Speaker 1: So the way that I see this thing going is
Speaker 1: Bail's and McLoughlin are drinking. Bail starts talking about, here's
Speaker 1: what we need to do. We need to go out
Speaker 1: take the fight to the enemy.
Speaker 2: Private James Alexander believes that staff Sergeant Robert Bales had
Speaker 2: helped from his friends in committing the Canahar massacre. He
Speaker 2: outlines his theory on the chain of events that occurred
Speaker 2: on March eleventh, twenty twelve Bail's recruits.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, I don't need you to fire, because
Speaker 1: this is how Bales is. I don't need you to
Speaker 1: shoot people with me. I just need you to hold
Speaker 1: the light or I need you to have my back
Speaker 1: while I go talk.
Speaker 2: To these people.
Speaker 1: All I want to do is go out there and
Speaker 1: scare some folks, right, he says something like that goes
Speaker 1: along with it. So they go. Bales loses it, right,
Speaker 1: he snaps, he starts killing people. They come back in
Speaker 1: through the main gate and Bales takes the rack.
Speaker 3: Tell us, go shower, you know, get dressed, get ready
Speaker 3: and play like you don't know anything. And then I'm
Speaker 3: going to use the useful idiot, which is McLoughlin, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to go into his room, and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: say I'm the one.
Speaker 4: That did this.
Speaker 5: Previously on the war within, the army turned a blind
Speaker 5: eye to a soldier that obviously needed NS deployed him
Speaker 5: to me, they're COPD.
Speaker 6: Kristin harm Because I was saying, we're hearing that there's
Speaker 6: some more than one soldier.
Speaker 7: What is actually going on here?
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was not alone, but it was the Americans
Speaker 8: who put the responsibility of this act on this one person.
Speaker 9: People don't remember things the exact same way.
Speaker 6: Sometimes people misplace events in trauma.
Speaker 10: Let's try to walk around my wife. Whatever happened.
Speaker 1: The gate guard has said that two people came in
Speaker 1: and one person left is Michael, that Bales was helped
Speaker 1: in some way to commit these crimes with the aid of.
Speaker 7: It's been some time since you and I first started
Speaker 7: talking about your case and everything, and ultimately we thought
Speaker 7: it was only right that Bob Bales at the final say.
Speaker 2: I'm Mike McGinnis. This is the war within the Robert
Speaker 2: Bayles story. The suspicion that Robert Bales may not have
Speaker 2: acted alone in committing the Candahar massacre can be seen
Speaker 2: as a breakthrough in a story that has been shrouded
Speaker 2: in mystery. It recontextualizes comments that appeared throughout the podcast,
Speaker 2: like one Private Gavin Jones made back in the first episode.
Speaker 11: Bales took us aside and had a conversation with about men.
Speaker 11: You know, war as hell. I know it gets weird
Speaker 11: out there. I basically saying that, like, if you need
Speaker 11: to make that shot and there's someone in front of
Speaker 11: you that doesn't need to be shot, like you can
Speaker 11: make that shot and know that we've got your back
Speaker 11: on that.
Speaker 2: According to Gavin, Baals told his squad that if any
Speaker 2: of them broke the rules of war, he would step
Speaker 2: up and protect them. But that alone doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: there's some grand conspiracy here. Brendan Vaughan, the GQ writer
Speaker 2: who profiled Bales in twenty fifteen, was not convinced that
Speaker 2: other soldiers were involved in the killings.
Speaker 12: Some of the Afghan people have said that there were
Speaker 12: anywhere from one other American soldier to lots of other
Speaker 12: American soldiers.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 12: There are people who have said he was protecting other people.
Speaker 12: I suppose that's possible. Look, there is a Hollywood thriller
Speaker 12: version of this story where there's a huge military cover
Speaker 12: up and it was multiple soldiers and Bales took the fall,
Speaker 12: you know, I mean, and I've heard these kinds of
Speaker 12: theories before about this case. I just have no reason
Speaker 12: to believe any of that.
Speaker 2: That's concrete.
Speaker 12: One of the most chilling parts of talking to Balls
Speaker 12: was when I asked him about this, How could one
Speaker 12: soldier do all this damage in such a sort amount
Speaker 12: of time, and he said, we're really well trained. I
Speaker 12: can't argue with our training. And I thought that was just,
Speaker 12: you know, a pretty powerful moment.
Speaker 2: Despite this denial by Baals, the sense of uncertainty around
Speaker 2: what really happened that night lingers on. Even John Henry Brown,
Speaker 2: Bayles's trial lawyer, who encouraged him to plead guilty, equivocated
Speaker 2: on the subject during our interview.
Speaker 13: There was a lot of doubt about whether we and
Speaker 13: there still is doubt I think about whether Bobby was alone.
Speaker 2: Do you believe that there was a second person involved?
Speaker 13: I don't know the answer to that, Bobby, of course,
Speaker 13: for there wasn't.
Speaker 2: There wasn't.
Speaker 4: There wasn't.
Speaker 13: But you know, camaraderie in the military is pretty strong.
Speaker 13: If you just do the numbers of what he did
Speaker 13: in two different villages in the amount of time. It's
Speaker 13: hard to believe it was just one person. But I
Speaker 13: do believe that bobbably was one person. But if there
Speaker 13: was somebody else Bob, Bobby would ever admit it.
Speaker 2: The idea that Baales was the type of person to
Speaker 2: not implicate others in his crimes was confirmed by his
Speaker 2: wife Carrie, who used some interesting language when speaking to
Speaker 2: our producer Max Nelson.
Speaker 8: Bob accept the responsibility for murders, pleaded guilty. Is there
Speaker 8: anything that he's ever said that would imply that he
Speaker 8: didn't this by himself.
Speaker 14: He's never shied away of owning up to what happened.
Speaker 14: He's always been clear that you know, yes, he did this.
Speaker 14: He's always said it was him and only him, and
Speaker 14: I honestly think he will take that to his death.
Speaker 2: Bailes's attorney, John Mayer had the following reaction to this
Speaker 2: line of questioning. Well, John's spoken to a few of
Speaker 2: the lower enlisted guys and a couple other people that
Speaker 2: were stationed at Ballumbay, and they're of the mind that
Speaker 2: there was a second person involved in the crimes. You
Speaker 2: think there was a second person? This is the first I've.
Speaker 14: Heard of it.
Speaker 2: Mike, really, what can you tell me?
Speaker 10: Uh?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean they seemed to believe that someone accompanied
Speaker 2: him when he headed out north and then when he
Speaker 2: came back, that this potential second stay. None of that's
Speaker 2: in the record of trial. It's it's believe or not,
Speaker 2: it's in the CID records. Come on, yeah, I'm shocked her, Mike.
Speaker 15: I've got to look into them whether or not there's
Speaker 15: another man there.
Speaker 2: Bales has never indicated that there might have been.
Speaker 15: A second never, not once in a public record or
Speaker 15: in a private conversation, or in any of the writings
Speaker 15: that we exchange.
Speaker 14: Not once.
Speaker 2: We didn't know what to make of John Maher's lack
Speaker 2: of awareness of these allegations, especially considering he was in
Speaker 2: the room, and Bales made remarks like this one in
Speaker 2: December twenty seventeen.
Speaker 16: The time, I don't know if you remember this, they
Speaker 16: were all reports that there were twelve SF guys out there,
Speaker 16: the helicopters are flying around. I ended that I stopped,
Speaker 16: that I took that responsibility right, And what does the
Speaker 16: government do for my honesty? All this becomes you know,
Speaker 16: this guy is crazy, this guy, this guy's insane.
Speaker 17: If you could focus I mean during your missions in panjuwe.
Speaker 2: Look, all of this can mean something or it could
Speaker 2: mean nothing. You can drive yourself nuts trying to parse
Speaker 2: whether Bails and his confident on straight thoughts are pointing
Speaker 2: to something hidden secret.
Speaker 16: You know, I'm not a perfect guy.
Speaker 7: You know the I cut corners.
Speaker 16: Do you get things done? Of course I did. Somebody
Speaker 16: had to be a dirty work. I'd do it, you
Speaker 16: know what I mean, And that's that's fine. It's just
Speaker 16: difficult to sit back and think that, you know, you
Speaker 16: can say I did all this. Why do we have
Speaker 16: to lie about it? Why don't we have to hide
Speaker 16: the evidence?
Speaker 2: It sounds incriminating, except the evidence Bails is talking about
Speaker 2: refers to whether the AFGHANSI killed were Taliban, a thread
Speaker 2: we've already covered at length. By the same token, it's
Speaker 2: almost impossible to know whether, and talking about his squad
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan, Bail simply misspeaks or makes a crucial Freudian slip.
Speaker 16: We had developed a team before we had got there
Speaker 16: a little bit. We had heard a lot of negative
Speaker 16: connotations about working with regular line infantry unit guys, and uh,
Speaker 16: you know, I was going to dispel that. You know,
Speaker 16: we were gonna.
Speaker 10: We were going to.
Speaker 16: Be the best, and I think we were. They would
Speaker 16: have been impressed with us had we not done what
Speaker 16: we did, or had I not done what I did.
Speaker 2: That last part one more time.
Speaker 16: They would have been impressed with us had we not
Speaker 16: done what we did, or had I not done what
Speaker 16: I did.
Speaker 2: These days, true crime is one of the most popular
Speaker 2: genres of storytelling. Plenty of people make their living off
Speaker 2: of invest gaining an old murder case and searching for
Speaker 2: some clue that breaks it wide open. But that kind
Speaker 2: of criminology can be a slippery slope when the slim
Speaker 2: possibility of an incredible lie becomes more interesting, more sellable
Speaker 2: than the simple truth. Here's Curtis Grace of the PANJHWI podcast.
Speaker 18: Our government is not competent enough to cover up any
Speaker 18: kind of conspiracy. That's like of any kind of strength.
Speaker 18: We can't even afford to buy toilets in bulk without
Speaker 18: paying like way too much money for them. You think
Speaker 18: we're really capable of, like covering up some grand conspiracy.
Speaker 18: It's just not possible. But that being said, the military
Speaker 18: does have a history of downplaying things, or maybe omitting things,
Speaker 18: or not outright lying, but you know, sometimes don't investigate
Speaker 18: that or don't worry about what that soldier said.
Speaker 2: We got our guy.
Speaker 10: Did they do that?
Speaker 17: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Whenever we query bail this prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel J. Moose,
Speaker 2: about potential emissions in this case, he flatly refuted their importance.
Speaker 2: It happened with methl quinn TBI steroids. It wasn't much
Speaker 2: different this time. When we asked whether Bales acted alone.
Speaker 9: This idea that there was more than one soldier involved
Speaker 9: other than Bales. I will tell you that no one
Speaker 9: who was an eyewitness says anything other than one person.
Speaker 2: No, not one.
Speaker 9: There may have been other people in the community who
Speaker 9: said that there was a platoon out here. I remember
Speaker 9: one person apparently said, not to us, but elector reporters
Speaker 9: that there were helicopters in the area. No one who
Speaker 9: was actually there, not the kids. None of them there
Speaker 9: said anything other than one person.
Speaker 2: In our interviews, the Afghan villagers clearly felt that more
Speaker 2: than one person was involved, but Morse's right to say
Speaker 2: that none of them saw multiple American soldiers with their
Speaker 2: own eyes. Aji Wazir Baran, the two men who stated
Speaker 2: that a whole American squad had attacked. They weren't at
Speaker 2: the scene. Here's baran.
Speaker 8: Robert Bayles was not alone. They all did this massacre.
Speaker 8: They only presented this one person. These are military tactics.
Speaker 8: When the American forces surrounded the house, they would send
Speaker 8: one of them in to kill.
Speaker 2: Did all of the Americans shoot?
Speaker 8: Only Robert Bayles entered the houses? The people who survived
Speaker 8: say that he entered alone.
Speaker 19: So how do you know that the American soldiers were outside, Because.
Speaker 8: We know their military tactics. I think they surrounded other houses.
Speaker 2: You think.
Speaker 9: Any allegation that that was other than one person, like
Speaker 9: even just the smallest bit of scrutiny, that thing would
Speaker 9: fall apart. So any concern I had that the victims
Speaker 9: weren't going to tell conflicting stories, I just didn't have
Speaker 9: that concern.
Speaker 2: Then again, even with Morse's reassurances, the Army made a
Speaker 2: couple moves during Robert Bales's trial that might raise the
Speaker 2: eyebrows of someone with a k eye for conspiracies, like
Speaker 2: how they treated James Alexander's testimony.
Speaker 1: The UCMJ called me, hey, get ready to testify, and
Speaker 1: so I testified that yes, two people had come in
Speaker 1: one person I'd left that I believed that somebody else
Speaker 1: was involved and that being as was taking the rap.
Speaker 1: And from there I thought, Okay, I'm gonna sit back,
Speaker 1: my phone is gonna ring, and I'm gonna be on
Speaker 1: Anderson Cooper, you know, telling the story. And that never happened.
Speaker 1: It was like cool, that was it. It was like,
Speaker 1: thank you for your service, now leave.
Speaker 2: What's more, the government treated staff Sergeant Jason McLoughlin and
Speaker 2: Soldier X differently from the other soldiers. First they were
Speaker 2: demoted in rank, then they were granted immunity from being
Speaker 2: prosecuted themselves. We asked Soldier X about the armies rationale, that's.
Speaker 10: The standard procedure. They want us to be able to
Speaker 10: speak comfortably. And we still got reprimanded for the alcohol
Speaker 10: consumption trust like we would and I think it was
Speaker 10: just like a show of terry. We want you to
Speaker 10: speak comfortably about the sensor that tumbles like absolutely.
Speaker 2: When immunity is offered to key witnesses in a case,
Speaker 2: it's usually in exchange for cooperation. The tactic Hamstrong defense
Speaker 2: attorney John Henry Brown's ability to point the finger at
Speaker 2: anybody else and bails a squad.
Speaker 13: I think we knew that immunity was being offered a
Speaker 13: whole sale because I think the higher ups than the
Speaker 13: military didn't really know what the two story was. So
Speaker 13: I think they were afraid that people who worked with Bobby,
Speaker 13: whether they liked him or not, would do what they.
Speaker 9: Could to cover his ass.
Speaker 13: They learned quickly the influence that superiors have in the military,
Speaker 13: so I think that everybody was concerned about their future.
Speaker 2: Data script a lot of speculation here. Every claim that
Speaker 2: one person makes is contradicted by somebody else, and after
Speaker 2: months of interviews and research, it felt like we were
Speaker 2: no closer to knowing for sure whether anyone else was
Speaker 2: personally responsible for the Canaharan massacre. The only person who
Speaker 2: we knew had the answer with Staff Sergeant Robert Bales.
Speaker 4: Okay, so what's the game plan now, and what are
Speaker 4: we doing and what's going on? I mean, just give
Speaker 4: me a bottom line, guys.
Speaker 2: On December fifteenth, twenty twenty two, our team recorded one
Speaker 2: final interview with Baiales. Recording devices aren't allowed into Fort
Speaker 2: Leavenworth Prison anymore, so this conversation was held over the
Speaker 2: phone on a secure attorney client line arranged by John Marr.
Speaker 17: Okay, so, Bob, We've got ninety minutes this afternoon.
Speaker 4: Okay, man.
Speaker 2: It was during this call that Paul Pulowski Max Nelson
Speaker 2: broke the subject of Bales for the first time of
Speaker 2: him taking the fall for his guys.
Speaker 20: Hey, Bob, if you look up this story on YouTube,
Speaker 20: for example, there's this female reporter who speaks to some
Speaker 20: of the people in the village of some of the
Speaker 20: Afghans and Alla Kozai and Najabian. Some of those Afghans
Speaker 20: are like, oh, there were a lot of American soldiers
Speaker 20: there that night. It wasn't just one person, it was
Speaker 20: a lot of people.
Speaker 4: This is a Caliban controlled area. This is a Caliban
Speaker 4: the village, and they will do what the Caliban tell
Speaker 4: them to do. So the Caliban are not stupid people.
Speaker 4: The truth is they're very intelligent when it comes to
Speaker 4: using information operations in propaganda. That video was propaganda. It
Speaker 4: was used to try to get Caliban to come to
Speaker 4: their side. That video was used to try to hurt
Speaker 4: America's movement to win hearts and minds. It was used
Speaker 4: to try to hurt me personally. It was used to
Speaker 4: try to discredit anything was being done, and so that
Speaker 4: entire video, for the most part, is inaccurate fels and
Speaker 4: a bunch of propaganda. They interview these people that are
Speaker 4: lying because they're told to lie about what happened that night.
Speaker 4: There wasn't fifty people out there, There wasn't twelve people
Speaker 4: out there, There wasn't how many people were There was
Speaker 4: me that was it, and then I came back and
Speaker 4: then nobody went out there until the next afternoon, and
Speaker 4: so it's not true. It didn't happen. It's propaganda. It's
Speaker 4: another piece of evidence that I am trying to get
Speaker 4: people to understand. These were Carara ban and it's pretty
Speaker 4: clear and obvious to anybody that's willing to look.
Speaker 14: Well, as a follow up to that, we've discussed you're
Speaker 14: a guy with very strong principles. If in fact you
Speaker 14: are the only guy out there, you kind of strike
Speaker 14: me as.
Speaker 1: A guy that probably wouldn't shut up.
Speaker 4: And take the fall.
Speaker 14: Yeah, and the kind of just not rat anybody out,
Speaker 14: given your principles.
Speaker 4: I would never rat out anybody, and I would always
Speaker 4: take the fall if that was what needed to be
Speaker 4: done for my country on every day, twice on Tuesday.
Speaker 4: But that's not what happened here. And if that's what happened,
Speaker 4: don't you think my country would take care of me?
Speaker 4: Have they taken care of me? Now? They haven't taken
Speaker 4: care of me. They been exactly opposite of that. They've
Speaker 4: hunged me out to drive. And if they've hung me
Speaker 4: out the drive for this long, don't certain thing? Time
Speaker 4: have said something? After eleven years of being treated the
Speaker 4: way I've been treated, I probably would have at something
Speaker 4: at this point, don't.
Speaker 14: You think perhaps? But again, you know a smart man would,
Speaker 14: But a principal man sometimes overrides or smarts of the
Speaker 14: principles accept the loyalty.
Speaker 4: One way is stupidity, right, that's stupidity. When they let
Speaker 4: the Taliban go and they kept me in prison, how's
Speaker 4: that justice? Man? You know, up until that point you
Speaker 4: could say a lot of things and say, you know,
Speaker 4: we're being just, we're being fair. You know, the talibanner
Speaker 4: still being held in captivity. You know it's it's right
Speaker 4: to each the justice under a law. He let one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty Taliban prisoners on death row go free.
Speaker 4: You know they're living way better than I'm living right here.
Speaker 4: I know who in their right mind if there was
Speaker 4: something in order to tell wouldn't tell it.
Speaker 2: Bails is adamant and consistent with the stance he's been
Speaker 2: espousing for you years. According to him, the United States
Speaker 2: has abandoned him, and he sees no reason to lie
Speaker 2: on the nation's behalf. Whether he'd cover up information simply
Speaker 2: to ensure that his brother in arms would lead a normal,
Speaker 2: happy life, that's harder to parse.
Speaker 20: We spoke for a little bit, so just wondering what
Speaker 20: your impression card with him was.
Speaker 4: Music. Yeah, he was a soldier. I loved him to death.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'll tell you right now, of all the
Speaker 4: people that I feel like I heard, I feel like
Speaker 4: I let him down the most. He's a young man,
Speaker 4: just had had a baby, newly married. I brought him
Speaker 4: up from a sniper. I'm not sure what happened to
Speaker 4: him after that, you know, at the trial or at
Speaker 4: the hearing. You know, my wife gave my hug in life.
Speaker 4: I went up him the great things for and I
Speaker 4: hope he I hope he went on had a happy life.
Speaker 4: And I love him. I mean as far as guys
Speaker 4: I love. I loved him and he was though he
Speaker 4: was a warrior.
Speaker 2: Even now, Robert Bale still considers soldier X to be
Speaker 2: a friend. Then again, Baals didn't have a bad word
Speaker 2: to say about anybody, even the people who he suspected
Speaker 2: might not reciprocate, like Special Forces Captain Danny Fields is
Speaker 2: superior in Afghanistan.
Speaker 4: You know, I know Captain Field's probably had a lot
Speaker 4: of negative things to say about me. I respect him, man.
Speaker 4: You know, these guys went over there and did what
Speaker 4: other people wouldn't do. You know, they raised their hand.
Speaker 4: They're willing to go into a fight that other people
Speaker 4: aren't willing to go into. I was upset with him
Speaker 4: at the time. I think he should have been more aggressive,
Speaker 4: and I don't know why he wouldn't fight. But sitting
Speaker 4: back looking at it now, I don't know what his
Speaker 4: orders were, So tho am I to question him? You
Speaker 4: know my job was to due when I was told.
Speaker 2: Even James Alexander, one of Bailes's harshest critics, got a
Speaker 2: positive review from the imprisoned former staff sergeant Alexander.
Speaker 4: Here's another good guy. I you know. He he was
Speaker 4: the guy that the army tried to make me out
Speaker 4: to be a racist, and they kind of turned his
Speaker 4: words and manipulated what Alexander was trying to say, and
Speaker 4: then he stood up and said, no, that's not what
Speaker 4: I meant by that.
Speaker 2: We hadn't heard that story from the time of the trial,
Speaker 2: but when we interviewed Alexander, nobody had to coax him
Speaker 2: into expressing his opinions.
Speaker 1: Bails is a racist, Like, there's no doubt I was
Speaker 1: singing in the shower and you know, singing hip hop
Speaker 1: music and he's like, who's that nigga in there singing?
Speaker 1: But when he saw it was me, he was like,
Speaker 1: oh sorry, it's like cool, fuck, You're sorry.
Speaker 2: The only person Bail spoke negatively about was the man
Speaker 2: responsible for putting him away for life. Prosecuting attorney Jane Morse.
Speaker 4: So clearly printed Colonel Morris, he was ambitious, right, And
Speaker 4: I can't fault anyone for being ambitious. And I think
Speaker 4: he wanted to make a name for himself. And so
Speaker 4: you know, this is a huge case for anyone. You know,
Speaker 4: he's running around trying to you know, get on a
Speaker 4: certain of TV and trying to become famous, and you know,
Speaker 4: this is his claim to fame. And I think you
Speaker 4: know that was what he ultimately wanted. It wasn't about justice.
Speaker 4: It wasn't about doing the right thing. It was about
Speaker 4: trying to make himself popular, trying to make himself famous,
Speaker 4: trying to push his own agenda.
Speaker 2: Bails's assessment of Mores is based on more than just
Speaker 2: the prosecutor's behavior in his own trial.
Speaker 4: This is what I've understood from the rumor mill right,
Speaker 4: is that he assaulted this young captain at this convention,
Speaker 4: and it's a sexual assault case against him, as he's
Speaker 4: the senior Special victims prosecutor in the United States government.
Speaker 4: So Lieutenant Colonel Morris is basically forced to resign his
Speaker 4: commission from the army and he's forced out, but he
Speaker 4: doesn't have to do prison time.
Speaker 2: In early twenty fourteen, just months after Bals was sentenced
Speaker 2: to life, Morse was accused of groping a female captain
Speaker 2: several years prior while attending a conference on sexual assault.
Speaker 2: He was formally reprimanded and retired soon afterward. To this day,
Speaker 2: Morse maintains that the encounter was consensual, but Bales feels
Speaker 2: this potential stain on Morris's record isn't factored into his
Speaker 2: reputation or his credibility.
Speaker 4: He's out there still running around making his name also
Speaker 4: being the guy that prosecutes Barber Bales. So every time
Speaker 4: this comes up and somebody else goes and interviews him,
Speaker 4: he gets his name back out there and he's like,
Speaker 4: I'm the guy, the prosecutor, Robert Bales, I'm this great man.
Speaker 4: Look at me, I'm this great upholder of justice. I
Speaker 4: don't get it.
Speaker 2: Bales believes that Morse is not a pure hero, just
Speaker 2: as he himself is not a comic book villain. In
Speaker 2: this case, there are many shades of gray. The same
Speaker 2: can be said for the Afghan villagers, who, in Bales's estimation,
Speaker 2: were likely working with the Taliban. It's a major point
Speaker 2: of contention, the one that Morse rejects wholeheartedly.
Speaker 9: So we have the State Department, we have the Department
Speaker 9: of Defense, we had the FBI all on searches, and
Speaker 9: we found no evidence that any of these victims were Taliban.
Speaker 9: I mean, they were literally all farmers. There was nothing
Speaker 9: in any of these houses that could be construed as
Speaker 9: even having them be Taliban sympathizers.
Speaker 2: Even so, a decade after the events, Bales is steadfast
Speaker 2: in his BLUEFS.
Speaker 4: And America believes that there a bunch of goat herders
Speaker 4: and cave sweilersion. That's not the truth. These men that
Speaker 4: lived there in this area were Taliban growing poppy and ash.
Speaker 4: That was their main crop. They were putting this crime
Speaker 4: on mules, running it up over the desert and to
Speaker 4: Pakistan and Pakistan they were bringing back weapons.
Speaker 2: They were there for a reason, just as he expressed
Speaker 2: in years prior. Robert Bales is convinced that he neutralized
Speaker 2: a Taliban threat on March eleventh, twenty twelve, But this
Speaker 2: time he offered a theory on why this essential information
Speaker 2: never became public. It has to do with his body
Speaker 2: count assigned to him by the United States.
Speaker 4: I said at the time, and they used it. It's
Speaker 4: in the record of trial. It's in the stipulation of fact.
Speaker 4: I said, I got twenty. They produced they said sixteen,
Speaker 4: But nobody ever counted the bodies. So where are the
Speaker 4: other four? And if they're so impoverished, where are the men?
Speaker 4: And when I come back and I said, you know,
Speaker 4: these are the men. Either I don't know what I'm doing,
Speaker 4: or I do know what I'm doing, and there's twenty
Speaker 4: and I'm right, and they're men. But you can't get
Speaker 4: paid for Caliban Canyon and it changes the entire narrative.
Speaker 4: Am I bringing in the twenty Caliban?
Speaker 2: After he got back to the VSP there is record
Speaker 2: of the staff sergeant saying that he believed he had
Speaker 2: killed twenty people. Perhaps he had counted some of the
Speaker 2: victims he had shot, but who managed to survive. Mailes
Speaker 2: doesn't think so.
Speaker 4: Their statements to the prosecution one to make sure he
Speaker 4: included in the document that proved that I was kilty,
Speaker 4: But they also prove a lot of other things, right.
Speaker 4: They also prove a lot of mitigating factors that no
Speaker 4: one's even considered.
Speaker 20: Hey, Bob, I wonder if I could follow up on
Speaker 20: one thing you said. So you mentioned that you counted
Speaker 20: I believe twenty people ultimately at the end of what happened,
Speaker 20: and you know the government puts you up for sixteen
Speaker 20: Was I hearing that correctly? That you feel like there's
Speaker 20: a discrepancy of four people?
Speaker 4: My account was twenty? Where are the other four?
Speaker 2: We also wanted to ask Bob about the anti malarial mefloquin. Specifically,
Speaker 2: we were hoping to gain some clarity on when he
Speaker 2: was administered the drug and whether he had even taken
Speaker 2: it in the first place. Questions that have been raised
Speaker 2: during the appeals process. Here's an excerpt of their oral
Speaker 2: argument from the US Court of Appeals in Colorado.
Speaker 21: I want to focus on your methicalin argument. As I
Speaker 21: understand it from the Court's opinion below, there was no
Speaker 21: testimony at all that he was prescribed mefloquin, that he
Speaker 21: took methlicin. In fact, I don't think he ever said
Speaker 21: that he took mefloquin.
Speaker 15: I respect to disagree judges.
Speaker 2: Okay, on which one of those do you disagree?
Speaker 7: Not all of them.
Speaker 15: The nation's premier expert, doctor Remington Nevin, who is dedicated
Speaker 15: his life to mefloquin. His expert opinion is everything is
Speaker 15: consistent with meflicuin intoxication, like more's consistent.
Speaker 21: But point me to where he said I took mefloquin.
Speaker 15: Well, that I cannot do.
Speaker 21: Okay, you can't do that.
Speaker 2: We presume that if Bales can answer these questions about
Speaker 2: mefloquin definitively, it could be instrumental in someday getting a
Speaker 2: reduction in his sentence, even if it didn't happen. In
Speaker 2: the District Court of Colorado.
Speaker 4: Here's a situation where nothing point I have to be just.
Speaker 4: I have to be clear so that you guys understand
Speaker 4: I didn't know the drug's name right until later, but
Speaker 4: I did have the effects, and we knew the effects
Speaker 4: when we took the drug, and we all knew we
Speaker 4: were having crazy dreams when we were taking that drug.
Speaker 4: Lieutenant Colonel Morris says that methlquin wasn't an issue on
Speaker 4: my case, but yet he doesn't say anything about now
Speaker 4: you know, I talked about having hallucinated during the first
Speaker 4: tour in three and four after having taken He doesn't
Speaker 4: talk about other people in my unit having taken it.
Speaker 4: And you know, I don't even know if you even
Speaker 4: considered it.
Speaker 20: Hey, Bob, did you even know that you were taking
Speaker 20: an anti malarial or did you not even know that.
Speaker 4: We knew we were taking an anti malarial? Were we?
Speaker 4: I mean, I know what the name of the drug.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 20: Do you know whether, like you took an anti malarial
Speaker 20: for the VSP bellum by deployment or was it just
Speaker 20: for the early deployments.
Speaker 4: The metic wins Like back to the early deployment in Afghanistan,
Speaker 4: the question of metic win comes up because we went
Speaker 4: back to Kandahar for a couple of days and I
Speaker 4: left my regular anti maalarial back at Bellamy and so
Speaker 4: we stopped in candor Hor and picked up some stuff there,
Speaker 4: some anti malarial mets there, and I don't know what
Speaker 4: I got there.
Speaker 2: This was news to us and Bales is recollect meflquin
Speaker 2: was not the anti malarial at hand at VSP Bellumby,
Speaker 2: but apparently his squad traveled to another base sometime during
Speaker 2: the deployment, and what the troops were given there is unclear.
Speaker 2: Don't forget the Department of Defense began a review of
Speaker 2: methylquin under a week after the Kanahar massacre had upset
Speaker 2: the balance of the region and eventually discontinued the use
Speaker 2: of the drug entirely.
Speaker 4: It's extremely possible while we were at Kandahar, after we
Speaker 4: had went on a mission bomb Bellamy and Candor that
Speaker 4: that one was an issue there. So yeah, I can't
Speaker 4: tell you what was there. I don't know what the
Speaker 4: name of the drug was. I know that sounds crazy
Speaker 4: as somebody on the outside world.
Speaker 14: Obviously methlquinn has long term effects. I mean, is it
Speaker 14: still something you think you're dealing with Until.
Speaker 4: You're educated about something, you don't know that that effects.
Speaker 4: Right when I close my eyes at night, it takes
Speaker 4: a few seconds before I don't see stars, so like
Speaker 4: I'll see like lights flash and my vision after I
Speaker 4: close my eyes at night, and it takes a while,
Speaker 4: right even to day, even yeah, even today. So you know,
Speaker 4: you hear the stories about and you're so tired you
Speaker 4: see shit at the time, you shake it off because
Speaker 4: you're working. I mean, I don't know that you realize
Speaker 4: how draining a deployment. You know, you're out there for
Speaker 4: ten e seven months and you're going every day, and
Speaker 4: you know the threat of life or death, the threat
Speaker 4: of killing someone, the threat of being killed yourself weighs
Speaker 4: on you, and you know you feel exhausted, and exhausted
Speaker 4: is probably not enough of a word to use in
Speaker 4: this situation. So you shake these things off and until
Speaker 4: you become educated about you know, hey, this illusination was
Speaker 4: most likely a side effect of this chemical that was
Speaker 4: put in your body. You wouldn't equate that with that.
Speaker 2: In all likelihood. Biles is separated from his family and
Speaker 2: definitely but on top of this, for the rest of
Speaker 2: his life, he's afflicted, like so many veterans, with a
Speaker 2: fundamentally altered psyche, possibly due to the mefloquin, but almost
Speaker 2: definitely in part from his many traumatic brain injuries.
Speaker 4: I think the doctor actually showing through the brain scan
Speaker 4: that there was a TBI between two thousand and six
Speaker 4: and two thousand and seven, and the way I thought
Speaker 4: it was explained to me, and this has been a while, guys,
Speaker 4: I mean it's been ten eleven years now. He explained
Speaker 4: it to me is like ruins on a tree. You know,
Speaker 4: how there's scarring in trees. They're scarring in the brain
Speaker 4: in the similar manner. Mine is about patterns. You know,
Speaker 4: one when my verbal and certain abilities are high and
Speaker 4: my pattern analysis is super low, and the difference between
Speaker 4: the high and the low shows that there's brain damage.
Speaker 14: I mean, so do you think TBI was a component?
Speaker 4: It's difficult when you're in the situation, right, because you're
Speaker 4: in an environment where if you're not bleeding, your fine, right,
Speaker 4: like you get blown up. Hey man, let's take care
Speaker 4: of the blood. Let's get everybody taken care of them,
Speaker 4: Let's get back out of here. You know, later on
Speaker 4: you might recognize the effects. Like I said, you know,
Speaker 4: after two thousand and seven, we did a raid in
Speaker 4: Solder City, and on the way we got hit with
Speaker 4: an e FP and at the time I didn't even
Speaker 4: think about it, you know. I mean, we got rocked,
Speaker 4: and you know, that night, I didn't do anything. The
Speaker 4: next day I was puking my guts out, now, you know,
Speaker 4: and I'll be all right, And that's kind of one
Speaker 4: of my headaches started, you know. And after that it
Speaker 4: kind of just like, you know, we'd come and then
Speaker 4: continue to get worse over time.
Speaker 2: At one point in the call, Bails and attorney John
Speaker 2: Marr took some time to debrief on the latest in
Speaker 2: their case.
Speaker 17: So Bob, to bring up to speed. As you know,
Speaker 17: our case we argued every bit of sixteen months ago.
Speaker 17: The court is really looking at this hard.
Speaker 4: And in all of my.
Speaker 17: Experience, both in the military and as a civilian guy,
Speaker 17: I can't help a thing that the court is agonizing
Speaker 17: because they don't want to rule in our favor. That's
Speaker 17: the resumption I have. But we made it impossible or
Speaker 17: almost impossible, for them not to ruin our favor.
Speaker 2: Many years into the appeals process, Robert Bales has hit
Speaker 2: to see any significant improvement in his situation. Even the
Speaker 2: unconventional President Trump, who granted clemency to numerous controversial veterans
Speaker 2: of the military didn't pardon him. At the time of
Speaker 2: this conversation, it would seem that the chances of Bails
Speaker 2: walking out of Fort Leavenworth a free man are minuscule.
Speaker 2: So Paul asked him directly, so, I.
Speaker 14: Mean, let's talk about hope. Given everything that you've been through,
Speaker 14: I mean, do you have any considering everything that's happening,
Speaker 14: what you're seeing now, how do you keep it alive?
Speaker 4: There was an article written in the Seattle Times after
Speaker 4: President Trump decided it not to pardon me. It said,
Speaker 4: only in a dystopian society would someone even consider partning Bales.
Speaker 4: And I sit back and I think about it now,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, only in a dystopian society would you
Speaker 4: pardon the enemy and keep your own soldiers in prison.
Speaker 4: Only in a dystopian society would that be okay? So
Speaker 4: I don't know about hope. I don't really consider that.
Speaker 4: I try to focus on a daily basis and trying
Speaker 4: to get a little bit better, and that hope seems
Speaker 4: like a fantasy to me.
Speaker 19: But we'll see, coming up on the war with it,
Speaker 19: has your opinion about America changed because of this massacre
Speaker 19: we have.
Speaker 8: A different opinions than about America.
Speaker 6: Took place at a very critical time in the country
Speaker 6: and the war, and shaped how the next almost decade
Speaker 6: would look.
Speaker 18: I think Pandroid mass occur was kind of the nail
Speaker 18: in the coffin for any chance to really control PANDWA.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the strategy was from game one
Speaker 2: the level of corruption started.
Speaker 4: I'm going to hit and't them for the rest of
Speaker 4: my life. And McDowell Barns didn't run in their country.
Speaker 22: I don't know the circumstances of what made Bob Dow
Speaker 22: he did. I just know that the Bob that did
Speaker 22: that was broken by a system, and to only look
Speaker 22: at him to pay the price for is wrong.
Speaker 2: The War Within the Robert Bayles Story is production of
Speaker 2: Bungalow Media and Entertainment, Checkpoint Productions and Mosquito Park Pictures
Speaker 2: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series was created by
Speaker 2: executive producers Paul Polowski and David check Executive producers from
Speaker 2: Bungalow Media and Entertainment are Robert Friedman and Mike Powers.
Speaker 2: The podcast was written and produced by Max Nelson and
Speaker 2: hosted by me Mike McGinnis. Editing was done by Anna Hoberman,
Speaker 2: sound design and mix by John Gardner. Teddy Gannon was
Speaker 2: an archival producer, Leila Ahmadzai was an associate producer, and
Speaker 2: Peter Solataroff was production assistant. Special thanks to Liz Yelle Marsh,
Speaker 2: Nicole Rubin, Marcy Barkain, Zach Burpi, and Meerwi Satall, as
Speaker 2: well as all of the people who were interviewed for
Speaker 2: the podcast. Listen and subscribe to The War Within on
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
Speaker 2: podcast