Freed in a prisoner of war trade with the Taliban on Saturday, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is in stable condition in Germany today, and likely to return to the US reasonably soon. Controversy beat him back home by several days.
In addition to the psychological scars of years in captivity, Sgt. Bergdahl is also going to be facing growing questions surrounding his alleged “desertion” before his capture, and emails that expressed some opposition to the occupation of Afghanistan before that.
Hawks who were attacking the prisoner exchange simply for hawkishness’ sake have also seized on this story, and reports of other soldiers in his unit calling him a “traitor” were added to the narrative so instead of objecting to general recovery of US POWs, they were objecting to this particular POW.
Sgt. Bergdahl’s father, Robert Bergdahl has also found himself at issue among the hawks, with his suspiciously long beard and knowledge of Pashto leading to allegations he is some sort of Islamist. The elder Bergdahl actually began learning Pashto after his son’s capture, and considered going to Pakistan to try to negotiate for his son’s release himself.
Bergdahl and his family are likely to try to focus on getting him back to good health and putting his life back on track after years as a prisoner, a huge challenge in and of itself, but the questions and the political ramifications of his freedom are likely to follow them all for quite some time.
There are a lot of men that wear beards in Idaho. 99.99 percent of all those beard wearing Idaho men did NOT have a son held as POW. As for the chickenhawks, that collection of feckless clowns refuse to serve and therefore would be well advised to shut their pieholes and let the world consider them wise before they open mouths to disprove the thesis.
"…shut their pieholes and let the world consider them wise…"
Nope – they blew that ruse out of the water a long time ago…they're just reinforcing the meme now.
Best wishes for Bergdahl and family. As for the chickenhawks, the entire lot isn't worth a damn.
Most of these clowns doing the jaw jacking are draft dodgers, or received (deferments) through
family connections ie: cash donations and political bribes.
I do give the chickenhawks (credit) enough (not) to risk their feeble existence on the USG's
wars for profit. These people running the USG could care less about patriotism. For them, it is
a tool used to lure recruits. Perhaps Bergdahl discovered this during his time in Afghanistan.
Wouldn't you love to see a volunteer battalion of the chickenhawks – dressed in camo, loaded onto a air transport, taken on a 20 hr flight to Afghanistan and delivered into Taliban areas from 5,000 feet (sure, we would give them parachutes). Rush, Michael Savage, Sean, etc – what a patriotic, fighting force that would be! They could get even me to wave the flag.
I saw on RT that Russia is going to make several hundred top officials go through "military training". I'd pay for a ticket just to watch most these chickenhawks try to run an obstacle course.
I would pay money to see that
Obama has made his almost biggest mistake, he broke the law and has shown his true colors, as has his admin, impeachment is in order now!
As to Bo and dad, they are not deserving of this swap, and I have no respect tor this deserter or his sleazy dad. I find both disgusting.
Well that's ok, civilized and ethical people have no respect for reprobates like you!
Proof that the greatest threat to the U.S. is within when we can't even get along over the release of a kid from a POW camp. People like you are tearing the country apart.
Your hate is only outdone by your ignorance. Guess you would have told the Taliban to kill your son and said "Let's drop some more bombs to kill some more women and children"…..go USA!!
Im sure the Bergdahl family is concerned over what some chickenhawk conservative keyboard warrior thinks of them
Obama should have been impeached long ago, especially for the NSA surveillance, for expanding the war in Afghanistan, for prolonging the war in Iraq until just before he was up for re-election instead of ending it the day he took office, for failing to close Guantanamo on day 1 of his admnistration, for extending the Patriot Act, and for tripling the size of the no-fly list.
But not for this.
The last part of your comment is simply vile. Quitting your job is an inalienable human right. Not a crime. ESPECIALLY if you're disillusioned with it on a fundamental moral level.
Haha, long beards are suspect now? Quick, somebody alert the Duck Dynasty fan base! Burn those ZZ Top records!
Good grief. Neocons never cease to amaze me. Or scare me.
There are a lot of hypocrites with black POW T-shirts in their closets today. He was an American, we brought him home. Doesn't matter if he was was a deserter or not, he was an American.
Let the military investigate and move on their facts. As for the father . . . His appearance shouldn’t matter but he does look more like his son’s captors and he isn’t helping his son. I doubt Bowe Bergdahl will find the days, weeks, months and years a-head much of a picnic. I do worry that someone may take matters into their own hands. That isn’t the way to handle the situation.
When you live in a nasty and hateful society, people will always find a reason to be nasty and hateful.
If it wasn't a beard, it would be a mole on his face or maybe just his shifty eyes. Perhaps someone will get calibers out and decide his nose is a fraction too wide or too narrow. But the one thing that is certain is that the nasty and hateful people encouraged by a nasty and hateful society will find some reason to be nasty and hateful.
I hope he'll go on a speaking tour to talk about how American forces behave in other people's countries. It's important that cause and effect are connected – when you destroy countries, murder civilians and laugh at the misery you're causing "sub-humans," payback is always a possibility. American state terrorism is our responsibility. We need a rising chorus of American voices demanding that our war criminals be remanded to the Hague.
We have five fewer prisoners being held, in violation of international norms, at Guantanamo Bay.
The complaining by his fellow troops is just more evidence of how bad the morale is there. I can see their position of not wanting extra work or having their missions changed occasionally to look for him but that's their job. There has never been a war where there weren't distractions from missions or took extra hours on the job.
Next time they say "Support the Troops", remember how little support they are really willing to give when its really needed.
Some of the comments and opinions on other sites left me utterly disgusted, no less than the remarks of some politicians. Our military-worshipping BBC showed a soldier with a distinctly 'un-American' view. What do they want – that he is left behind? If he has some views regarding the futility of the project the so what.
I'm very surprised that Berg, feeling as he did about America and his part in our colonial war, didn't disappear into the Afghan hinterlands and become a de facto member of the Taliban himself. Given the circumstances of his desertion, and the knowledge that when- if- he returned to America he was going to be met with derision and outright anger, he had to have contemplated 'going native' more than once.