Bowe Bergdahl Says Taliban Captors Tortured Him

 

Bowe Bergdahl (courtesy U. S. Army, via Wikimedia Commons)
Bowe Bergdahl (courtesy U. S. Army, via Wikimedia Commons)

 

 
Almost from the time it was revealed that Bowe Bergdahl had been released from five years of captivity in a Taliban POW camp, he has been the target of a particularly ugly campaign to smear him as a deserter at best and a possible traitor at worst. However, as I mentioned on Friday, an internal Army investigation completed in 2010 failed to turn up any conclusive evidence that Bergdahl intended to leave his post for good.

Unless some earthshaking evidence to the contrary turns up, this will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to court-martial him for desertion. If the legal basis for branding him a deserter is on shaky ground, now comes a revelation that may destroy any moral basis for it as well. Officials who have been kept abreast of how Bergdahl is recuperating say that Bergdahl claims to have been tortured by his Taliban captors.

According to Sunday’s New York Times, Bergdahl told military doctors at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center that he was kept in a shark cage for several weeks or months after attempting to escape as many as two times. The AP added that Bergdahl says he was beaten on several occasions. These claims are very believable, considering the Taliban’s brutal five-year rule over most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

David Rohde of Reuters, who was held for seven months in a Taliban camp in 2008, told Face the Nation on Sunday that Bergdahl’s account was “very credible,” since he was kidnapped by the very same faction that captured Bergdahl a year later. And apparently the White House believes Bergdahl’s story as well; on CNN’s State of the Union, Secretary of State John Kerry said it would have been “offensive and incomprehensible” to leave Bergdahl to the mercies of “people who would torture him, cut off his head, do any number of things.”

It’s pretty clear that something terrible happened to Bergdahl. According The Times, he is physically ready to return to the United States–most likely because the Taliban started feeding him better and allowing him access to medical care while negotiations are underway. However, he isn’t emotionally ready yet.

 
Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t military doctors be pretty quick to spot signs that someone is faking emotional trauma? All things considered, I think Bergdahl is telling the truth, and he was indeed subjected to severe torture.

Even in the face of this evidence, the swiftboating campaign against Bergdahl continues unabated. No less a personality than Fox News’ Chris Wallace has joined the feeding frenzy; on this morning’s edition of Fox News Sunday he actually wondered if the death penalty should be on the table if Bergdahl is ever court-martialed.

By itself, trying a POW is morally indefensible. As I mentioned on Friday, there is a very strong convention that POWs do not get court-martialed. And now the host of a major Sunday talk show wonders that we should consider not only trying a POW who has almost certainly been tortured by the enemy, but that said POW should potentially be on trial for his life. It’s a sad commentary on the state of our discourse that anyone could ask if such a despicable scenario should even be considered.

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Darrell Lucus.jpg Darrell Lucus is a radical lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.

 

 

 

 

edited by tw

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.