All right, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
First up on the show today is our friend Gareth Porter.
He's got a new one at truthout.org.
Evidence mounts that Afghan massacre was linked to Special Operations Forces response to improvised explosive device.
Welcome back to the show, Gareth.
How are you doing?
I'm fine, thanks again, Scott.
All right, well good to have you here.
So this is part of the story from the beginning.
As you note in the article, the accused, Sergeant Bales, indicated to his lawyer, his lawyer said anyway, that this had something to do.
He was all PTSD'd out because of this bomb that had taken the leg of his buddy a few days before or something like that.
But you've been working with this reporter, Shah Noori, out of Afghanistan in putting together quite a bit more complete picture of what seems like happened there that night than I've read anywhere so far, including McClatchy and the others who've really done a lot of on-the-ground investigative reporting on this.
And you've got quite a different story to tell, I think, about what looks like happened to you here than what we've mostly been hearing, right?
Well, this story does try to pull together both the existing published information that you mentioned, McClatchy has done some work, there's some other foreign reporters, there's an Afghan Australian journalist who did some important work on this.
And so there have been several stories that have been out there since March.
And then we, my Afghan colleague, Shah Noori, has been able to go to the village where the massacre took place, as well as the nearby location, the spot where the IED blew up near the Camp Balambay, the US Special Operations Forces base, and do a number of interviews with the survivors of the massacre, the brother of one of the people who was killed in the worst massacre that 11 people were killed in the same family in the same home on the same night, of course.
And he has been able to get some new information, which I think adds to this story significantly, because what it shows is that there is now more reason than ever to believe that the Special Forces base commander and officers there were, in fact, thinking about and planning something to target people who they believed were somehow involved in laying that IED, which exploded three days before the actual massacre itself, that is March 8 of this year.
And so, you know, there are a series of indications now that there is this link between Bale's rampage in which he killed, as I mentioned, the 11 people in the same family and then in another nearby village killed another five people.
So this was linked to the Special Operations Forces indications that they were doing something to retaliate against those who they believed were involved in laying the IED.
And the first indication is something that was reported before, but my colleague has done some more work on this by talking to some of the men, the Afghan men who were rounded up within an hour or at most two hours after the IED exploded.
And they were at a mosque in that village where the IED blew up and were called together in the middle of the village.
And they had to sit and wait while the U.S. commander, and it's not clear whether it was the overall commander of Camp Olam Bay or one of the officers who would be in charge of a platoon, excuse me, a squad at the base, but somebody who was in a command position because he had an interpreter with him who was able to interpret what he was saying.
And this is where the U.S. officer basically reprimanded these male Afghans who were there obviously to represent the entire population of the area and to let them know what the Americans were saying.
He reprimanded them for having failed to inform the Americans about the IED location and argued that the Americans knew that the Afghans in the area knew where the IEDs were planted, that they were supporting the Taliban with food and other ways, and that the Americans would, if this happened again, if there was another IED, the Americans would retaliate against the civilians, including women and children.
So really this is the same thing that happened in the Haditha massacre and I think other times throughout the Iraq war we would definitely hear about, you know, the Afghan war has been going on longer, but it was lower intensity for a longer period of time there.
But there was a lot of time during the Iraq war where guys would talk about fighting ghosts, where they're out driving around getting bombed by landmines that were set there a day and a half ago or whatever, and there's nobody to shoot at.
And so they're in battles with invisible men.
And so they get really pissed off and they end up, you know, because Lieutenant Colonel Kozlarich had ordered his men, that's it, if an IED goes off, just 360 degree fire, kill anyone around, and just that'll teach them to let somebody plant a landmine nearby without warning us, that kind of thing.
And then of course a lot of that kind of thing happened on an ad hoc basis much more often, right?
Exactly.
I know this is typical of a wider pattern, no question about it.
All right.
Well, we got to hold it right there and take this break.
Unfortunately, we'll be right back with Gareth Porter after this.
All right, y'all, welcome back.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and I'm talking with Gareth Porter.
This one's for truthout.org.
Evidence mounts that Afghan massacre was linked to special operations forces response to improvised explosive devices.
So now where were we exactly?
There was a guy lost a leg and it looks like Bales and others who were special operations guys, which Bales was not, correct?
That they all went out and did this together?
He was conventional army, but he was in charge of security for this base, Campolombe, which is a special operations forces base.
Its entire purpose was to carry out operations which were primarily apparently to set up Afghan militias in that area.
But it seems clear that they were also carrying out some operations which were targeting, which are trying to gather intelligence and target suspected Taliban.
So they were doing their own version of night raids as well, it appears.
But in any case, I did want to mention that this evidence about the threat by a U.S. commander to take revenge essentially against women and children is in line with another report that I wrote, was it last year now?
I can't remember, it was a year or more ago, about an incident that also occurred in Kandahar during 2010, which was a case where a U.S. commander threatened a group of Afghans that they would take revenge against the civilian population if that population did not inform him or the U.S. military presence there in that village or surrounding villages where the IEDs were planted.
So, you know, it's a very closely related story.
In both of those cases, it should be understood that this is a violation of the laws of war.
It's a war crime.
To threaten to do that is a crime of war.
In other words, it's collective responsibility, which is outlawed under the laws of war.
All right now, and then so, weave together a narrative here that I can understand, Garrett.
It looks like I think you're saying that he, the one guy did the first massacre, then he went back to the base and said, hey guys, we're having a great time massacring people tonight, come on, they all went and did the second one, something like that?
No, no, I'm not saying that.
It's not, that's not at all clear, and I do not in fact believe that's probably what happened.
But let me just outline the three pieces of information that I think fit together here into a pattern.
The first one, I've already mentioned the threat, we've talked about that, but the second point is that there is evidence from survivors, from the brother of this male owner of the home, or co-owner of the home, which where Bales carried out the massacre of 11 people.
The brother survived because he was out of town when this massacre took place, and he was interviewed by my colleague, Sean Nouri, and told him that his brother had been warned at a checkpoint near Camp Belombe by a U.S. soldier that they knew that his vineyard was very close to where the IED went off, and apparently that was true, that the vineyard that both brothers, they didn't actually own it, they were leasing it, they were using somebody else's land for their vineyard, but they were the farmers who were close by working their vineyard when the bomb went off.
And the Americans did some research, the military at Camp Belombe found out who owned or who operated the vineyards nearby, and this guy was warned that they knew about him.
So it's another indication, I report this, we report this because it's an indication that they were actively pursuing this question of who knew about or who might know about the IEDs.
And so this is the second piece of information.
The third piece of information is that there is eyewitness testimony from the survivors of another killing where it was in the same village in Najiban, is the name of the village where the Bales massacre took place, but in that same village that same night, one man was killed in a compound, but his wife and child were spared.
In that case, the wife of the man who was killed, as well as her son, have testified that there were multiple U.S. soldiers in the compound when the soldier broke into their bedroom and killed the husband, and that he had a walkie-talkie and was talking into it and said, walkie-talkie, walkie-talkie, Taliban, Taliban, and then shot the husband.
Now, you know, that appears to be, you know, sort of an excuse to shoot him using rules of engagement, which allowed U.S. troops to kill someone if they had a walkie-talkie on the ground that it could be a Taliban spotter.
So that is the testimony that was given by the survivor, and both survivors, the wife and the son.
So that indicates that there was apparently a military operation taking place separate from Bales because, you know, this indicates that it was somebody who was not just trying to massacre an entire family, as Bales was doing.
The third piece of information is very important, and it is that there are indications that the camp commander covered up what was known about Bales' whereabouts that night, as well as covering up the fact that there was a patrol that had been sent out that night.
And, in fact, the cover-up was a story that was published in the Times of London saying that there was a bed check at about 3 a.m.
I think they said 3.05 a.m. that night, whereas, in fact, it appears now that at the very time that that bed check was supposedly taking place, there was a patrol outside the camp.
Presumably, we can't prove this, but, you know, it's reasonable to assume that that patrol was precisely the one that was carrying out the operation in Najiban.
So, I mean, these are the pieces of information that suggest that what actually happened was that Bales knew that there was something in the wind, that there was an operation planned for that night.
Because of his position being in charge of security for the base, he could pretty easily move in and out, but he was cited both going and coming by Afghan guards, and they have told about this to foreign journalists.
So that's why we know what happened that night.
And it appears now that he decided to go out there knowing that there was an operation going on, and he felt somehow justified in doing what he was doing because of that operation.
I think that's the linkage that is suggested by the pattern of evidence here.
So they were already going out to do the one.
I guess I had the chronology confused or something.
I thought that the second, that the massacre with the multiple shooters took place much later.
He did go out twice.
And, you know, this is a strand of the story that, you know, I don't have any fix on what...
He went to a second village, and it was there that he killed, if I remember correctly, five people.
And exactly, you know, how that was connected with the operation in Najiban is, you know, is less clear.
But the fact that he, you know, he did carry out this rampage and killing these 11 people in the same village where there was an operation going on the same night, and roughly in the same timeframe, obviously, you know, it does suggest that in his own mind, there was a connection between what he was doing and what the SOF did that night.
I see.
So I guess I was confused.
I thought you were saying, well, I'm still confused.
You're saying that he did both massacres, but the special forces was on an operation nearby at the same time?
Or you're saying that the second massacre was a special forces?
It was in the same village.
I think the evidence is that the special forces did an operation.
I think they were targeting this individual male for retaliation because they believe somehow he was connected with the IED explosion.
And, you know, they had a hit job on this guy, but did not do any other killing.
It was just one person who they retaliated against.
And I think that they did so in a way that they tried to pass it off as, you know, somebody who they saw with a walkie-talkie, and they were justified in killing him.
I see.
And then, so the people who were saying that there were multiple shooters at the second massacre, they're sort of confusing this raid that went on nearby, but was actually something separate when they talk about helicopters and lights and all this stuff.
Exactly.
Exactly.
I think they saw the soldiers in the line.
Boy, am I thick-headed.
It took me forever to get that.
No, I mean, this may be barrier lead too far down in the story or something.
Well, it could be.
I mean, this is a very complicated story and you're not the only one who found it confusing.
I'm sure of that.
I know that.
Well, I mean, the whole thing's a mess and all the information trickles out a little bit at a time.
And I'm just, you know, one of the things I have to admit is just all the names being so foreign from so far away, a culture so far removed from my own, it's really hard to memorize all the names of things and what they all mean again, which village was called what and which guy's name is who and whatever.
It's much more difficult.
Yeah, we're dealing with three different villages there, which are very close by to one another and very close to Campolombe.
They're all in a very short distance from one another.
But, you know, it is a complicated set of names and details to try to fit together.
No question about it.
And, you know, and I have to say that, you know, this obviously is still speculative.
We don't have the absolute proof, you know, to to show that this is exactly what happened.
But but there are I think there is enough information here to cause one to have reasonable suspicion that this is what happened.
Gotcha.
All right.
Well, we know where we can keep track of the developing story and the relevant details as they come out.
And that's original dot antiwar.com/Porter, where we will be if we're not already.
We will be rerunning this truth out dot org piece evidence mounts that Afghan massacre was linked to Special Operations Forces response to improvised explosive device.
Thanks again, Garrett.
Appreciate it.
Thank you, Scott.
