FREEDOM FOR SERGEANT BOWE BERGDAHL: IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO

    

      The five Taliban leaders that were released from Guantanamo Bay detention camp on May 31st, 2014  

           in exchange for Prisoner of War, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl are not to be compared to 

General Zod and his criminal cohorts from the 1980 motion picture, Superman II.  These five former inmates of the United States military prison "Gitmo" were - at one time - responsible for hideous, horrendous, heinous crimes against Americans. But they alone cannot annihilate America nor can they exterminate or obliterate the Earth.  They are five men.  Five men.  And it's been between eleven and twelve years since these men have been the "big bad wolves" of the Taliban.  Yet, there are those in the United States who feel that releasing Sergeant Bergdahl was wrong... because they think...by making a deal with terrorists for any reason...is wrong.

     Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl - as with all our "boys and girls" who serve our country - must come home.  We...as a nation...and the government of the United States of America - all of us combined...all of us together - need our soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors to fight for us - when they are asked to do so - and they do it with honor...with valor...with bravery...and with courage. 

     We don't know the facts yet about Sergeant Bergdahl.  Today...Sunday, June 8th...there's a report by The New York Times that suggests that Bergdahl was beaten...tortured...and kept in a metal cage...in the dark...by his Taliban captors in Afghanistan after the 28-year old Army sergeant from Hailey, Idaho tried to escape.

     Bowe Bergdahl was captured in June of 2009 after he disappeared from his infantry unit.  Is he a defector?  Is he a deserter?  Did Sergeant Bergdahl go AWOL and leave his post for a deliberate reason?  We don't have the answers yet to any of these questions...and there is no definitive, clear-cut evidence that Bowe Bergdahl is a deserter.  And until we do know...let's not judge him.  Let us wait until he speaks out.  Only then will we know the truth about what happened to Bowe Bergdahl...how he was treated by the Taliban...why he left his post - which caused him to be captured - and all that needs to be known about Bowe Bergdahl's nearly five years of captivity by Taliban militants.

     In the meantime...let's not make five people the Hannibal Lecter of worldwide terrorism.  True, the Taliban is a murderous group of wicked, sinful and immoral individuals...whose sole mission in life is to destroy and bring death to Americans.  These five men are dangerous...and - at one time - they were without question some of the super villains of the Taliban.  So obviously...these Taliban serial killers and international felons don't

 
deserve freedom.  But Bowe Bergdahl does.  We should not paint these five men as evil characters in a Clint Eastwood or John Wayne movie.  Dirty Harry and Rooster Cogburn will not be needed to go after these five former members of the Taliban leadership.  They have been out of touch with the Taliban for more than a decade...and they are being monitored.  They are being watched.  The former inmates of the Guantanamo Bay prison were sent to Qatar...a sovereign Arab Emirate nation in western Asia...and that is where the men will remain - with restrictions - for at least one year.  And if these five treacherous Taliban time bombs happen to elude those who are keeping a focused eye on them... and they re-enter the battlefield...re-enter the fight...and return to the top of the Taliban ladder...I am confident that U.S. intelligence agents...and our military...will find them...take them down... and - if necessary - kill them.  They were captured before...and they can be captured again.

     We cherish the lives of all our servicemen and women who wear an American military uniform.  There may be legitimate concerns as a result of the swap for Bowe Bergdahl's freedom...but we bring our military troops - each and everyone of them - home.  The Pentagon always says that we do not ever
  

leave a fallen comrade behind.  President Obama and others at The White House who were involved in Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl's release...did what was right.  Not for any reason do we leave one of our own with the enemy.  Sergeant Bergdahl was released from the enemy and is being treated at the United States Army hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.  We have to question him.  We may even need to interrogate him harshly.  But we bring our man...or our woman...home.  And that's what we did.

      For now...the mother and father of one of our armed forces troops...can sleep better...knowing their son is safe.  And that alone should bring smiles to all Americans.

     And that's The Controversy for today.

     I'm Gary B. Duglin.

     "We'll talk again."

The Controversy is a publication of GBD Productions.  Founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Controversy is Gary B. Duglin.  

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