S1E12: Does That Make Sense?

The devisions to as your opinion about America changed because of this massacre, we.

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.

This is because of Isla.

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.

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. For them, what happened on March eleventh, twenty twelve was intensely personal.

Here's Mulla Baran is.

My brother was my right hand and now my right hand.

Is cut off.

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.

Previously, on the war within, I.

Think the situation in Afghanist remained so complicated, and Robert Bales is a depiction of the complexities of this conflict Afghanistan.

It got demonstrably worse after Bales was gone.

This whole thing became shrouded in mystery and secrecy.

It is my belief that Baals was helped in some way to commit these crimes.

But.

Didn't they.

Believe It just seemed fundamentally unfair to me that someone.

Who we created should be treated the way it was being treated.

We already know the dangers of PTSD. You cannot see a person get blown up into chunks and be okay.

You're going to get a excepensive, very bored in recessed suse.

The Arab is so plain and prejudicial.

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.

I'm Mike McGinnis.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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. We neither need nor want anybody else.

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.

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.

Right.

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 in country at the time.

This was a very dramatic moment.

The Telabama gave the ground, the wall was intensifying, and then when incidents lacked, the Quran burning and then the.

Roulb of Bales thing, it was like a series of incidents took place that I think at a.

Very critical time in the country.

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 for Karzi, it's all.

About the relationships.

It just felt like.

The Obama administration didn't manage that relationship with him, and it went darker and darker and darker to the point where.

It hit rock quorder.

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.

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.

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.

That's have a proper agreement in place.

I've come to Afghanistan to mark a historic moment for our two nations, and to do so on Afghan soil.

I'm here to affirm the.

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 all Afghans.

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 and its extremist affiliates. So what did that mean for the region of banshwek my.

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.

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.

Once we read what happened and.

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.

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 weren't bombings. I flew over Pandway all time, never had

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.

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.

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.

Robert Bales made the following comments in twenty nineteen, long before the official end of America's longest war.

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 that it was a conversion of philosophies. I don't think one day they were like, Hey, we like the Americans,

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 going to be the most likely result of an invasion that had begun two decades prior.

I don't know what the strategy was, Okay, America was attacked by Kaida, but I think from the beginning America wanted to.

Go to Iraq.

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 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 led to it.

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.

As Yalda Hakim explains.

Had become so dependent on the US military for even the most basic.

Of decision making.

There was a reliance there.

And when you take that.

Rug away from under their feet.

And kind of essentially handicap them and tie their hands behind their backs, and tie their feet and blindfold them and gag.

Them and then just say here's a weapon, try and use it.

That is essentially what happened.

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.

You know, you realize that.

Okay, well, if all that didn't mean anything, what matters?

You know what ultimately matters?

Do I want to lose my life?

Do I want my wife to be a widow?

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.

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 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.

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?

Man?

Why did we spend twenty years here for it to fall apart in two weeks.

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.

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.

Special Forces Captain Danny Fields tries to see the good that came from his service along with the bad.

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.

It's hard to.

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.

I was there?

Did I impact something while I was there? And certainly the bail situation changes the calculus a lot.

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.

We're all just drinking to kind of cope with it.

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.

With no outlet.

Many of the soldiers, such as Gavin Jones, directed their frustrations inward.

I couldn't live with myself.

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.

Gavin was so affected by the killings that he opted to distance himself from his service completely.

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 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.

After a talk with one of his squad mates, Alexander started putting in the work to heal his psyche from this traumatic experience.

When we talk about like PTSD and all of these issues, like.

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 saved my career in my life. Honestly, the reason why I was so able to do this is because of

Yep, for Alexander, one of the most scarring events one might ever witness, felt like it.

Had repeated itself. It begs the question.

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.

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.

That was not what he was to do.

Both of the places they had been to previously and had searched, and they were, you know, known Taliban.

Had found sniper rifles, they'd found IID making material, So I believe it was a very scary place to be.

Brendan Vaughan, who wrote the.

GQ piece on Bails, also draws a distinction between something like Ceeney Hook and the Kanahar massacre, but only up to a point.

The context is certainly different. Is it any less bad. No, is it different?

Yes, the setting is completely different.

What he was out doing.

On control on a regular basis.

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.

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.

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.

I haven't heard the local.

Media called for his death. Yet.

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.

Was a lo This isn't Buffalo.

This is not one rogue man that just couldn't fit in a society that business.

Right.

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.

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.

Is for a purpose.

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 surprised that we didn't have more cases like the Robert Bayles case.

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?

Bales was not an aberration.

This did happen often.

How much was reported this is another thing.

But it didn't happen often, and of.

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.

In the.

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.

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

Sure?

Yeah, I still think there's a part of me who probably hasn't it, probably will never forgive him for what he did.

Soldier X was another guy whose career, whose outlook on life would never be the same.

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 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

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 his plan. Take Executive Officer Nick Beasley, who first linked up with Bales during their days in Iraq.

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 that spent four years deployed servant country, being a tremendous NCO, making a difference in a lot of people's lives that

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.

I don't think we ask a person if you're capable of murder?

Right?

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 a shit, whether a mortar would impact and you would die on the shitter.

What would you be capable of?

Have you been in contact with him over the best in years.

I haven't.

Because I don't know what to say, because a part of me wants to say, how the fuck dare you?

And how did you let them break you?

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.

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. Nobody joins the army after September eleventh, be the bad guy.

How did I go from one to the other?

And what purpose was this in God's grand design or God's grand scheme of things.

A life sentence in Fort Lennworth has given Bails plenty of time to examine his life, frequently through the lens of religion.

In prison, I've.

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.

My view on religion.

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 so I was really attracted that I think.

You live and you learn.

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.

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.

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.

I think. I just like, on its face of it, it's a non start.

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.

At the same time, and his corner remains a small cadre, including as always John Mayer.

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 abhors a secret and prefers sunshine. We're trying to put some sunshine on it.

A lot of.

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.

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.

People in general tend to be emotionally driven, and so I tend to address things rationally with the facts.

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 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.

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 me get into the facts.

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.

She can't see this story ending any other way.

I remember the first time, you know, you sit down and you have to.

Pro and columns.

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.

Dad, not be and have another life.

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.

We hit seventeen years this last March, and I think we're even more closer than a lot of people.

That do live together.

This is the right path, this is this is where I want to be.

Quincy Bales, Bob's oldest child, shares the worldview that was instilled by her mom and dad.

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 on things, and we're also very hopeful.

Even so, Bails is well aware of the myriad ways that his actions in Afghanistan changed everything for his two children.

Looking at where I'm at today, you know, I don't know that I want my kid going in the army.

It's just kind of the way it is.

But you're asking someone to do something that isn't natural. You're asking someone to take away everything they've been taught.

You don't kill people.

You know, it's not okay to kill someone, and now.

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.

I want them to live a good life, you know, better life.

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.

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.

Have wound us all of those things.

I just think that he was backed into a corner where he did it.

I think, I don't think.

I don't know.

Is that's probably the hardest question.

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.

You know, I'd sit there and I juggle rocks form. You know, we didn't have toys. We juggle rocks.

You know.

I tried to build those relationships with the kids.

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.

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 topical issue stem from the idea of the Canahearm massacre, and this series has endeavored to cover many of them.

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.

Had I not done what I did.

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.

Or maine.

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.

Maybe they would have sent.

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.

I trust that there is a plan.

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.

Sometimes, does that make sense?

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. The podcast was written and produced by Max Nelson and hosted by me Mike McGinnis. Editing was done by Anna Hoverman,