Ed Morrissey:
The State Department’s attempt to shut up the soldiers who served with Bowe Bergdahl at the time of his capture may end up backfiring on the White House, which has apparently decided to attack their integrity rather than explain their own spin on the issue. One soldier appeared on Fox and Friends this morning who took part in the post-desertion search for Bergdahl and said that the military instructed them to lie about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance (via Noah Rothman at Mediaite):
[youtube]http://youtu.be/CRTlH69zBBA[/youtube]
“The sentiment that everybody knew was that he walked off the base in the middle of the night, left all his gear there, and went – just walked off the post,” Fuller said. “So, we had all known that it was — that he had deserted his post, and there was never anything about him getting captured or POW until a little while later whenever it came down from the chain of command that we needed to keep quiet and not say anything.”
“We’re going with the narrative that he was captured,” Fuller said of the military’s position on Bergdahl’s alleged desertion.
“So, they basically told you not to tell the truth,” Fox host Brian Kilmeade said.
“Yes, sir,” Fuller replied.
Fuller concluded by corroborating the claims of Bergdahl’s former team leader, Sgt. Evan Buetow,who told CNN on Tuesday that the Taliban’s attacks became more directed after Bergdahl was captured.
“The ambushes we use, the certain tactics we use, the Taliban was picking up on those things,” Fuller said. “You could tell it was from somebody on the inside that had that info.”
There may have been some operational and security issues involved in attempting to keep the disappearance quiet at that point in time. For instance, they could have hoped to keep the value of Bergdahl to the local Taliban or the Haqqanis low enough to arrange for an inexpensive trade — perhaps even some cash. There is some indication that the low-value approach was initially successful, but was lost when the captors published the first captivity video of Bergdahl and the Haqqanis realized what they had. But that’s an argument for keeping the disappearance and capture entirely quiet, and not just cover it with a false narrative, especially among those who already knew what had happened.
And thus does the swift boating begin.
Let all the records be unsealed. 2009 records should be unsealed. Who ordered the recapture of Bergdahl, and who called it off? Who ordered the servicemen to be silent?
Were is the dude?
Where was the ceremony to honor the families of the eight servicemen who died in the search?
I must have missed it.
We have not been able to learn about Fast and Furious. We have not been able to learn about Boko Haram. We have not been able to learn about Benghazi. We have not been able to learn about the IRS. We have not been able to learn about the VA “Hospital” system.
We have just not been able to learn much of anything.
A steady diet of propaganda makes one ill after a while. And that is all we get!