Bergdahl says he was tortured by Taliban captors

AP ^ | 6/8/2014 | Lolita C. Baldor

[mojito]

U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has told people treating him at an American military medical facility in Germany that he was tortured, beaten and held in a cage by his Taliban captors in Afghanistan after he tried to escape, a senior U.S. official said Sunday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss what Bergdahl has revealed about the conditions of his captivity. The New York Times first reported on the matter.

The official said it was difficult to verify the accounts Bergdahl has given since his release a week ago.

[....]

Military doctors at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center say that while Bergdahl is physically able to travel he's not yet emotionally prepared to be reunited with his family. He has not yet spoken to his family.

[cherry]

I guess I’m just a mean old lady but I don’t give one rip for this traitor and American hater...

[IIntense]

That's disgusting! What's wrong with you?

[IIntense]

Too disabled to see his family? Who in his right mind would buy that nonsense?

[stevie_d_64]

Ok, so he was tortured...Happens all the time...Ae some people surprised? Apparently...

The “real” question should be, “How hard did he actually try to escape???

And was there “mistreatment” before he tried to fly the coup???

I mean we could come up with allllll sorts of questions...

The more time the government/administration keeps him squirreled away, and the longer the media keeps the pressure as little as possible for public interaction between this guy and the rest of us...

The more I smell an attempt to use that eventuality as a smokescreen for some future scandal that the administration needs to cover with something else to water down the outrage in all aspects of how this administration operates...

The more pity that can be heaped upon this exchanged “deserter”, his family and his hometown, with all the death threats and other potential protests against them, the better for the Propaganda Ministry...

But this is just my opinion...

[stevie_d_64]

Unless you’re Anthony Hopkins...He could take one with a sharpened stick!!!

Riveting scene!

[palmer]

Mark my words, this is going to backfire BIG time on the GOP and Conservatives for not taking a wait and see attitude. BIG time.

Considering the alternative is to jump to conclusions with no facts, I think I will stick with wait and see (and investigate).

[NFHale]

If he wouldn’t have deserted his post and went looking for them, he wouldn’t have been “tortured”.

It’s real simple.

He walked away from his guard post, while his countrymen were sleeping; he exposed them to possible lethal harm by his actions. He sought out the enemy, to join with them, against his own countrymen.

His own platoon has come out against him; people DIED looking for him.

I have no sympathy for this creep. Court martial, and then Ft Leavenworth at the minimum.

[CodeJockey]

Let us remember a true America hero. Admiral James Stockdale. This is an excerpt from his Wikipedia page:

Flying from USS Oriskany on a mission over North Vietnam on September 9, 1965, Stockdale ejected from his Douglas A-4E Skyhawk, which had been struck by enemy fire and completely disabled. He parachuted into a small village, where he was severely beaten and taken prisoner.

Stockdale was held as a prisoner of war in the Hoa Lo prison for the next seven and a half years. As the senior Naval officer, he was one of the primary organizers of prisoner resistance. Tortured routinely and denied medical attention for the severely damaged leg he suffered during capture, Stockdale created and enforced a code of conduct for all prisoners which governed torture, secret communications, and behavior.

In the summer of 1969, he was locked in leg irons in a bath stall and routinely tortured and beaten. When told by his captors that he was to be paraded in public, Stockdale slit his scalp with a razor to purposely disfigure himself so that his captors could not use him as propaganda. When they covered his head with a hat, he beat himself with a stool until his face was swollen beyond recognition. When Stockdale was discovered with information that could implicate his friends' "black activities", he slit his wrists so they could not torture him into confession. Early in Stockdale's captivity, his wife, Sybil Stockdale, organized The League of American Families of POWs and MIAs, with other wives of servicemen who were in similar circumstances.

By 1968, she and her organization, which called for the President and the U.S. Congress to publicly acknowledge the mistreatment of the POWs (something that had never been done despite evidence of gross mistreatment), gained the attention of the American press. Sybil Stockdale personally made these demands known at the Paris Peace Talks.

President Gerald Ford presents the Medal of Honor to Stockdale at the White House on March 4, 1976. Stockdale was one of about eleven prisoners known as the "Alcatraz Gang": George Thomas Coker, George McKnight, Jeremiah Denton, Harry Jenkins, Sam Johnson, James Mulligan, Howard Rutledge, Robert Shumaker, Ronald Storz and Nels Tanner. These individuals had been leaders of resistance activities while in captivity and thus were separated from other captives and placed in solitary confinement. "Alcatraz" was a special facility in a courtyard behind the North Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense, located about one mile away from Hoa Lo Prison. In Alcatraz, each of the prisoners was kept in an individual cell measuring 3 feet by 9 feet with a light bulb kept on around the clock, and they were locked in leg irons each night.

In a business book by James C. Collins called Good to Great, Collins writes about a conversation he had with Stockdale regarding his coping strategy during his period in the Vietnamese POW camp. I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade." When Collins asked who didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:

Oh, that's easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart." Stockdale then added:

This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." Witnessing this philosophy of duality, Collins went on to describe it as the Stockdale Paradox.

[Covenantor]

We are in accord, but let's clarify his action the night of his departure.

He walked away from his guard post, while his countrymen were sleeping; he exposed them to possible lethal harm by his actions. He sought out the enemy, to join with them, against his own countrymen.

Pvt Berdahl laid down his Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) a light machine gun that provides significant firepower for the defense of his platoon's position. The absence of which leaves an unprotected hole in the perimeter defense at night.

No eyes and no weapon where his comrades relied on Bergdahl to watch their flanks and back.

After laying down the rest of his kit he had to sneak from his firing position at night and then navigate the concertina wire enclosing the position, all without alerting his comrades.

All his actions were carefully considered and planned.

Pvt Bergdahl should have his court martial and then hang from the gallows.

[NFHale]

You have absolutely zero argument from me, my friend. I’ll not shed one tear for this cowardly pr*ck if he swings.

[william clark]

And now he insists on being called Reek.

[patriotspride]

And now he insists on being called Reek.

---

Nice Game of Thrones reference.... Well done.

The actor who plays Theon Greyjoy/Reek really does that well....

[Covenantor]

Sorry I wasn’t clear that I was buttressing your post by trying to illustrate for those that didn’t get the news about the SAW or didn’t know what it was and its importance to the defense.

His prep for desertion/defection is being soft pedaled as though he just happened to see a butterfly and sort of, kinda flaked in following it, all the while intending to return but darn those rabbits.

[NFHale]

Thanks... I didn’t know he was the squad auto weapons guy. That makes it even worse.

They could have all been slaughtered in their sleep while he slinked off into the night.

Imagine someone on Iwo Jima, or Saipan, or Peleliu doing that, laying down the BAR or the M 1919 to desert to the Japanese... And now imagine what would happen to the bast*rd when we got him back - IF the Japs didn’t behead him first.

Those were better days, with better people.

[dragnet2]

Too disabled to see his family? Who in his right mind would buy that nonsense?

Very naive/stupid people and or those in on the con-job.

The same one's who can't figure out their own government for decades now has been intentionally flooding our country with illegal aliens and foreign nationals...

[matt1234]

Mark my words, this is going to backfire BIG time on the GOP and Conservatives for not taking a wait and see attitude. BIG time.

I have marked your words so that I can rub it in your face when you are proven wrong.

On a brighter note, you may have a promising future in the GOP-E.

[itsahoot]

U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has told people treating him at an American military medical facility in Germany that he was tortured,

The for the love of Pete, award him the Medal of Honor.

[madison10]

MOST prisoners would still be speaking English to themselves in their heads over the whole five years. If this guy was speaking something “other” than English, he was gone when they took him.

[madison10]

...or when he walked into their open arms.

[cherokee1]

“anonymity-—not authorized to discuss-—”? Then he ought to shut the bleep up because all he is doing is generating fake krap. I simply never believe those kinds of “news” reports. No guts, no facts, no nothing except my BS flag.