Bowe Bergdahl's Father Speaks to Reporter about Afghanistan War, MLK's Vietnam Speech and His Son

Last edited Tue Jun 3, 2014, 03:45 PM - Edit history (1)

Father of Freed U.S. Soldier: "Nobody Can Relate to Guantánamo Prisoners More Than Our Family"

Guardian’s Sean Smith in an exclusive interview filmed around the Idaho countryside where the family lives. "I don’t think anybody can relate to the prisoners in Guantánamo more than our family, because it’s the same thing," Bob Bergdahl told Smith. "How could we have such a high standard of judicial process for horrible war criminals [during World War II] ... and yet now we can go for 10-11 years without even having judicial process? It’s just wrong."

Well, in the lead up to their son’s release, Bob Bergdahl talked to The Guardian’s Sean Smith in an exclusive interview. Smith first met Bowe while embedding with his unit in Afghanistan in 2009. Sean Smith will join us later in the program from London. But, first, we want to turn to the video that he made when he followed Bob Bergdahl around the Idaho countryside where the family lives.



[TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS]


VIDEO at SITE: WELL WORTH A WATCH:

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/3/father_of_freed_us_soldier_nobody




BOB BERGDAHL:I don’t work for the military, I don’t work for the government. I don’t represent the American people. I’m a father who wants his son back. My name is Bob Bergdahl. I’m the father of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. I am 54 years old. I worked for UPS for 28 years. I am retired. I wake up each morning and my first thought is my son is still a prisoner of war in Afghanistan. And I need to do something about that. This is an aspen forest. So, Bowe played through here when he was growing up as a kid. He and his friends were all over these trees. And so, it’s nice to come up here and reminisce. I guess it makes me feel good. Gives me something to do. It is a nice place to take a break when you’re cutting wood. We had this camp set up before the winter came, but now there’s a couple feet of snow out there so it is a pretty cozy place to be. This is what we used to do, still do. But this is how Bowe grew up. And we set this up for him, hoping he would get home this winter, maybe if he needed a place to stay and kind of recover. He was not there for national security. He was not there because he lost a personal friend on 9/11. He was there because the way he was raised forced him to have compassion. I know that was Bowe’s motivation, to help these people. That is how the war is shaped in the minds of a lot of Americans, is that we are there as some kind of Peace Corps with guns, and that is just an impossible mission. It is a mission that we are not very good at, I don’t believe. I think the last decade proves that.

(Bergdahl Plays Clips of MLK's Speech for Reporter)

BOB BERGDAHL: I’m sorry, how can we teach two generations at least of children in this country that we have zero tolerance for violence but we can occupy two countries in Asia for almost a decade. It is schizophrenic. And no wonder this younger generation is struggling psychologically with the duplicity of this, the use of violence. The purpose of war is to destroy things. You can’t use it to govern. The first thing I do is feed the cat, who is usually asking to be fed. And then I start a fire and warm this place up and then... Not bad for Idaho. I’m trying learn to in a little pashto so I can speak with people. I’m trying to write or read the language. I have probably spend four hours a day reading on the region, on the history. I’m working to get Bowe home and some days I get up and I’m so angry at some policy that’s just happened that I got to research that. And then it all comes together. It is all related somehow. Economics is related to foreign policy, and domestic politics is related to our foreign policy, and our foreign policy is related to Afghanistan. On and on we go. This has been an education, I will tell you that.

BOB BERGDAHL: The chief prosecutor for the military in Guantanamo Bay is saying that the five Afghans should be traded for Bowe Bergdahl. The chief prosecutor. I don’t think anybody can relate to the prisoners in Guantanamo more, I don’t think, than our family because it is the same thing. My son is a prisoner of war. Wars end with reconciliation and negotiations with the enemy, and prisoners of war should be part of that dialogue. And I insist, I insist that it will be.

The Supreme Court justice that was sent to Nuremberg for the Nuremberg trials, has just an absolutely fantastic statement of what American justice stood for at the end of World War II. How can we have such a high standard of judicial process for horrible war criminals and without a doubt people who were guilty of crimes against humanity, and yet now we can go for 10 years, 11 years without even having judicial process? It’s just wrong.

Bowe had judicial process. The military sure [unintelligible] tried Bowe and found him guilty of war crimes. Very quickly, very early on he was given his fate. He wasn’t given a sentence, but he was given his judicial determination. And there’s something humane about that. Something inhumane about keeping somebody in limbo for 10 years. Yes, it makes me angry. I’m thankful that Bowe is most likely in the house somewhere. At least it’s not chain-link and cement and barbed wire. I hope that is the way it is. Every day it just doesn’t go away. You just carry this empty, unsatisfied, empty place in your heart every day for four and a half years. We are torn as a family. I can read that in his letters. I can see that he was torn as well. But he was in the midst of harm’s way, as all these other young men and women are. I think this is the darkening of the American soul. It is where the guilt comes from, because you are being told you are helping, but you know on the inside that you are not.

AMY GOODMAN:That exclusive video featuring Bob Bergdahl, the father of Bowe Bergdahl was produced by The Guardian. When we come back, we will be joined The Guardian’s Sean Smith, the reporter who interviewed Bob Bergdahl in Idaho and who met Bowe when embedding with his unit in Afghanistan. We will also speak with Colonel Morris Davis, the former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay.