Child witnesses to Afghan massacre say Robert Bales was not alone

[godai]

Source: MSNBC

Noorbinak, 8, told Hakim that the shooter first shot her father’s dog. Then, Noorbinak said in the video, he shot her father in the foot and dragged her mother by the hair. When her father started screaming, he shot her father, the child says. Then he turned the gun on Noorbinak and shot her in the leg.
“One man entered the room and the others were standing in the yard, holding lights,” Noorbinak said in the video.
A brother of one victim told Hakim that his brother’s children mentioned more than one soldier wearing a headlamp. They also had lights at the end of their guns, he said.
“They don’t know whether there were 15 or 20, however many there were,” he said in the video.
Army officials have repeatedly denied that others were involved in the massacre, emphasizing that Bales acted alone.

Read more: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/29/10927844-child-witnesses-to-afghan-massacre-say-robert-bales-was-not-alone

[Ecumenist]

1. I wondered about that. Oh my Goodness, HORRIFIC!! I wondered how one man could sneak offbase,

murder at least 8 people, sneak out of the villiage, get back onto the base, reload, sneak back out, finish killing at least another 9 and sneak back onto the base. Something's not right about this.

[Enrique]

2. now they will need to discredit Noorbinak

look into her school record, see what kind of dirt they can dig up.

[Cleita]

12. Oh dear, or maybe have her meet an unfortunate accident.

This is terrible business all around.

[Blue_Tires]

60. Did you know she is a Muslim!?!?!?!??!!??!?!?

[xchrom]

3. Du rec. Nt

[jakeXT]

4. Paging Arlen Specter and Colin Powell. /NT

[polly7]

5. I feel sick. But wait ........... Afghani children must lie.

[NCcoast]

6. Yep, I thought this might be coming

The Afghan government didn't think this could all have been done by one man and I had a feeling they were right about that. So there's a cover up and lots of US military involved. This is going to be a huge mess. How are they going to stick this all on one guy?

[Doc Holliday]

8. More easily than one might think.

After all, the "lone nut gunman" is practically an American icon....at least for the last half-century.

[truth2power]

51. Bingo! And isn't it amazing that they can run the same scam, over and over,

and the American public never catches on. JFK, RFK, MLK....and, oh... the underwear bomber; planned that all himself, he did. No one is the least bit curious about the well-dressed gentleman who facilitated his passage through customs, and would be as culpable as Mutallab, but no one cares.

No one cares in this case, either. Let sleeping dogs lie.

The absurdity of the whole Bales scenario should be obvious to anyone. I am so sorry that the Afghan people have no voice, and that our pipeline needs to traverse their land.

[Cleita]

13. Also, why is this guy willing to take the fall for all of them?

[atreides1]

15. Why?

Something as simple as his history of TBI and PTSD, he has a better chance of beating the charges on an insanity defense!

There are even some here on DU who would give him a pass, just to get a dig in at the army and the chain of command that sent him back.

Even his attorney has said that it has to be looked at to determine his frame of mind at the time of the murders!

[EFerrari]

26. If the man has TBI and PTSD, then the dig is well deserved.

Shortly after these killings, the Pentagram started a review of how Lariam was being used in theater, so there's that, too.

[lunasun]

31. Larium -read more on this folks

they have been looking at it for years though in the military
not new but his trouble could have started there like it did for many

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_lariam_022604,00.html

[Jamastiene]

59. Well, do those who are labeled "lone gunman" ever really have a choice?

I don't think they ever really have a choice on whether or not to go along with it. If they speak, it can be used against them. If they try to tell the truth about it, they will be discredited and their name dragged through the mud even more.

[Eyerish]

7. K&R

[Proletariatprincess]

9. I never believe any US military story.

It is a sad comment on our country and the military that the so called enemy has more credibility than the official US story. I never believed that Bales acted alone or that we were getting any semblance of the truth from the main stream media.

[CrispyQ]

38. I completely agree.

Every major institution in this country is corrupt through & through.

[mother earth]

44. Sadly, I agree. nt

[robinlynne]

10. 15 or 20? That just about makes it an official American act, doesn't it?

[Blue_Tires]

61. There were about that many involved in Haditha and they all got off...

[godai]

11. Australian reporter: American investigators tried to prevent her from interviewing the children...

'She said American investigators tried to prevent her from interviewing the children, saying her questions could traumatize them.'

[lumpy]

22. As though they weren't already traumatized.

Hard to believe the military's rendition of this tragedy. The Afghan people deserve to know the truth and so do we.

[Marley01]

14. Coverup

Bale was supposedly swindled a family in his home state out of a very large sum of money. Probably a deal was done to cover this up and maybe let others go. I hope truly that only one individual did this not a large group. My Lai only one person was convicted in Nam.

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. and Lt. Calley was pardoned by Nixon!

Which STILL males me boil, after all these years.

[patrice]

16. These. God. DAMNED. Wars!!!

[jwirr]

17. Oh, God I hope this is not true - this makes this even worse if anything can be worse. But it looks

like we now have a murder running around in Florida and a bunch of murderers over there and only one man arrested for any of it. Let me see isn't it time to take lady justice with her scales down from her pedestal? There is no justice in our nation.

[joanbarnes]

18. I suspected all along we had another My Lai

[WheelWalker]

33. As did I

[tawadi]

19. Reminiscent of the My Lai Massacre in South Vietnam. eom

[Plucketeer]

20. Good ol' USA - cops of the world

With traning facilities in Sanford Florida.

[azurnoir]

21. sounds like death squads so not surprising

and now I wonder if this was a single act or the act where they left survivors

[southernyankeebelle]

24. Kids just don't make this stuff up. How was the soldier able to kill so many people in different

homes? It kind of makes sense there was more than one.

[d_legendary1]

28. But the American public is not educated enough

to figure that out. So they said it and moved on.

If you repeat a lie often enough, then you're a Republican.

[southernyankeebelle]

29. I only have a high school education and I can figure it out surely I'm not the only one. I guess

the american people don't want to believe their sons or daughters are doing bad things. Of course republicans follow the leaders. Just like a bunch of lemmings. They don't question their leaders unlike the democrats we try to look for the truth no matter what side the truth lands on. Right is right and wrong is wrong. We should follow the truth or we are no better then the bad guys.

[d_legendary1]

49. How can people follow the truth?

If this had happened under the War Shrub administration the headline would have read "Army Soldier killed 17 Al Qaeda Terrorist." Who'd question that headline? I agree that we should do the right thing but this is the sammme government that told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Truth is something that these branches of government have a problem with.

[southernyankeebelle]

50. You have a good point. I stopped trusting my government after the assination of JFK.

Up til then I have this fairey tale thinking of our government. Our government does good things but I hate some of the bad things they don't tell us about in the name of the american people.

[truth2power]

52. I like that! "If you repeat a lie often enough..." n/t

[cstanleytech]

34. A child is like any other witness though and witness testimony isnt always accurate

nor reliable so I dont know about you but I am going to wait it out and see what if any evidence appears to support it before rushing to judgment as some here are doing.

[Prometheus Bound]

36. There is plenty of evidence to support the child's testimony.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/28/grieving-survivors-describe-afghan-massacre/

[southernyankeebelle]

40. I agree but how could he kill all those people at a time.

[cstanleytech]

47. If he was alive you could start by asking Seung-Hui Cho.

[southernyankeebelle]

48. Yep

[truth2power]

53. What supportive evidence would be sufficient? Photos? Video? Oh, wait....

There was video of the murder of those Reuter's journalists and the kids on the scene. What happened with that? Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked it gets tortured by the US govt. for months and will probably spend the rest of his life in prison. Move on....nothing to see here.

Lone nut scenario......again. It practically writes itself.

[cstanleytech]

55. If you wanna take the word of an 8 year old child by all means go for it.

Now for evidence ballistics testing of the bullets. Compare that to the weapon or weapons he used it and it should assist in ruling out if someone else was involved or not.
As the lone nut scenario.....its more likely than the crazy "omg its a vast military coverup of there being a group of soldiering murdering villagers for no reason"..........just saying.

[truth2power]

56. Why not take the word of an 8 year old? Especially since she seems

to have described the weapons used.

Seem s like a lot of people are bending over backwards to deny that it could have been more than person committing these crimes.

Doesn't even make sense that one person could perpetrate that much carnage.

[Nihil]

58. I'd rather take the word of an 8 year old child who was there ...

... than a 28 year-old in Washington who has been ordered to make the final report innocuous.

YMMV.

[cstanleytech]

62. And I would rather wait to see if there is any evidence but

you dont have wait for evidence to prove it if you dont want to of course.

[felix_numinous]

25. These wars started by Bush&Co

were based on lies, so how could they possibly develop into something honest and right? Corruption begets corruption, and a public that was not allowed to say no to lies and war--got these warmongers into this situation. They ruined the public trust, and our reputation overseas for a long time.

I come from a military family and respect honest people who serve. I was raised to respect those who protect and serve us--as most of us were.

Bush's lawlessness has not ended, it multiplied, corrupt wars, corrupt judges, politicians and police--we learn about so many crimes, but we are NOT hearing about enough justice. Not enough people go to jail after war crimes, ecocide, hate crimes, or 'white collar' financial crimes, but the jails are full of poor pot smokers!

What is next--without justice, people are going to take the law into their own hands, and there is going to be resistance, if people in the military, law enforcement and the justice department continue to enable corruption to continue. We are on the brink in this country right now, and they better get their shit together--soon.

[EFerrari]

27. Greenwald is right about the collapse of the rule of law in this country.

I haven't read his book yet but its topic is very timely.

[patrice]

30. Right the f- on! . . . Whose soldiers? *O*U*R* soldiers!!!

[newspeak]

42. amen!!!!

"one bad apple spoils the whole barrel." Little boot's administration, to me, was built on dishonesty, avarice, corruption; and it continues today. Honesty, HONOR, morality, apparently, are for the suckers.

Since Reagan, it appears the MSM has focused on the most petty, greedy people. They've made heros out of plastic, toy want to be soldiers. And those real heros, who put their lives on the line and didn't catapult their lies; they made them into villains or marginalized them. Little boots was no hero, but he did a great photo op pretending to be one, and oliver north, to me, definitely was no hero. Kerry under fire was a hero, Patewska was a hero, lynch was a hero who had more honesty and honor in her little finger than all of little boot's administration put together.

[chatnoir]

32. Helicopters were overhead from the very beginning

As if it couldn't get any worse... this is beyond horrific.

[midnight]

35. Bring them home and end this...

[Prometheus Bound]

37. Here is the remarkable video report with the child's first-hand testimony.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/28/grieving-survivors-describe-afghan-massacre/

[Turborama]

39. March 17:Afghan parliamentary team says many Americans were involved in massacre

by Annie Robbins on March 17, 2012

=snip=

Directly after the incident, Reuters reported multiple witnesses claimed multiple soldiers were present at the scenes and carried out the crime. The acclaimed Pajhwok Afghan News (initially funded by USAID, its co-founder Farida Nekzad, won the 2008 International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award) is reporting, Up to 20 US troops executed Panjwai massacre: probe :

KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday’s killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province.

The probing delegation includes [several members of the National Assembly of Afghanistan] lawmakers Hamidzai Lali, Abdul Rahim Ayubi, Shakiba Hashimi, Syed Mohammad Akhund and Bismillah Afghanmal, all representing Kandahar province at the Wolesi Jirga and Abdul Latif Padram, a lawmaker from northern Badakhshan province, Mirbat Mangal, Khost province, Muhammad Sarwar Usmani, Farah province.

The team spent two days in the province, interviewing the bereaved families, tribal elders, survivors and collecting evidences at the site in Panjwai district.

Full article: http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/afghan-parliamentary-team-says-many-americans-were-involved-in-massacre-in-which-army-accuses-one.html

[Turborama]

41. Multiple references to a group of assailants in Wikipedia's article on the massacre, too

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandahar_massacre#The_number_of_assailants

[JohnyCanuck]

43. Seeing as how the Pentagon brass lied through their teeth about the Pat Tillman incident...`

and tried to pawn off on the public a Hollywood "Rambo" script as a legitimate account of the capture and supposed "rescue" of Jessica Lynch in the Iraq war, I say fuck 'em. I won't be giving them the benefit of the doubt in this incident.

[truth2power]

54. "Pentagon lies through their teeth". Why, yes! I don't think anyone under age 40 or so

has any understanding of the old Grimm's Fairy Tales and the messages they impart. Sadly, IMO.

In this case, I'd say "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" applies. The US Military lies and lies and lies. So why should we believe ANYTHING they say??

And even if the official narrative regarding this massacre were to be the truth (which would be a fairy tale, in and of itself) the Pentagon has lost all claim to credibility long, long ago.

Thus, when the wolf finally appeared, no one believed the little boy. Maybe someone should send the military brass a copy of "The Little Blue Fairy Book" or something of that nature. Then they could read up, and educate themselves.

I agree....fuck 'em!

[mother earth]

45. The military lies are what brought us into war(s), pre-emptive war based on lies, WMD's they knew

were no threat, and the lies have never stopped since.

[Justice4allofus]

46. From day 1 witnesses have been saying that

That more than 1 shooter participated in the massacre.

[polly7]

57. Yes, they have. What a surprise so many disbelieved them.