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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsInformative Amy Goodman interview with a Bergdahl compatriot--
AMY GOODMAN: Looking at Buzzfeed describing who Juan was just talking about, this former Bush administration official, hired then resigned, Mitt Romney foreign policy spokesperson, played a key role in publicizing critics of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The involvement of Richard Grenell who once served as a key aide to Bush, to rather to the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. ,John Bolton, later worked on Romneys campaign. I wanted to go back, though, to 2009, to the soldiers who Bowe Bergdahl worked with in that tiny outpost that they built in Afghanistan. We had Sean Smith on a few days ago, a Guardian videographer and photographer who produced a film back in 2009 as well as one when he went to Idaho and met Bowes father, Bob Bergdahl, which we also played and I encourage people to go to democracynow.org to see all of that. Sean Smith spent a month embedded with Bowe Bergdahls unit in Afghanistan. In this clip, we hear from some of the soldiers stationed with Bowe.
SOLDIER ONE: These people just want to be left alone.
SOLDIER TWO: Yeah, they got dicked with from the Russians for 17 years and then now were here.
SOLDIER ONE: Same thing in Iraq when I was there. These people just want to be left alone. Have their crops, weddings, stuff like that, thats it man.
SOLDIER TWO: Im glad they leave them alone.
SEAN SMITH: A few weeks later, Bowe Bergdahl, pictured in this photo, disappeared. The circumstances are unclear.
BROCK MCINTOSH: It is really hard it was really hard to hear that clip, Amy, because it reminded me so much of the conversations that I had while I was in Afghanistan. There was so much talk about within my unit about these Afghan people and how they just want to be left alone. And we were all aware of the role the U.S. played during the Cold War. Using the Afghan people as a proxy to get back at the Soviet Union, using the lives of Afghans as political chess pieces and gamesmanship? And so to then be in Afghanistan to help people, to help the Afghan people felt very disingenuous. We never had any clear sense exactly why we were there, what it was that we were supposed to be doing, why these people are shooting at us, who was shooting at us. Who are we shooting at? Why are we shooting at them? And it really eats away at you and it becomes a situation where all you want to do is you just want to come home and want your buddies on your left and your right to come home. And its what are you supposed to do in a situation where you find yourself you find yourself in a conflict that you dont agree with, where people are dying on both sides? What are you supposed to do? What recourse do you have? I did not know that the conscientious objector process existed. Thats one recourse you can take. But I didnt know that that existed. Theres an overwhelming lack of awareness that theres a formal process where you, when you have a conscientious shift, you can actually leave the military.
http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2014/6/5/veteran_politicians_using_freed_pow_bowe
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)It really blows up the RW propaganda front.
SalviaBlue
(2,914 posts)countryjake
(8,554 posts)Excellent interview!
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)he is doing to Bergdahl why his beloved conservatives did to him.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)... the U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan after his disappearance. The first two were in an outpost that was attacked.
Republican / conservative politics keeps reaching for new lows in cynical, disingenuous attack. The idea we should leave a soldier to die based on their sudden assessment of his worthiness beggars belief, or it would, if it wasn't part of an old pattern.
At this point, their entire worldview is about who needs to suffer more, be held in contempt more. Die more.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Really--
An old Probation & Parole officer once told me he was not just amazed at what the psychopaths he worked with DID, but by what they THOUGHT OF to do.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Apparently, before making a deal to return an American POW, we need a Fox-hosted national debate as to the possible "Taliban-ness" of the soldier's father's *beard* ??
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)AMY GOODMAN: Looking at Buzzfeed describing who Juan was just talking about, this former Bush administration official, hired then resigned, Mitt Romney foreign policy spokesperson, played a key role in publicizing critics of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The involvement of Richard Grenell who once served as a key aide to Bush, to rather to the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. ,John Bolton, later worked on Romneys campaign. I wanted to go back, though, to 2009, to the soldiers who Bowe Bergdahl worked with in that tiny outpost that they built in Afghanistan. We had Sean Smith on a few days ago, a Guardian videographer and photographer who produced a film back in 2009 as well as one when he went to Idaho and met Bowes father, Bob Bergdahl, which we also played and I encourage people to go to democracynow.org to see all of that. Sean Smith spent a month embedded with Bowe Bergdahls unit in Afghanistan. In this clip, we hear from some of the soldiers stationed with Bowe.
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You would think the media would be interested in the developing scandal of how the GOP set up Bergdahl with a now obvious prescripted propaganda blitz the moment he was released.
This has the fingerprints of a real scandal all over it.
mwrguy
(3,245 posts)but close to where Bergdahl was stationed.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)riverbendviewgal
(4,252 posts)This sentence explains the Ukraine.
and Chile coup 1973.....
Wars are started on purpose for political and economic reasons for profits and power. The USA has been doing this for decades.
xocet
(3,871 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)DAmn it!!! I am so sick and tired of ignorant people taking their cues from FOX News and Rush. Actually, this transcript needs to be sent to Diane Feinstein and the rest of GOP Dem suck-ups in Congress. I don't know how to get it to Reid but I bet he would read the entire thing on the floor.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Send it out to your email contacts.
Write letters to your local paper.
countryjake
(8,554 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,298 posts)Thanks for the thread, Jackpine Radical.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I think the issue isn't going to be about the deaths of the six soldiers, clearly he had nothing to do with that. It will be how he ended up in the hands of the Taliban. Until we learn what happen there is no sense in jumping to conclusions.