***
Iran-Contra Scandal
***
Bowe Robert Bergdahl
(Born March 28, 1986) is a United States Army soldier who was in the captivity of the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan from June 2009 until his release on May 31, 2014.[2][3][4][5]
Early life and education
Bergdahl was born on March 28, 1986, in Sun Valley, Idaho, to Jani (née Larson) and Robert "Bob" Bergdahl, a Private Logistic Company driver .[6][7][8] Bergdahl has an older sister, Sky Albrecht,[9][10][11] and was home schooled by his mother Jani in Hailey, Idaho. He is of Norwegian descent.
He received a GED certificate through the College of Southern Idaho by the time he was in his early 20s.[12][13][7][14] As an adult, Bergdahl studied and practicedfencing and martial arts before switching to ballet classes at the Sun Valley Ballet School in Ketchum, Idaho.[12][7] He never owned a car, riding his bicycle everywhere.[14]
Career
Bergdahl graduated from infantry school in Fort Benning, Georgia, in the fall of 2008.[6] He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, Alaska.[15]
According to fellow soldier Specialist Jason Fry, Bergdahl was "quiet. He wasn't one of the troublemakers – he was focused and well-behaved...Bowe sat alone on his cot, studying maps of Afghanistan." Bergdahl told Fry before their deployment to Afghanistan, "If this deployment is lame, I'm just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan." [16]
Bergdahl's unit was sent to an outpost called Mest-Malak in Afghanistan to conduct counterinsurgency operations. Bergdhal learned how to speak Pashto, and according to Fry, Bergdahl "began to gravitate away from his unit", spending "more time with the Afghans than he did with his platoon". Bergdahl's father described his son to military investigators as "psychologically isolated".[17]
Prior to capture
On June 25, 2009, Bowe's battalion suffered its first casualty. First Lieutenant Brian Bradshaw was killed in a blast from a roadside bomb near the village of Yaya Kheyl, not far from Bowe's outpost. According to Rolling Stone,[18] Bowe's father believes that Bradshaw and Bowe had grown close at the National Training Center, and his death darkened his son's mood.
Last email to parents
On June 27, 2009, according to Rolling Stone,[19] Bowe sent a final e-mail to his parents: "The future is too good to waste on lies. And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it 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."
His email went on to describe his disillusionment in the army: "In the US army you are cut down for being honest... but if you are a conceited brown nosing shit bag you will be allowed to do what ever you want, and you will be handed your higher rank... The system is wrong. I am ashamed to be an american. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools...I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live. We don't even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks... We make fun of them in front of their faces, and laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them...I am sorry for everything. The horror that is america is disgusting...There are a few more boxes coming to you guys. Feel free to open them, and use them."
Capture, captivity, and release[edit]
During his unit's normal deployment rotation to Afghanistan, he went missing on June 30, 2009, near the town of Yahya Kheyl in the Paktika Province, which is in the south-east of Afghanistan, right on the border with Pakistan. The area in which Bergdahl was captured is right next to Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
He was held by the Haqqani network, an insurgent group affiliated with the Taliban, probably somewhere in Pakistan.[20] Since then, the Taliban have released five videos showing him in captivity. The Taliban originally demanded $1 million[21] and the release of 21 Afghan prisoners and Aafia Siddiqui in exchange for Bergdahl's release. They threatened to execute Bergdahl if Siddiqui was not released. Most of the Afghan prisoners sought were being held at Guantanamo Bay.[22][23]
The Taliban later reduced its demand to five Taliban prisoners in exchange for Bergdahl's release.[24] He was a Private First Class (E-3) when captured. He was promoted to Sergeant (E-5) on June 17, 2011.[25]
Conflicting reports of capture[edit]
Accounts of his capture differ. The version offered by Bergdahl, in the video, is that he was captured when he fell behind on a patrol.[2] Taliban sources allege he was ambushed after becoming drunk off base; U.S. military sources deny that claim, stating, "The Taliban are known for lying and what they are claiming [is] not true".[4] Other sources said Bergdahl walked off his base after his shift[26] or that he was grabbed from alatrine.[27] A Department of Defense spokesperson said, "I'm glad to see he appears unharmed, but again, this is a Taliban propaganda video. They are exploiting the soldier in violation of international law."[2][3]
General Nabi Mullakheil of the Afghan National Police said the capture occurred in Paktika Province.[2] Other sources say that he was captured by a Taliban group led by Maulvi Sangin, who has moved him to Ghazni Province.[3] Two Pashto-language leaflets were distributed by the U.S. military in seeking Bergdahl.[4] One showed a smiling GI shaking hands with Afghan children, with a caption that called him a guest in Afghanistan. The other showed a door being broken down, and threatened that those holding Bergdahl would be hunted down.
First Taliban video of Bergdahl[edit]
 | Wikinews has related news:Taliban publicize video of captured U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl |
On July 18, 2009, the Taliban released a video showing the captured Bergdahl.[2] In the video, Bergdahl appeared downcast and frightened. A Department of Defensestatement issued on July 19 confirmed that Bergdahl was declared "missing/whereabouts unknown" on July 1, and his status was changed to "missing/captured" on July 3.[28]
In the 28-minute video, his captors held up his dog tags to establish that the captured man was Bergdahl.[2] Bergdahl gave the date as July 14 and mentioned an attack that occurred that day.[29][30][31]
Follow-up videos are released[edit]
In December 2009, five months after Bergdahl's disappearance, the media arm of the Afghan Taliban announced the release of a new video of "a U.S. soldier captured in Afghanistan", titled "One of Their People Testified". In the announcement, the Taliban did not name the American, but the only U.S. soldier known to be in captivity was Bergdahl. U.S. military officials had been searching for Bergdahl, but it was not publicly known whether he was being held in Afghanistan or in neighboring Pakistan, an area off-limits to U.S. forces based in Afghanistan.[32] On December 25, another video was released that shows Bergdahl in a combat uniform and helmet.[33][34] He described his place of birth, deployment to Afghanistan and subsequent capture. He then made several statements regarding his humane treatment by his captors, contrasting this to the abuses suffered by insurgents in prisons. He finished by saying that the United States should not be involved in Afghanistan and that its presence there is akin to the Vietnam War. On April 7, 2010, the Taliban released a third video of Bergdahl, now with a full head of hair and a beard, pleading for the release of Afghan prisoners held at Guantanamo and Bagram. In November 2010, Bergdahl appeared briefly in a fourth video.[35] In May 2011, Bergdahl appeared briefly in a fifth video.[36]
In December 2011, it was reported that Bergdahl tried to escape three months earlier but was recaptured after three days.[37] In June 2013, Bergdahl's parents received a letter from him through the Red Cross.[38] In January 2014, it was reported that the United States received another proof of life video. The video is dated December 14, 2013 and in it, Bergdahl mentions the death of South African president Nelson Mandela, proving that the video was filmed recently. On May 31, 2014, Bergdahl was released from captivity.[39][40]
Threat of reprisal[edit]
On February 4, 2010, the Afghan Taliban demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist who was convicted by a U.S. court on charges of attempting to murder U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and threatened to execute Bergdahl if their demand was not met.[41][42] The Taliban claimed that members of Siddiqui's family had requested their assistance.[citation needed]
Reports of joining the Taliban[edit]
In August 2010 it was reported that a Taliban commander named Haji Nadeem said Bergdahl was helping to train the Taliban in bomb making and infantry tactics. The Pentagon dismissed the reports as Taliban propaganda.[43][44]
Release efforts[edit]
For months, U.S. negotiators were seeking to arrange the transfer of five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay military prison to the Gulf state of Qatar. The transfer was intended as one of a series of confidence-building measures designed to open the door to political talks between the Taliban and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government.[45] That move – at the center of U.S. strategy for ending the long, costly conflict in Afghanistan – was supposed to lead directly to Bowe's release. The Taliban has consistently called for the United States to release those held at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for freeing Western prisoners. But the Guantanamo transfer proposal, which would have required notification to Congress, ground to a halt when the Taliban rejected U.S. conditions designed to ensure transferred Taliban would not slip away and re-emerge as military leaders.[46] Ultimately, the Obama administration agreed to the prisoner exchange allowing Bergdahl to be released on May 31, 2014.[47]
Release on May 31, 2014
On May 31, 2014, U.S. officials from the White House and Pentagon announced that Bergdahl had been released by his captors and recovered by U.S. special operations forces in eastern Afghanistan. The release was brokered by the American, Qatar and Afghanistan governments with the Taliban, in exchange for five Guantanamo Bay detainees transferred to Qatari custody for at least one year. On 10:30 a.m. (ET) May 31, 2014, Bergdahl was handed over by 18 Taliban members in eastern Afghanistan,[48] near Khost on the Pakistani border, in what was described as a "peaceful handover".[49]
Bergdahl was treated by U.S. military medical staff at an undisclosed base in east Afghanistan. He was then transferred to Bagram Airfield, before being flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany for specialist medical treatment and is expected to return home to Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas for further recovery.[50]
President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel thanked Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, and the government of Afghanistan for their assistance in the rescue of Bergdahl.
The Taliban detainees – known as the "Taliban five"[51] – who were transferred from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to custody in Doha, Qatar are Mohammad Fazl, Khairullah Khairkhwa, Abdul Haq Wasiq, Norullah Noori, and Mohammad Nabi Omari.[52]
No comments:
Post a Comment