[colorado tanker]

Actually, Daddy did not pick up the local language, which is another weird thing about this business. Where the guy was held, Pashto is the local language, not Arabic.

[a fool in paradise]

My understanding is that the dad DID learn Pashto. Maybe I confused one of the reports with the son learning it.

[a fool in paradise]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/for-father-of-released-pow-growing-a-beard-and-studying-captors-defined-the-years/2014/06/02/d8de9fcc-ea93-11e3-93d2-edd4be1f5d9e_story.html

“Bowe, I love you. I am your father,” Bergdahl said at the news conference in Boise. He then spoke in Pashto, adding “I’ve written to you over and over” before speaking again in the foreign language.

[attiladhun2]

But Arabic is the language of the Haqqani group, which indicates Bergdahl was working closely with Arabic speakers for some time. Were he a prisoner, he would have been isolated and would have had little contact with anyone but his guards, who would need to know little, if any, English. This whole thing stinks.

[WildHighlander57]

So the “signal” was being sent to those whose primary language IS Arabic.

Unless its standard practice to recite the “bismillah” in Arabic.