Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier held captive in Afghanistan by Taliban-affiliated terrorists for nearly five years, will be charged with desertion. Bergdahl was returned to the United States last year in exchange for five Taliban commanders being held at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Raf Sanchez at the Telegraph reports on Twitter:
BREAKING: Bergdahl’s lawyer says he’s being charged w/ desertion and misbehaviour before the enemy. Says ‘premature’ to say how he’ll plea
— Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) March 25, 2015
In a 2014 issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, senior writer Stephen F. Hayes documented how the Obama administration’s justification of the prisoner swap, including the insistence that Bergdahl was a “hero” fell apart quickly:
Bergdahl’s rapidly declining health required immediate intervention to save his life? In a video of the hand-over released by the Taliban, Bergdahl appeared gaunt but walked without apparent difficulty to the waiting helicopter. Doctors at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany said he was having nutritional issues but listed him in “stable” condition. And, according to the Wall Street Journal, the video that generated the sense of urgency was filmed in December 2013, six months before the “emergency” prisoner exchange.
In the days following the announcement of the exchange, the public scrutiny of three aspects of the deal—Bergdahl’s disappearance, his health, and the threat posed by the release of the Guantánamo detainees—left Obama back where he started. His trip to Europe for a meeting of the G-7 was overshadowed by questions about the deal, and Obama found himself, once again, reacting to a crisis of his own making.
Read the whole thing here.
Members of Bergdahl’s platoon also spoke out against the characterization of their fellow soldier as someone who served with honor and distinction:
“That’s not true,” says Specialist Cody Full, who served in the same platoon as Bergdahl, and whose tweets over the weekend as @CodyFNfootball offered an early firsthand account of Bergdahl’s departure. “He was not a hero. What he did was not honorable. He knowingly deserted and put thousands of people in danger because he did. We swore to an oath and we upheld ours. He did not.”
“He walked off—and ‘walked off’ is a nice way to put it,” says Specialist Josh Cornelison, the medic in Bergdahl’s platoon. “He was accounted for late that afternoon. He very specifically planned to walk out in the middle of the night.”
“He was a deserter,” says Specialist Full. “There’s no question in the minds of anyone in our platoon.”
