it would "cause problems" if he left the base and took his sensitive equipment (night vision goggles, rifle?) with him, and the team leader said "yes", so he left them behind. If he was going to run away to join the Taliban, why would he worry about causing problems for his team leader, or having to face discipline for taking it off base? He would only be concerned about discipline if he was coming back, anyway. The whole story needs to be re-examined.

I've heard asked. If his plan was to join the taliban, he would have certainly taken his gun and said nothing to his team leader.

and took his job seriously. The last thing you'd do, then, is join the Taliban, who brutally oppressed the local villages. Makes no sense. Presumably he wanted his rifle and goggles and body armor because he wanted to defend himself, wherever he was going that night. His team leader said "no", so he obeyed. Why would he obey an organization he hated and wanted to leave and/or fight against? Against whom was he going to defend himself that night, other than the Taliban? Lots of questions.

They're catering to the lunatics which shouldn't surprise me.

though. To my mind, if they had conclusive proof against Bergdahl, especially as a traitor, they would have used it against him to lessen or end the pressure to bring him home.

So he ended up as a valuable trade.

drawdown. Fairly poor return on that investment, I'd say.

we want ours back. I don't think these guys are going to be useful anytime soon in conducting operations against an American force who's leaving.

came to an end in six months. War is coming to an end, this is a pow exchange.

The people at Gitmo are not classified as POWs. They do not have to be released at any date no matter what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan. That was the position of the Bush administration and is the position of the Obama administration.

We still haven't heard from Bergdahl himself. Those condemning the trade and engaging in character assassination of Bergdahl are doing it because they hate Obama. It doesn't matter to them what the facts are - and we DO NOT KNOW what they are yet.

I'm inclined to take the word of the grunts that served daily with the guy. Not the newz folks, not the brass, not the government, but the ones that walked patrol day after day with him and lived with and talked daily with him.

What we have now is a frenzy of accusations, where the accused hasn't had a chance to defend himself (after being held in horrific conditions for 5 years).

I feel for his family.

I agree. The guys who were with him know much more than a fawning weak spined media. Have heard his squad was made to sign non disclosure forms over the incident. Is this the norm? Seems odd.

look REALLY bad-- undisciplined, poor soldiers--and he didn't get along with many of them and called them "shitbags" in his emails. Just because Bergdahl may not have had any honor doesn't automatically mean some of these guys do, either. Remember the Swiftboaters, they set the example for this behavior.

Swiftboaters have squat to do with this. C'mon.

these soldiers to do their unseemly attacks for them. It's craven and well-planned. They knew Bergdahl was going to be freed, or die in captivity, and they had a plan for either eventuality in terms of politically attacking Obama.

are in cahoots.

Working together - arranging FOX interviews.

What do you call that?

I don't trust ANY MSM outlet. What ever can be applied to Fox can be applied to all the rest. I caution anyone who thinks any of the washington corporate media outlets has a monopoly on the truth.

can't have one with out the other.

Whose words indeed...

Are they coached "words"? or "truth" as these guys know it?

And honestly, there isn't a single eye witness to what happened to Bergdahl that night. Nobody knows what happened. So his fellow soldiers didn't like him. Is that so unusual? Hardly.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025044161

I would take them a tad more seriously.

why they let themselves be used by Republican strategists. Remember My Lai (Vietnam War) lots of different stories about what happened. Obama thinks long term. Believe the Republicans will be caught on the wrong side of history yet again.

It's quite possible that Bergdahl made a very poor decision to walk away from his post. That isn't the same as deciding "I want to go join the Taliban". Even if he had decided "I want to join the Taliban" (and I'm not suggesting that he in any way did), it isn't clear that the Taliban would trust him at all, or that they would value him for propaganda over being a potential bargaining piece.

Bergdahl had to be "released" because he was being held captive against his will. One doesn't have to want to join up with the other side in a conflict One has to go AWOL with intent to remain away therefrom permanently; or to go AWOL with intent to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service.

We may never know what Bergdahl's intentions were. Maybe he was just trying to get away from the conflict. Maybe he didn't want anymore to with the Taliban than he did with the US military. Maybe he figured that if he did get picked up by the Taliban they'd help him get out of Afghanistan. Who knows? And with respect to the issue of why he had to be released -- none of it matters. His release was necessitated by the fact that he was US serviceman being held by the Taliban. It doesn't matter if it was with his acquiescence or against his will (although it became clear over the years that he did want to come home and that the Taliban weren't allowing that without a price being paid for his release).

As for using him as propaganda, over the years a handful of videos of Bergdahl surfaced. In them, he generally made statements establshing that he was, in fact, still alive, and he usually made statements indicating he was humanely treated and urging the US to leave Afghanistan. Whether and to what extent these statements were coerced or given freely is anyone's guess, although it would be hard to consider any statement made by Bergdahl under the circumstances as an act made freely and with a clear mind.

Finally, the Taliban wanted him because they knew that Americans regarded their people as having substantial value and thus he was something to be bargained with. Which they did until they finally got what they wanted in return. Its clear that the Taliban has been seeking the transfer from Gitmo of the five detainees for some time; whether they had to accept that return on different terms than they originally sougth or whether the terms of the exchange were essentially what was discussed a couple of years ago is something we don't know and may never know.

Bottom line however is simple: Bergdahl had to be released whether he was deserter or not because it was his status as a captive American serviceman, not his status as a deserter, AWOL, or anything else that mattered.

He was still a POW deserving of being brought home. He didn't desert to switch sides. He was a prisoner of the Taliban. I'm not sure why some people here are so adamant about his not being a deserter because it doesn't matter. Either way he was still a POW. He still deserves to be tried on the desertion but that's a separate disciplinary measure of the military. It has nothing to do with whether or not he was a POW and deserved to be released and brought home. As a POW - and there's no question that he was - he's still deserving of the same rights as any other POW the biggest one being the right to be rescued.