Posted on 06/02/2014 3:33:03 PM PDT by kristinn
The deal that got Bowe Bergdahl released in exchange for five high-ranking Taliban detainees doesn't sit right with the family of an Army lieutenant killed in an ambush while searching for the missing sergeant.
"He was killed while looking for this deserter," said Andy Andrews, father of 2nd Lt. Darryn Andrews, who died in eastern Afghanistan in September 2009.
"If this guy [Bergdahl] had not gone off post, our son would not have been killed."
The Defense Department has never said Bergdahl was away without leave and has pointedly described him as a "prisoner of war."
The Andrews family did not know there might be a connection between the lieutenant's death and Bergdahl until this weekend when the White House announced the prisoner swap — which has drawn sharp criticism from some lawmakers and service members.
They said they learned of the reported link from other members of Andrews' platoon, who went public because they were disgusted that Bergdahl, who vanished and was captured under murky circumstances, was being portrayed as a hero.
A medic who was in Bergdahl's platoon told NBC News that he firmly believes the quiet, bookish sergeant willfully sneaked away, putting himself in harm's way and endangering the lives of fellow soldiers.
"He's not a hero," Josh Cornelison said of Bergdahl, who has been promoted twice in captivity.
"He left the Army. He walked away from his post on his own two feet with his own sound mind. He left by himself to do what he wanted to do. He is not a hero. Heroes are the people who sacrificed their lives for your freedom, for my freedom, for everybody's freedom."
Cornelison said that after Bergdahl disappeared, the Army flooded the area with troops to find him. For 90 days, it was their top priority,...
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
CBS even showed pictures of the soldiers who died trying to find him
The interesting thing: It may be even worse.
Brad Thor posted a article on The Blaze this morning, explaining that the guys holding Bergdahl wouldn't have cared about the 5 Taliban being released. They are only loosely connected to them.
One of their guys is being held at GITMO, but he was not released. So, what did they get instead? They are basically the Afghan Mafia, so it's likely they got paid, a lot.
If so, the release of the 5 Taliban is nothing but a smokescreen to hide the payment of a ransom.
Maybe it’s cumulative. Things just keep piling up and they know they can’t just keep ignoring them. This particular story has a lot of people very angry.
I guess someone is working with a $6 billion slush fund somewhere.
Rainbows and unicorns on one side, a winged fairy on the other.
I am stunned NBC is leading with this.
Random act of journalism.
This is true, our own Matt Maupin was a PFC when he went missing and a SSG when he was found.
He is a hero, not this Bergdahl piece of shit.
If the Haqqanis are going to do a prisoner swap, Haji Mali Kahn is unquestionably the person they’d ask for. They have been working day and night to get him returned. Yet his name wasn’t mentioned in regard to releasing Sgt. Bergdahl?
Perhaps they did ask for him. Maybe Kahn is such a bad guy that even the Obama Administration said, “absolutely no way.” If that were the case, the Haqqanis would simply default to asking for more money. That’s what they do. Eventually a price would be reached and a deal would be struck. So then why release the Afghan Taliban prisoners from Gitmo at all? Better yet, why was the U.S. even negotiating with the Quetta Shura when it was the Haqqanis who had Sgt. Bergdahl?
None of this make any sense- unless something else was going on.
.If the Obama Administration did pay a ransom to the Haqqanis – through the Quetta Shura, the Pakistani ISI, or via a wealthy Middle Eastern Haqqani supporter acting as a middleman – the United States would have knowingly funded a terrorist organization. The United States would need a big fig leaf to hide that funding from the public and the Afghan Taliban/Quetta Shura would have gladly played along. They would have also made the United States pay through the nose for that cooperation.. Judging by the list of terrorists the U.S. was forced to release, that’s one possible interpretation of what happened.
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release raises many more questions than it answers. But will anyone in the mainstream media ask those questions? Will any of them discuss the recidivism rate of Gitmo detainees who, once released back into the wild, return to terrorism? How about the lives and limbs lost in the effort to capture those Gitmo detainees in the first place? What about the possibility that the Obama Administration may have directly funded a terrorist organization responsible for slaughtering American military personnel and countless innocent civilians?
These parents were also on “Fox & Friends” this morning. By the end of the interview, Steve Doocy could barely speak because of the emotional impact.
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