Bergdahl's Release Hailed by White House

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright June 3, 2014
All Rights Reserved.                                     

           Trumpeting the release of 28-year-old five-year U.S. prisoner-of-war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with his parents Robert and Jani May 21, 2014 in the White House Rose Garden, President Barack Obama walked a razor’s edge.  Obama knew that Bergdahl disappeared June 30, 2009 after only two months of deployment in Afghanistan under suspicious circumstances.  Leaving his weapons behind, Bergdahl reportedly left his post against orders and disappeared behind enemy lines.  Concluding that Bergdahl went AWOL from his unit in 2010, the Pentagon signaled they would not expend much effort pursuing the wayward 23-year-old.  While Obama sought high-fives with the media on Bergdahl’s release, Veteran and active-duty groups cried foul, citing Bergdahl’s likely desertion and dereliction of duty.  Obama once again used 49-year-old Susan Rice as his spokeswoman on national TV.

             National Security Advisor Rice told CNN’s Candy Crowley on “State of the Union” June 1 that the U.S. had a “sacred duty” to return prisoners of war, deftly averting any mention of desertion.  Showing that she learned little from her last gaffes on national TV with the Benghazi affair that cost her promotion to secretary of state, Rice insisted the U.S. did nothing wrong to win his release.  Letting Qatar negotiate the release of five senior Taliban officials incarcerated at the U.S. Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Rice rejected any idea that the “quid pro quo” violated U.S. terrorism policy.  Turning over five senior Taliban figures to Oatar custody for only one year, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) questioned whether Bergdahl’s release made U.S. military personnel more vulnerable around the globe.

             Debating the merits of negotiating the release U.S. hostages has little to do with whether or not there’s a high price tag on U.S. military personnel.  Trading prisoners or paying for the release of U.S. hostages doesn’t change anything for America’s enemies that seek any chance to seize U.S. citizens.  Given the murky circumstances under Bergdahl’s disappearance and release, Obama opened up a can of worms, and no doubt more hearings before the Midterm elections.  Showing that he’s got his own fatigue in office, Obama would have been far wiser to handle Bergdahl’s release more discreetly.  Knowing that he might eventually face charges of desertion, the White House didn’t have to grandstand with Bergdahl’s family in the Rose Garden.  As Bergdahl recovers from his battle fatigue in an Army hospital in Landstuhl Germany, more questions will be asked about how he disappeared.

             When questioned about the urgency of Bergdahl’s release, Rice insisted there were “exigent” circumstances prompting the White House to bypass the 30-day notification in Congress of any prisoner swap.  Claiming that Bergdahl faced an “acute” situation because of his medical condition prompted the U.S. to act more decisively to win his release.  Reports from Landstuhl say nothing about any acute medical problems with the now 28-year-old Army sergeant.  There  “is no predetermined amount of time involved in the reintegration process” said unnamed Pentagon officials, offering no timetable to Bergdahl’s eventual return stateside.  He’s undergoing repatriation therapy, something’s that bound to get to the bottom of the fishy circumstances under which he disappeared.  While there’s no timetable for debriefing, there’s no telling what Army shrinks will find.

             Bergdahl’s release has now grabbed the headlines from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 and, more recently, from former Clippers owner Donald Sterling who uttered racist remarks to his former racy girlfriend.  Looking for something other than Obamacare and Benghazi, the GOP hopes to milk Bergdahl’s release as the next media dog-and-pony show.  What’s interesting about Bergdahl’s case is not really the clandestine deal that won his release but his state-of-mind at the time of this disappearance and his current mental status.  No matter how much magic the Army’s Joint Personal Recovery Agency [JPRA]., the best SERE procedures, referring to Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training, can’t assure recovery from post-traumatic stress-related complications, in part because there’s so many genetic and personality factors at work.

            If Bergdahl did, in fact, go AWOL June 30, 2009, it’s going to take more work by SERE experts to determine the extent of his preexisting problems that left him vulnerable to such abysmal judgment.  While there’s no doubt many facts surrounding his disappearance have yet to come out, all indications point to an AWOL, most likely induced by intolerable stress or some undiagnosed mental problem.  Calling the evidence “incontrovertible” that Bergdahl “walked away” from his unit, as opposed to getting abducted, the SERE team at Landstuhl will figure it out.  Members of his own unit portrayed Bergdahl as “delusional,” a serious symptom of mental illness.  “There was no patrol that night,” said Nathan Bradley Bethea, a captain in Bergdhahl’s unit.  Bethea believes Bergdahl took off without official leave once his shift was finished, speaking volumes about his impaired judgment.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.