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Members of Bergdahl’s unit say he left note saying he wanted to renounce U.S. citizenship and find the Taliban

Jun 3, 2014 12:39 pm By Robert Spencer

Sgt.-Bowe-Bergdahl-captured-by-Afghan-Taliban-photo-credit-Grace-FabianObama must have known all this. If he didn’t, he is inexcusably careless. If he did, he is something far, far worse. “Wartime messages to parents, fellow soldiers reveal troubled Bergdahl,” FoxNews.com, June 3, 2014:

Email exchanges between Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and his parents, statements from fellow GIs and a purported letter he left the night he disappeared into the rugged Afghan terrain are painting the picture of a troubled and disillusioned soldier who was “ashamed” to be an American.

While Bergdahl remained at a U.S. military hospital in Germany following a swap for five high-level Taliban members – dubbed a jihadist “Dream Team,” two of Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers told Fox News Channel that the 28-year-old Idaho native willingly walked away from his post in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009. Their claims that Bergdahl’s departure from the base was premeditated jibes with emails published in 2012, in which he told his father of his growing disenchantment with the Army’s mission in Afghanistan.

“The future is too good to waste on lies,” Bergdahl wrote his parents. “And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be American. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is all revolting.”

Bergdahl’s father, Bob Bergdahl, who learned the Pashto language spoken in much of Afghanistan while his son was held hostage and chanted an Islamic prayer as he stood alongside President Obama for Saturday’s Rose Garden announcement of the deal, wrote back to his son with a subject line in all capital letters: “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!” That email,one of several between the Bergdahls revealed in a lengthy 2012 Rolling Stone report, was sent three days before the-then private first class left his post.

Fellow soldiers who remembered Bergdahl as an outsider who studied Rosetta Stone lessons in the native language and talked of hiking to China, told Fox News they believe Bergdahl is a deserter, an offense punishable by death in the military code of justice.

“Yes, I do believe he deserted, without a doubt in my mind,” Cody Full told Megyn Kelly Monday. “He did not serve the United States with honor. We all took an oath – he violated his oath when he deserted us and put other Americans in jeopardy.”

Sources who had debriefed two former members of Bergdahl’s unit told Fox News Bergdahl left behind a note the night he left base in which he expressed disillusionment with the Army and being an American and suggested that he wanted to renounce his American citizenship and go find the Taliban. U.S. military officials would not confirm the existence of the letter, but if it does exist, it would likely be part of the original file on the investigation into Bergdahl’s disappearance.

Some of Bergdahl’s activities prior to his disappearance, including reportedly mailing his gear home, indicated premeditation, said Full, a 25-year-old former infantryman now living in Houston. It bothers them that a soldier they believe betrayed his comrades, possibly leading to their deaths in subsequent rescue efforts, could be seen as a hero.

“I just don’t want to see him hailed as a hero and I just want him to face the consequences of his own actions and possibly face court-martial for desertion,” Gerald Sutton, a 31-year-old Michigan college student who left the military in 2012 after serving with Bergdahl in Afghanistan, told Kelly.

The accusations are not new. Almost from the beginning, there were questions about the circumstances that led to Bergdahl’s capture. He would later say on a hostage video released by his captors that he had been snatched after falling behind his patrol. But a Pentagon probe in 2010 concluded that evidence was “incontrovertible” that Bergahl walked away from his unit near the Pakistan border, according to a former Pentagon official who has read it. The military investigation was broader than a criminal inquiry and didn’t formally accuse Bergdahl of desertion, though with his return, it is unclear what, if any, punishment he could face.

Members of his unit, during interviews as part of the probe, characterized Bergdahl as a naïve, “delusional” soldier who thought he could help the Afghan people by leaving his Army post, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity. But fellow soldiers were sworn to secrecy, according to Nathan Bradley Bethea, who served in the same 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment as Bergdahl and took part in efforts to find him. Writing for The Daily Beast, Bethea said he felt he could come clean about Bergdahl without violating those orders.

“After we redeployed, every member of my brigade combat team received an order that we were not allowed to discuss what happened to Bergdahl for fear of endangering him,” Bethea wrote. “He is safe, and now it is time to speak the truth.

“And that the truth is: Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down.”

During his captivity, military officials decided against making an extraordinary effort to rescue Bergdahl after weeks of intensive searches, particularly after it became evident he was being held in Pakistan under the supervision of the Haqqani network, an ally of the Taliban with links to Pakistani’s intelligence service. Yet Bergdahl was promoted twice while in captivity, most recently to sergeant, in 2011. He was slated to be promoted again this month to staff sergeant, but a U.S. military spokesman told Fox News that is on hold now that he is out of captivity.

Pentagon officials have maintained the circumstances of Bergdahl’s capture were irrelevant, and President Obama on Tuesday defended the decision, saying his administration had consulted with Congress about the possibility “for some time.”

“Regardless of the circumstances, whatever those circumstances may turn out to be, we still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity,” Obama said during a news conference in Poland. “We don’t condition that.”

Earlier, National Security Advisor Susan Rice said on Sunday that Bergdahl “served with honor and distinction.”

Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have criticized the swap and complained of not being consulted, citing a law that requires Congress to be given 30 days’ notice before a prisoner is released from Guantanamo Bay. Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee said the Pentagon notified the panel by phone on Saturday that the exchange was occurring in the next five hours.

U.S. and Taliban officials hammered out the deal indirectly, with the government of Qatar serving as an intermediary. The U.S. and Qatar then signed a memorandum of understanding governing the conditions of their release. Beyond the travel ban, however, the exact stipulations are unknown.

Obama on Tuesday also acknowledged there’s always a chance that the released prisoners could rejoin the Taliban or other terror networks intent on harming Americans. If they take those steps, Obama said the U.S. “will be in a position” to go after them….

Nonsense.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Taliban, United States, Useful idiots Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Champ says

    Jun 3, 2014 at 1:06 pm

    Obama must have known all this. If he didn’t, he is inexcusably careless. If he did, he is something far, far worse.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Indeed, Robert, and methinks the latter.

  2. rev g says

    Jun 3, 2014 at 1:15 pm

    I guess we will be cleaning out and shutting down Guantanamo next week, we have to do everything we can for those innocent girls being held hostage, after all.
    The precedent has been set.

  3. Walter Sieruk says

    Jun 3, 2014 at 1:21 pm

    Regarding Bergdahi, the words of Theodore Roosevelt may may much apply to that guy. For Roosevelt said “Thre can be no fifty-fifty Americanismin this country. There is room here for only 100 percent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.”

  4. Angemon says

    Jun 3, 2014 at 2:02 pm

    ““After we redeployed, every member of my brigade combat team received an order that we were not allowed to discuss what happened to Bergdahl for fear of endangering him,” Bethea wrote.”

    Wait, what? Saying publicly that Bergdahl deserted would “endanger him”?

  5. dlbrand says

    Jun 3, 2014 at 3:02 pm

    Stinks to heaven high, in short.

  6. pdxnag says

    Jun 3, 2014 at 6:57 pm

    See:
    Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717 (1952)
    http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/343/717/case.html

    Try to decipher the impact of renouncement of citizenship. He is returning, as if he did not renounce citizenship.

    (Obama though will oppose any prosecution, revealing his own disposition.)

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