The efforts to vilify freed prisoner of war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl have centered around claims that six soldiers were killed while searching for him, after his capture by the Taliban.
The claims weren’t built on much, it turns out, and while the military’s notorious secrecy has made it impossible to totally refute the allegations, they seem to be based entirely around the idea that all soldiers in his battalion have considered searching for him part of every single operation since his capture, and that therefore every death in the battalion since was on him.
Former Staff Sgt. Justin Gerleve is advancing that idea, insisting that it was conceivable that if Bergdahl hadn’t been captured the six soldiers who died might well have been deployed to different places where they theoretically might not have been killed, even if Bergdahl’s rescue wasn’t the specific reason for any of the deployments.
US officials say that there’s no real evidence to support any of the deaths being directly attributable Bergdahl’s capture, and the efforts to blame him seem to have been a combination of political efforts to criticize the deal to recover him, and soldiers attempting to come to terms with deaths during the ongoing Afghan occupation.
Former Centcom Commander Gen. James Mattis also addressed Bergdahl’s recovery today on operational grounds, saying it would be a great boon for the military leadership, freeing them to act against Taliban fighters without fear of killing an American POW.
That appears to have been a non-trivial risk, as the Taliban reported that Bergdahl was several times near the location of US drone attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and could easily have been killed in the strikes.
If this is the convoluted rationale of the cowardly chickenhawks in the
GOP peanut gallery, who believe Bergdahl is responsible for the death of (6)
GIs, then Bush, Cheney, Powell, and the rest of those war criminals in that
corrupt regime are responsible for the death of 1 million Iraqis, 5000 GIs,
100,000 wounded, and thousands suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorders
(PTSD), in a bogus war based on lies and misinformation.
"…conceivable that if Bergdahl hadn’t been captured the six soldiers who died might well have been deployed to different places where they theoretically might not have been killed."
With that reasoning, then, IF George W. hadn't invaded Afghanistan and Iraq then all those American soldiers, not to mention the many thousands of Iraqi civilians, theoretically would not have died or been wounded so…it's all Dubya's fault…right? I don't seem to remember hearing anything about vilifying George from the rightwingers currently after Bergdahl…
US propaganda is getting more deceitful than the Soviet one in its heydays..
Those who have the power to do or not to do will bang on about leaving no one behind when it suits their interests, and they will regard the left-behind as scrap if that suits their interests. The atomic bomb exploded above Hiroshima vaporized twelve American POWs; the bomb that incinerated Nagaska killed nine British and Dutch prisoners. The Wisconsin native, Mildred Fish Harnack – guillotined by a German executioner in 1943 – was scorned when not forgotten altogether because her crime was to have participated in an anti-Nazi resistance group that supplied inormation mainly to the USSR. Rare is the American leader who gives two cents for the lives of the low rank enlisted men except as they win battles for which he can be decked out in medals.
The truth does not matter in the US. The stories our masters can make us believe are the only “truth” that matters. This is what living in an empire is all about.