[Peace-discuss] The US army is the biggest joke says soldier Bowe Bergdahl released by the Taliban

Wed Jun 4 01:01:41 EDT 2014

  The US army is the biggest joke says soldier Bowe Bergdahl released by
  the Taliban

Patrick Cockburn 03 June 2014. Posted in News <http://stopwar.org.uk/news>

        "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."

128 
<http://stopwar.org.uk/news/the-us-army-is-the-biggest-joke-says-soldier-bowe-bergdahl-released-by-the-taliban#> 

Bowe Begdahl

"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."

It is a bitter indictment of an army in trouble. It was written by the 
American soldier Bowe Bergdahl in his last email to his parents sent 
just before he walked off his base in eastern Afghanistan on 30 June 2009.

Within hours, he was picked by the Taliban who held him for five years 
until his exchange for five senior Taliban leaders 
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/sergeant-bowe-bergdahl-released-us-soldier-held-by-taliban-in-afghanistan-freed-after-five-years-barack-obama-confirms-9467018.html> 
held in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay.

"The US army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at," wrote 
Sergeant Bergdahl in an email later published by Rolling Stone magazine. 
"It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools, and bullies. The few good 
SGTs [sergeants] are getting out as soon as they can, and they are 
telling us privates to do the same."

Sgt Bergdahl had joined the army when it was short of soldiers to send 
to Afghanistan as part of the "surge" in the number of combat brigades 
there. With too few men, it had started to issue "waivers" to recruits 
facing felony charges or drugs problems who previously would have been 
turned down for the army. For Sgt Bergdahl, a crack shot, well-educated 
and with a romantic vision of what professional soldiering involved, 
disillusionment set in fast.

His company was understrength and demoralised. He complained that three 
good sergeants had been forced to move to another company and "one of 
the biggest shit bags is being put in charge of the team". The commander 
of his battalion was a "conceited old fool" and other officers were as 
bad: "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 whatever you 
want, and you will be handed your higher rank."

Sgt Bergdahl had taken seriously the counter-insurgency strategy 
supposedly aimed at winning the "hearts and minds" of Afghans. Instead, 
he found that US soldiers regarded Afghans with aggressive contempt: "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."

He spoke of seeing an Afghan child run over by an American 
heavy-armoured truck, an event which his parents believe may have led 
him to leave his base. His father responded to his last message with an 
email in which the subject line was titled: "Obey Your Conscience."

The life stories of the six men -- five Afghans and one American -- 
exchanged this weekend shows how quickly the mood of armies in 
Afghanistan can switch from full confidence in victory to frustration 
and defeat. In the summer of 2001 the Taliban rightly believed they were 
close to taking over the whole of Afghanistan as their enemies were 
penned into the mountains of the north-east.

But 9/11 changed all that and by November the Americans were cock-a-hoop 
that they had won an easy success. Eight years later Sgt Bergdahl's 
reasons for going Awol illustrate how far Afghanistan turned into a 
demoralising and unwinnable war for the US.

The Taliban had also seen hopes of victory turn sour in a much shorter 
period. Mullah Mohammed Fazl, also known as Mullah Fazel Mazloom, was 
the leader of 10,000 Taliban fighters held responsible for massacres of 
Hazara and Tajiks in northern Afghanistan.

He surrendered to the opposition Northern Alliance in 2001. With him was 
the governor of Balkh province, Mullah Norullah Noori. They were taken 
to the battleship USS Bataan and then to Guantanamo.

Ever since exploratory talks started between the US and the Taliban, the 
first demand of the latter was for these two men to be released. Other 
prisoners include Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa who was a founding 
member of the Taliban in 1994. In these early days after the fall of the 
Taliban, an over-confident US saw no reason why former Taliban leaders 
should be conciliated. Among those senior Taliban security official 
reported to have vainly reached out to the Americans are the two 
remaining detainees.

Who could have imagined at the end of 2001 that 13 years later the US 
would be exchanging prisoners with the Taliban? For the US, getting back 
their only prisoner detaches them further from Afghanistan, the handover 
of the five leaders is a sign of their legitimacy and strength.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20140604/a99cc74e/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: afghan_bowe_begdahl_460.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 11055 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20140604/a99cc74e/attachment-0001.jpg>