Bergdahl: Deserter or AWOL?

I agree with Rusty on this. Especially the AWOL angle.

Jawa:

Was Bergdahl a Deserter? Back to the Rape Analogy

Was the reason that Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban because he was a deserter?

Short answer: I don't care.

Long answer: I don't care, he's an American (one of us) and the Taliban are our enemies in a hot war. They have one of our soldiers.

Even if the Taliban took Michael Moore hostage I'd have a similar response.

Michael Moore is a douche, but he's our douche.

No person deserves the fate of a hostage in the hands of the Taliban. I'm told by a friend that Islamists are having a field day over at a certain well known forum contrasting how well Bergdahl is being treated by the Taliban with how poorly the US treats its POWs captured in the War on Terror.

If you think they make a good point, you are a moral idiot.

I cannot say how well Bergdahl is being treated by the Taliban. Let us assume it's three squares a day and conjugal visits. So what? At the end of the day he will probably be murdered.
Not executed. Not killed. Murdered.

Bergdahl committed no crime. He was a soldier in war. He is not a POW. He is a hostage.
Whatever crimes he is accused of committing by the Taliban are fabrications. Crimes against Islam are no crimes at all. They are sins.

If you believe people should be killed for sinning then perhaps you would feel more comfortable living in Saudi Arabia or Iran?

As for the desertion claim that some are writing in to Michelle Malkin about, I have no idea. Passing along rumors as fact is a popular past time among soldiers of all stripes.

I think, perhaps, we may be confusing the term desertion with AWOL (Absent Without Leave).
Very few soldiers desert, but thousands of them go AWOL every year. The key difference being that a deserter leaves and intends never to return. Someone who goes AWOL simply leaves, but with the intention of coming back. Usually because there is some fun to be had. Say, with one of the local girls? Generally you don't get permission from your commanding officer to visit the local red light district. Especially in Afghanistan.

Most AWOL cases are simply errors of judgment. You can't put tens of thousands of college age men anywhere on Earth and not expect lapses of judgment.

The surprising thing is so few major lapses in personal judgment happen. There is something about the training and culture of the U.S. armed services that takes a group of otherwise irresponsible youth and molds the majority of them into men.

Desertion, itself, may also be a lapse of judgment. If there is any veracity to the rumor that Bergdahl wanted to go "to the mountains to find himself" then clearly the young man was not in his right mind. Nobody goes to the Hindu Kush to find themselves. There aren't any Buddhist monasteries there with wise yet surprising witty monks -- with hot daughters -- guarding sacred knives.

Someone deserting in Afghanistan is unclear on the concept.

So, let's reserve judgment on Bergdahl for now. He's an American soldier being held hostage by our enemies in a hot war.

Let's not make him a target for our frustrations when our anger should be reserved for the Taliban. He is a victim.

As I've said over and over through the years, hostages often exercise extremely poor judgment and put themselves in situations which lead to their captivity.

But so do rape victims. Putting yourself in a bad situation does not morally excuse the monsters who would take advantage of your poor judgment. The person who is raped is a victim plain and simple.

In the case of hostages it is even more troubling than after the fact analysis of other crimes where the victim exercised poor judgment. That we are talking about Bergdahl's role in his own victimization while that victimization continues seems pretty bad to me. I don't know what to call it. Call it bad manners.

It's one thing to say Jodie Foster really should have worn panties and not been so flirty well after the fact, but it's another thing altogether to sit in the bar corner and tisk-tisk her for being so slutty while the rape is happening.

Bergdahl is being victimized right now. The Taliban are threatening to kill him right now.

I don't care if he wandered off in search of booze, a good time with one of the local women, or even if he was deserting and had some odd notion that he could wend his way home to Idaho or find Nirvana high on a mountain top.

The bad guys in this story are the Taliban. Bergdahl is the good guy. A flawed protagonist? Maybe. Like Clint Eastwood in insert-name-of-all-Clint-Eastwood-movies-here. But the protagonist nonetheless.

We're rooting for you Bowe Bergdahl. You and your family are in our prayers.