Flashback: Fox News contributor attacks Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in 2009 for being "a deserter"

[bigtree]

tweeted by, Oliver Willis ‏@owillis 6h
flashback: A Fox News contributor attacked Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in 2009 for being "a deserter" http://mediamatters.org/blog/2009/07/19/ralph-peters-if-soldier-held-by-taliban-is-a-de/152196 …


Ralph Peters: If soldier held by Taliban is a deserter, "the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills"

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Okay,let's shove this baby up Faux Noise's

bung hole big time.

[former9thward]

5. All the evidence is that he was a deserter.

I am opposed to the Afgan war but I do not support desertion which leads to the killing of other Americans. There will be an investigation.

[Cal3bg]

7. Well guess what..

If you read the text from some of the letters he sent to his parents it's very clear that he came to realize this war was not about helping the Afghan people at all. After seeing the way his fellow soldiers treated Afghan civilians he realized he had been sold an illusion - a deception. He walked off because his conscious wouldn't letter him continue killing in the name of Empire. It takes a brave person to go to war, but it also takes a brave person to leave it.

[former9thward]

10. You are certainly making the argument that he deserted.

There are ways of leaving a war without putting your fellow troops in jeopardy.

[Cal3bg]

13. ?

Example?

[former9thward]

15. Telling your commander you no longer are going to fight.

Yes, you may be thrown into the brig, but eventually you will be discharged and no ones life will be put at risk.

[otohara]

16. He Should Have Just

done himself in.

Saved US from this shit-storm he's brought upon his homeland.

Maybe he still will.... like so many other vets.

Then we'll be happy again.

The shootings at home will continue, freedom rings.

[otohara]

8. War Destroyed My Father

fucked him up but good. He was not able to cope after seeing so much death - the letter he wrote from a foxhole in Iwo Jima to his mom helped me understand his absence from my life and then he died at the age of 49. They think all the concussions from the bombs may have had something to do with his death.

Deserters don't normally walk back to their camp do they? Do you know all the details of the night Sgt Bergdahl went missing and his state of mind? If so, please share them with us.

[former9thward]

9. I said there will be an investigation.

And Bergdahl did not walk back to his camp.

[otohara]

11. Not That Night

but he did on other nights.

He was captured, not the same as not returning, from what I've heard.

[trumad]

20. I could give a rats as if he deserted.

So what if he did.

[mwrguy]

2. Rolling Stones certainly thinks that he deserted

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/americas-last-prisoner-of-war-20120607

Not that I blame him.

[bigtree]

3. no patience for those who scorn the troops for the wars they're sent to fight and die in

from your article:

"Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl arrived in Afghanistan at the worst possible moment, just as President Barack Obama had ordered the first troop surge in the spring of 2009. Rather than withdraw from a disastrous and increasingly deadly war started by his predecessor, the new commander in chief had decided to escalate the conflict, tripling the number of troops to 100,000 and employing a counterinsurgency strategy that had yet to demonstrate any measurable success. To many on Obama's staff, who had been studying Lessons in Disaster, a book about America's failure in Vietnam, the catastrophe to come seemed almost preordained. "My God," his deputy national security adviser Tom Don­ilon said at the time. "What are we getting this guy into?" Over the next three years, 13,000 Americans would be killed or wounded in Afghanistan – more than during the previous eight years of war under George W. Bush."

[mwrguy]

4. Like I said, I don't blame him.

Everyone should have walked off.

[Cal3bg]

14. True

True that.

[Ballast_Point]

6. I was there in Afghanistan when he was captured...

Wild rumor was that he went off alone looking for alcohol...

[Cal3bg]

12. smh

Well that's quite obviously a bunch of bullshit. Why would he walk out into enemy territory by himself to go find alcohol, when he would've been more likely to find it among one of the men in his unit? I mean, I seriously doubt he knew were the local '711' was anyway.

[otohara]

18. Troll Spreading Rumors

and lies.

He's gone now.

Anything to discredit this family and this soldier.

[LLD]

19. Because he did this walk twice before.

"Why would he walk out into enemy territory by himself..."

[otohara]

17. Oh Good, You're Gone