regime could be established,
supported by the civilians that could stand up to the Taliban.
But when the US started to withdraw its troops, it
became clear that their Afghanalyzed did stand a chance.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
As Yalda Hakim explains.
Speaker 16 (14:00):
Had become so dependent on the US military for even
the most basic.
Speaker 19 (14:05):
Of decision making.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
There was a reliance there.
Speaker 19 (14:08):
And when you take that.
Speaker 21 (14:10):
Rug away from under their feet.
Speaker 8 (14:12):
And kind of essentially handicap them and tie their hands
behind their backs, and tie their feet and blindfold them
and gag.
Speaker 18 (14:19):
Them and then just say here's a weapon, try and
use it.
Speaker 8 (14:23):
That is essentially what happened.
Speaker 18 (14:26):
There wasn't really, in the end, a fight that was
put up, because when you feel handicapped and this corruption,
you're not quite sure what the aim of the purpose
of all of this is, and your partner, the people
offering you air support, all that disappears.
Speaker 8 (14:42):
You know, you realize that.
Speaker 16 (14:44):
Okay, well, if all that didn't mean anything, what matters?
Speaker 21 (14:47):
You know what ultimately matters?
Speaker 19 (14:48):
Do I want to lose my life?
Speaker 8 (14:50):
Do I want my wife to be a widow?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
The Taliban, it would seem, will be in power for
the foreseeable future. Here's what Bob Bales had to say
about the current state of affairs in Afghanistan speaking to
US in December of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 10 (15:11):
You know, I'm going to sit in prison for the
rest of my life, never have the opportunity to go
out there and do anything. And the talent banner sitting
there running their country. I don't understand. I guess I'm
confused and it makes you frustrated every day while I've
been in prison, I've earned my college degree, I'm six
(15:32):
classes away from having my master's degree. I've taken rehabilitation classes.
I've done everything I can do to be a better person.
Then let's compare that to the Taliban. What have they done?
What did they do to oppress women? Children? Move their
country back twenty years? I guess America has decided the
(15:53):
talent ban deserves a second chance. Not me.
Speaker 23 (15:57):
I knew that Coooble would fall eventually. It was really surprising,
but it does kind of force you to reflect to like,
what was the fucking point?
Speaker 10 (16:06):
Man?
Speaker 23 (16:07):
Why did we spend twenty years here for it to
fall apart in two weeks.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Most of the other veterans interviewed for this podcast seem
to have mixed feelings about the war and the role
they played. Like Curtis Grace.
Speaker 23 (16:21):
I think you frame your service in the proper perspective.
We got orders, we went out and we did what
we were supposed to do, and we came home. That's
a success. And we showed and basically a generation and
a half of Afghan's what freedom was like, you know,
and they're not going to forget that overnight. It's not
like now the talle band's in charge are just going
to completely forget about it.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Special Forces Captain Danny Fields tries to see the good
that came from his service along with the bad.
Speaker 9 (16:49):
It's hard to kind of come to terms with the
fact that you know, you deployed multiple times to a location,
You've lost friends, You've got friends who are still alive
but are permanently disabled as a result of it.
Speaker 19 (17:01):
It's hard to.
Speaker 9 (17:02):
Come to terms with that and know that, you know,
there's this kind of very quick and immediate failure that
occurred in the course of just a few weeks after
we pulled out. But what I focus on is what
good did I do while.
Speaker 19 (17:16):
I was there?
Speaker 9 (17:16):
Did I impact something while I was there? And certainly
the bail situation changes the calculus a lot.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
It's customary in the States that think a veteran for
their service, but when your time in the military is
linked with an incident like the Canahar massacre, it puts
the idea of fighting for your country in a different line.
James Alexander recalls the tense atmosphere around their squad after
they had left BSB Bellumby and returned to the US.
Speaker 19 (17:49):
We're all just drinking to kind of cope with it.
Speaker 7 (17:52):
I'm surprised not more happened to us, Like I mean,
we were honestly reckless, just completely just acting out because
we were just like so enraged with like all of
these feelings and emotions that like we just didn't know
what to do with it. We pretty much destroyed the barracks,
you know. It's like we're breaking stuff and beer bottles everywhere.
It just didn't didn't care, which is angry, angry young men.
Speaker 19 (18:18):
With no outlet.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Many of the soldiers, such as Gavin Jones, directed their
frustrations inward.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
I couldn't live with myself.
Speaker 24 (18:28):
I felt like such a fraud, you know, knowing that
there's parents that are gonna live out the rest of
their like shitty lives, doing shitty afghan any things without
their kids. Just the sight of halfway burned carcasses being
paraded in front of you from someone that is your
leadership really soured my view of authority backed up by violence.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Gavin was so affected by the killings that he opted
to distance himself from his service completely.
Speaker 24 (18:56):
After everything went down, I was able to get out
under the conscientious objector cause because after everything that I
witnessed firsthand, I really didn't really want to serve a
military that I'm not going to say propped up that
kind of behavior, but certainly was negligent. You know, running
(19:16):
into enemy fire, helping out your buddy, you know, that's
what I like, but not when really vulnerable people and
a lot of children get caught up in the mix.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
After a talk with one of his squad mates, Alexander
started putting in the work to heal his psyche from
this traumatic experience.
Speaker 19 (19:38):
When we talk about like PTSD and all of these issues, like.
Speaker 7 (19:42):
We were going through it, and that was probably my
first recognition like, oh man, I'm just not gonna go
to beat this myself. And that's when I started talking
to like behavior health people and like therapists and being
really authentic and honest with them and having a cathartic
experience of talking with them about the situation, how I
well and getting it off my chest. And that's what
(20:03):
saved my career in my life. Honestly, the reason why
I was so able to do this is because of
past trauma. I was involved in a school shooting much
like Columbine back in nineteen ninety six, this guy named
Thomas Hamilton, who was my boy scout troop leader and coach,
went into a school and.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yep, for Alexander, one of the most scarring events one
might ever witness, felt like it.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
Had repeated itself. It begs the question.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Of whether Robert Bales can be classified as yet another
assailant in the American epidemic of mass shootings. In the
eyes of Bob's wife, the answer is clear.
Speaker 25 (20:53):
They're trying to liken it to Sandy Hook. That is
completely not true. From his person. He was doing what
had to be done, and that was protecting his men.
He didn't go out to kill innocent civilians.
Speaker 19 (21:08):
That was not what he was to do.
Speaker 25 (21:11):
Both of the places they had been to previously and
had searched, and they were, you know, known Taliban.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Had found sniper rifles, they'd found IID making material, So
I believe it was a very scary place to be.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Brendan Vaughan, who wrote the.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
GQ piece on Bails, also draws a distinction between something
like Ceeney Hook and the Kanahar massacre, but only up
to a point.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
The context is certainly different. Is it any less bad. No,
is it different?
Speaker 26 (21:47):
Yes, the setting is completely different.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
What he was out doing.
Speaker 12 (21:52):
On control on a regular basis.
Speaker 26 (21:55):
The difference between that and what the Aurora shooter and
other school shooters are doing in their daily lives. But
I don't think that makes what Bails did any less
of a murder that's worthy of the exact same punishment
as a school shooter.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
When faced with this comparison, Bob's friend David Wesley focused
more on the public response to racially motivated shooting some
places like South Carolina in Buffalo, New York.
Speaker 11 (22:22):
So Bob went out and he killed some Afghani people.
This man in Buffalo, legit, went and did a recon
talked to a guy video teamed, then came back and
killed those people solely because they were black.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
I haven't heard the local.
Speaker 12 (22:44):
Media called for his death. Yet.
Speaker 11 (22:48):
What I did hear was they say that he was sick.
What I did hear about Dylan Ruth when he killed
nine black individuals, that he had mental problems, that he.
Speaker 12 (22:59):
Was a lo This isn't Buffalo.
Speaker 11 (23:04):
This is not one rogue man that just couldn't fit
in a society that business.
Speaker 12 (23:10):
Right.
Speaker 11 (23:11):
This was a well trained soldier that had gotten broken.
I don't know the circumstances of what made Bob duty did.
I just know that the Bob that did that was
broken by its system.
Speaker 8 (23:28):
I think that the American people are good people, and
they have a set of values, and they believe that
when their military goes out to defend those set of values, it.
Speaker 19 (23:40):
Is for a purpose.
Speaker 16 (23:42):
But I think the situation in Afghanistan was and remains
so complicated, and Robert Bales is a depiction of the
complexities of this conflict, of the misunderstandings of this conflict,
all the murkiness of what was happening that I'm frankly
(24:08):
surprised that we didn't have more cases like the Robert
Bayles case.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yolda Hakim raises an important question, why was it only Baales?
Why didn't this kind of attack on Afghan civilians happen
more often? But journalist Kathy Gannon has a counter question,
are you sure that it wasn't only Bailes who committed
unauthorized attacks?
Speaker 20 (24:34):
Bales was not an aberration.
Speaker 19 (24:37):
This did happen often.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
How much was reported this is another thing.
Speaker 19 (24:41):
But it didn't happen often, and of.
Speaker 20 (24:44):
At one point the UN report. They put out a
report and there were more civilians killed in bombing rates
than they were by the Tatabut, So I think that
should have been looked into there. I wasn't anybody look
the inter it, you know, I wasn't important.
Speaker 12 (25:05):
In the.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Incidents like the Kanahar massacre were toxic to the military
from a public relations perspective. It wasn't long before the
people in charge at BSP Bellum Buying, including Captain Danny Fields,
were considered to be radioactive.
Speaker 9 (25:22):
Within the ranks, really loved what I did. But on
the heels of the Bails incident, I was having a
discussion with my battalion commander. You know, I asked him genuinely,
I say, hey, what does this mean for my career?
And you know, at the time, I wanted to stay
in I wanted to do other things with special operations.
He told me, hey, look, most likely this incident is
(25:44):
going to follow you around for your career. I think
there was a lot of resentment that I had towards
Bails in the beginning, not for just sidetracking my career,
but the careers of other people that I worked with,
people who are just in of old people. So I
had a lot of resentment, had a lot of anger.
You know, A long time has passed, though, Do I
(26:06):
still have resentment towards him?
Speaker 15 (26:08):
Sure?
Speaker 9 (26:08):
Yeah, I still think there's a part of me who
probably hasn't it, probably will never forgive him for what
he did.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Soldier X was another guy whose career, whose outlook on
life would never be the same.
Speaker 15 (26:22):
I was furious. I was still infurious. So I'm a
lot of anger what that man did, not just to me,
but to all those dudes who I was there time
to show their country that there there to be patriots,
and he took that away from ever seeing one of
those guys. And I felt a lot of shame. My
(26:43):
family had to feel that shame. My kid, my premier kid.
I came. I'm know, I was just gone. My wife's
all the time. I be physically present, just to be
somewhere else, you know, just angry, angry, ang bails, angry
(27:03):
at myself. There was Charlenger in so the.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
East men like Soldier EX and Danny Fields, James Alexander
and Gavin Jones who deployed to VESP Belling Buy, They've
expressed a fair amount of animosity toward the former staff sergeant.
But zoom out a little further and other vets who've
known Robert Bales have found more room to empathize with
(27:27):
his plan. Take Executive Officer Nick Beasley, who first linked
up with Bales during their days in Iraq.
Speaker 27 (27:34):
People know Bales and knew the story, but for me,
he was a great friend. The frustrating thing for me
is that there's been nobody that's really looked at Bails
the person, and there hasn't been any deep dive in
what he is because everyone wants him to be that
lightning rod monster that they can keep in a cage.
That's the thing that kills me. We really abandoned somebody
(27:57):
that spent four years deployed servant country, being a tremendous NCO,
making a difference in a lot of people's lives that
were soldiers, and made a horrible, horrible mistake. I want
some record out there that he was a good dude.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
He is a good dude, having spent time in the
most kinetic situations in Iraq. David Wesley can't help but
see things from the point of view of an American
veteran scarred by war.
Speaker 11 (28:24):
I don't think we ask a person if you're capable
of murder?
Speaker 12 (28:28):
Right?
Speaker 11 (28:29):
I don't think that's a fair question, but I think
the best way to answer it is, what would you
be capable of if you spent three years of your
life looking at death, sending your friends home in refrigerated coffins,
being bombed routine, not knowing whether just going to take
(28:52):
a shit, whether a mortar would impact and you would
die on the shitter.
Speaker 12 (28:58):
What would you be capable of?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Have you been in contact with him over the best
in years.
Speaker 12 (29:05):
I haven't.
Speaker 11 (29:07):
Because I don't know what to say, because a part
of me wants to say, how the fuck dare you?
Speaker 5 (29:13):
And how did you let them break you?
Speaker 11 (29:16):
I want to yell at him, I want to screaming,
but I don't think he needs it, you know, I
think he does that to himself enough.
Speaker 14 (29:32):
Even if I'm sitting on the couch watching TV, or
whether I'm in a prison cell, you know, it comes back.
There's not a day that I don't relive seeing that
little girl. Nobody joins the infantry to be the bad guy.
(29:56):
Nobody joins the army after September eleventh, be the bad guy.
I sit back and I ask, you know, why, how
did I get to where I'm at, Like, how did
I get from, you know, being the good guy, being
the leader of my group, to being what I think
(30:19):
I was a very good soldier to being in prison
for the rest of my life?
Speaker 12 (30:23):
How did I go from one to the other?
Speaker 14 (30:25):
And what purpose was this in God's grand design or
God's grand scheme of things.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
A life sentence in Fort Lennworth has given Bails plenty
of time to examine his life, frequently through the lens
of religion.
Speaker 12 (30:42):
In prison, I've.
Speaker 14 (30:43):
Had a lot of time to reflect on it, you know,
and I remember hating you know, this is all in
retrospect and reflecting back on it and thinking about God.
Speaker 12 (30:52):
My view on religion.
Speaker 14 (30:53):
As of all over time from if you you know,
if you do the wrong thing, you're going to burn
into hell. My favorite aunt uncle, they had a different
perspective of religion other than this yelling and screaming and
you're going to die and go to hell. Hey, there's
this God of love over here. And it was very,
very much more into the compassion side of things. And
(31:16):
so I was really attracted that I think.
Speaker 9 (31:18):
You live and you learn.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Bob learns things that he goes forward and he learns things,
and he goes forward, and he has strong ideas of God,
family and friends, and those things are the most important.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Thing for all of Robert Bales's self actualization. There will
always be people that feel a life sentence in prison
is a punishment that fits the crime.
Speaker 7 (31:43):
They can't walk him away long enough, like this man
cannot get out like ever just can't. Why have jails
if you're not going to put people on him in
you know, I think if he gets out, it's a
I mean, the legal system already has issues, but that
in it's health.
Speaker 19 (32:00):
I think. I just like, on its face of it,
it's a non start.
Speaker 15 (32:05):
I think the more this gets drived on and the
more he tries to appeal and Mike, I'm thing about yourself, dude,
not thinking about every single families that you destroyed.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
At the same time, and his corner remains a small cadre,
including as always John Mayer.
Speaker 13 (32:23):
I've accepted the case. I take honor in it. I
believe it's my duty. I don't feel pressure. I feel
that this is a case. There's monumental impacts potentially here
for the law, for the Army, for the Bugan Drug Administration,
for pharmaceutical manufacturers and for any other coalition trooper. Democracy
(32:44):
abhors a secret and prefers sunshine. We're trying to put
some sunshine on it.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
A lot of.
Speaker 28 (32:51):
People think that the Bob Bails case is really open
and shut, black and white, good versus evil. However, as
with most things in life, it's much more complicated than that.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Lieutenant Colonel bulgerfind is the CEO of United American Patriots,
an organization dedicated to helping warriors convicted of crimes in
the military Arena. UAP bank rolls Bails' defense.
Speaker 29 (33:16):
People in general tend to be emotionally driven, and so
I tend to address things rationally with the facts.
Speaker 30 (33:28):
First, Bob Bales was not given a presumption of innocence.
I mean, you can imagine if the President of the
United States here's this and said, hold on a second,
let's find out exactly what happened. Might we have come
to the same conclusion. Perhaps, But we don't know. We
(33:48):
never will know who the high ranking Taliban enemy combatants
are that Bob claims he killed. We just have the
evidence that the Taliban provided to the United States. I
believe that.
Speaker 29 (34:02):
Our country is coming to a perspective of we've been
misled by our emotions. I'd like to believe our society
is getting tired of this polarization and it's going to
start being more rational first and saying, all right, I
just saw a headline. Let me read the article, let
(34:25):
me get into the facts.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
While the legal battle plays out, Carrie Bales continues to
raise her two kids in the hopes that someday her
husband will return home to share their lives.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
She can't see this story ending any other way.
Speaker 25 (34:45):
I remember the first time, you know, you sit down
and you have to.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Pro and columns.
Speaker 25 (34:50):
Of yourself, and I thought about it, like, what would
have you like to not be married and to get
divorced and not be a home's life and not take
the kings to see their.
Speaker 19 (34:59):
Dad, not be and have another life.
Speaker 31 (35:02):
And I just couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine my life
like that, and how sad it would be. He is
not just my husband, it's more like my best friend.
And we've been through tough times before and got through it.
And not a lot of military people are still married.
Speaker 25 (35:18):
We hit seventeen years this last March, and I think
we're even more closer than a lot of people.
Speaker 19 (35:23):
That do live together.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
This is the right path, this is this is where
I want to be.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Quincy Bales, Bob's oldest child, shares the worldview that was
instilled by her mom and dad.
Speaker 32 (35:36):
My parents as a whole have always taught us to
be positive. My dad always says that we're never down,
either up or getting up. And I think that that's
definitely taken a big toll on helping us because our
situation does suck, but it leaves room for like feeling
sorry for ourselves, but we always keep a positive outlook
(35:57):
on things, and we're also very hopeful.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Even so, Bails is well aware of the myriad ways
that his actions in Afghanistan changed everything for his two children.
Speaker 14 (36:08):
Looking at where I'm at today, you know, I don't
know that I want my kid going in the army.
Speaker 12 (36:15):
It's just kind of the way it is.
Speaker 14 (36:16):
But you're asking someone to do something that isn't natural.
You're asking someone to take away everything they've been taught.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
You don't kill people.
Speaker 12 (36:28):
You know, it's not okay to kill someone, and now.
Speaker 14 (36:30):
You're giving them a weapon, and you're saying, not only
is it okay to do it, it's honorable to do it,
and it is the right thing to do. I don't
want my kid going in the military. Yes it's very honorable,
Yes it's needed. Yes it's a service. I don't want
my kids doing it, you know what I mean, I
just don't.
Speaker 12 (36:50):
I want them to live a good life, you know,
better life.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
After all this time, Carrie doesn't blame her husband or
even the military for the fracturing of their family unit.
She understands the struggle that Bob Bails was facing.
Speaker 25 (37:10):
It was just the perfect storm of events. I mean,
I'm a very god fearing person, and yeah, I'll say
there's no coincidences. Obviously, I believe it could have been prevented.
I don't know how at this point, right this many
years later, it could have should.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Have wound us all of those things.
Speaker 25 (37:36):
I just think that he was backed into a corner
where he did it.
Speaker 24 (37:40):
I think, I don't think.
Speaker 29 (37:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Is that's probably the hardest question.
Speaker 14 (37:52):
My intent was not the killed children. I wrote a
letter for Bobby and Quincy while we were bell and By.
One of the things I wrote to them is that
the kids in Afghanistan are a different than the kids
in America.
Speaker 12 (38:08):
You know, I'd sit there and I juggle rocks form.
You know, we didn't have toys. We juggle rocks.
Speaker 15 (38:13):
You know.
Speaker 12 (38:14):
I tried to build those relationships with the kids.
Speaker 14 (38:16):
So to have someone think that I'm such a cold
heart advassard that I just go in there and kill
those kids without any thought or any There's more to
the story than just a guy that lost his shit
and went out there and just blew up a bunch
of kids and women.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
On March eleventh, twenty twelve, in the dead of night,
Robert Baal snuck outside the wire of his village stability
platform and walked to the villages of Ala Kosai in Najabien.
What happened that night was an unequivocal tragedy that will
echo for eternity. A thousand talking points on a thousand
(38:52):
topical issue stem from the idea of the Canahearm massacre,
and this series has endeavored to cover many of them.
But at the end of the day, for Robert Bayles,
leaving out his years in his cell in the middle
of Kansas, it all boils down to one decision. In
the midst of what seems like an existential threat. Do
(39:14):
you take action or do you just go back to sleep.
This was and continues to be Robert Bayles' is war within.
Speaker 14 (39:28):
One of the things that helps me as I sit
in the USD be on a daily basis is still
the belief that there's no way I walk out of
there alive.
Speaker 12 (39:36):
Had I not done what I did.
Speaker 14 (39:39):
And moreover, there's no way that the people they were
with me walk out of there alive with all their
body parts had I not done something that day, If
we would have continued on doing the status quo, at
least more of us would have been dead, injured, killed.
Speaker 10 (39:53):
Or maine.
Speaker 14 (39:54):
I believe that wholeheartedly. I said that at the time,
and I still believe it today. You know, whether the
rest of the world bell leave that or not, that's
up for them to decide. I said back, and I
think about it, and I'm like, you know, they drew
down the Afghan War after I did what I did.
(40:15):
You know, we're talking about a troop surge prior to that,
and they kind of stopped that conversation, and they maybe
held back some dudes from going over and maybe all
those dudes that VSP had I not down what I did,
maybe they would all be dead.
Speaker 12 (40:30):
Maybe they would have sent.
Speaker 14 (40:30):
More people in Afghanistan, maybe more Afghanistan people would be dead,
and so maybe you know, and I know this is
all speculation obviously, but in my mind I come to that,
and you know, I trust God.
Speaker 12 (40:42):
I trust that there is a plan.
Speaker 14 (40:44):
And maybe there's something there that we can take and
make good right, like won't be overcome by evil or
overcome evil with good. And I think that as I'm
sitting alone in my cell at night, it's the only
thing that allows me to keep going.
Speaker 12 (41:01):
Sometimes, does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (41:17):
The War Within the Robert Bailes Story is production of
Bungalow Media and Entertainment, Checkpoint Productions and Mosquito Park Pictures
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series was created by
executive producers Paul Polowski and David check Executive producers for
Bungalow Media and Entertainment are Robert Friedman and Mike Powers.
(41:38):
The podcast was written and produced by Max Nelson and
hosted by me Mike McGinnis. Editing was done by Anna Hoverman,
sound design and mix by John Gardner. Teddy Gannon was
an archival producer. Leila Ahmadzai was an associate producer. And
Peter Solataroff was production assistant. Special thanks to Liz Yelle Marsh,
(41:59):
Nicole Reuben, Marcy Barkain, Zach Burpie, and Meerwi Satal, as
well as all of the people who are interviewed for
the podcast. Listen and subscribe to The War Within on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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