Tulsa Peace Fellowship

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Peace Groups Call For U.S. Withdrawal After Army Sergeant Kills 16 Civilians in Afghanistan

democracynow.org - We go to Kabul to speak with an Afghan peace activist about the shooting spree by an U.S. Army sergeant in Afghanistan, which killed 16 Afghan civilians, nine of them children. Calls for a more rapid withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan have escalated after the U.S. soldier reportedly walked more than a mile from his base, breaking in to three separate houses to attack families as they slept. Villagers say he then gathered 11 bodies and set them on fire, including the bodies of four girls younger than six.

American fascism rears its ugly head in U.S.-occupied Afghanistan.

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Comment by Tony Nuspl on August 25, 2013 at 12:14pm

American Soldier Convicted of Massacre of Afghan Villagers Gets Life Without Parole

By Elizabeth Chuck, NBC News

25 August 13

Sgt. Robert Bales, the U.S. soldier who carried out a massacre of Afghan villlagers last year, has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A military jury of six handed down the sentence on Friday to Bales, who pleaded guilty in June to avoid the death penalty in last March's attack. Sixteen Afghan civilians were gunned down in their family compounds. Most of the victims were women and children.

Bales, from Lake Tapps, Wash., left his outpost at Camp Belambay in Kandahar province in the middle of the night in March 2012 to attack two villages.

Army prosecutors say Bales acted alone and planned the killings, which he carried out with a rifle, a pistol and a grenade launcher, according to Reuters. He left his outpost twice during the night, returning in the middle of the attack to tell a fellow soldier, "I just shot up some people."

Nine Afghans testified over two days about their lives since the brutal rampage, with at least one cursing at Bales, The Associated Press reported.

Haji Mohammad Wazir said he lost 11 relatives, including his mother, wife, and six out of his seven children.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/323-95/19066-soldier-a...

Comment by Tony Nuspl on March 19, 2012 at 2:04pm
Karzai asks NATO to leave Afghan villages; Taliban scrap talks
By Rob Taylor and Jack Kimball | Reuters – Mar 15, 2012

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai called for NATO troops to leave Afghan villages and confine themselves to major bases after the slaughter of 16 civilians by a U.S. soldier, underscoring fury over the massacre and clouding U.S. exit plans.

In a near-simultaneous announcement, the Afghan Taliban said it was suspending nascent peace talks with the United States seen as a strong chance to end the country's decade-long conflict, blaming "shaky, erratic and vague" U.S. statements.

Tension has risen sharply since the killings and the burning of copies of the Koran at the main NATO base in the country last month.

More than 3,000 civilians were killed in the war in Afghanistan in 2011, the fifth year in a row the number has risen, according to the United Nations.

http://news.yahoo.com/u-soldier-flown-home-afghan-anger-mars-panett...
Comment by Tony Nuspl on March 15, 2012 at 1:35pm
Afghans Protest Removal of Massacre Suspect

The U.S. soldier accused in the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians has been flown out of Afghanistan to a detention center in Kuwait. A senior U.S. commander said the move was made to help ensure a proper investigation and trial. The suspected killer’s name has not been released, but he has been identified as a 38-year-old staff sergeant who served three tours in Iraq, where he suffered a head injury. Afghan lawmakers and residents expressed anger over his exit, saying the soldier should be tried in Afghanistan.

Gulam Hazrat: "The U.S soldier must be tried in Kandahar City, why was he taken away from Afghanistan when he murdered innocent people in this country? He is transferred to another place to be freed. Why did he murder 16 people here, for what reason did he massacre them — we want to see him punished here in Afghanistan."

source: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/15/headlines
Comment by Tony Nuspl on March 14, 2012 at 9:13pm
Here's more commentary, from John Glaser, of antiwar.com -- Although the RT video is slow to load, it's worth watching.

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2012/03/13/john-glaser-on-rt-talking-af...

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