Flashback: A reminder about Bowe Bergdahl’s desertion problem

While many people jumped aboard the Bowe Bergdahl bandwagon, I was not one of them. His release today in exchange for five Taliban commanders who had been in custody at Gitmo underscores troubling questions that have persisted since his alleged abduction.

Longtime readers will recall questions raised here about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance. Here’s a flashback from my July 20, 2009 blog post:

Kinzinger ‘Shocked’ By Release of Taliban for Bergdahl

Sunday, 01 Jun 2014 02:08 PM

By Sandy Fitzgerald

Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the release of five mid-to-high level Taliban fighters in exchange for American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is “shocking” to him.

“There are a lot of questions why he got captured,” Kinzinger said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. “So I’m going to celebrate him coming home, [but] the release of five mid-to-high level Taliban is shocking to me, especially without coming to Congress.”

The Illinois Republican said that by law, Congress must be notified in such cases, and the exchange put five people “potentially back on the battlefield.”

And even though troops are being pulled out of Afghanistan in 2016, Kinzinger said, he still believes it is shocking that the president is going along with a timeline like he did with Iraq.

“You now are going to have five people potentially on the ground targeting American troops, Afghan troops, and the Afghan people,” said Kinzinger. “There are a lot of questions that need to be asked. This whole exchange is shocking to me and I’m very disappointed.”

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/kinzinger-bergdahl-taliban-swap/2014/06/01/id/574487/

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