- Jan 15, 2013
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After CNN reported as a fact that at least six soldiers died looking for Sergeant Bergdahl after senior American military officials say he wandered off his base, others followed the lead. The narrative is out there, and its being echoed throughout the Internet. The New York Times looked into the matter and found that claim to be murky.
The Times reviewed casualty reports and contemporaneous military logs from the Afghanistan war which shows that the facts surrounding the eight deaths are far murkier than definitive even as critics of Sergeant Bergdahl contend that every American combat death in Paktika Province in the months after he disappeared, from July to September 2009, was his fault.
During the most intense period of the search after Bergdahl disappeared two soldiers died.. Both of the now deceased soldiers were inside an outpost that came under attack. They were not out patrolling and running checkpoints looking for him. As for the other six soldiers,, they died in late August and early September.
The New York Times reports:
But an archive of military reports logging significant activities in Americas war in Afghanistan offers a contemporaneous written record of events in Paktika that summer. The archive was made public by Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Pvt. Bradley Manning, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for the leak.
The first two deaths the critics link to Sergeant Bergdahl involved a major assault by insurgents on a combat outpost called Zerok on July 4, 2009. Their view is that the Taliban knew the Americans were stretched thin by the search mission and took advantage of that opportunity to try to overrun it.
The other six American deaths in Paktika that summer occurred from Aug. 18 to Sept. 5, which Sergeant Bergdahls critics link to him as well.
You see a lot of anger because we lost guys not only at Zerok, but a decent amount of good guys looking for him, said a soldier from his unit who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Where those events are identifiable in the logs, they do not mention any link to Bergdahl search operations, although the logs are terse and contain few contextual details.
Mr. Bethea wrote that of the six men killed in August and September, two died in a roadside bombing while on a reconnaissance mission, a third was shot during a search for a Taliban political leader and three others were killed while conducting patrols two in an ambush and one who stepped on a mine.
He suggested some connection to Sergeant Bergdahl for several of the deaths, saying the Taliban leader and a village that was in the area of one of the patrols were thought affiliated with Bergdahls captors. He also said a village in the areas of the other patrol was near the area where Bergdahl vanished.
Still, those villages and insurgents were in the overall area of responsibility for the soldiers, and the logs make clear that the region was an insurgent hotbed. A log on May 21, 2009, for example, said it had historically been a safe haven for the Taliban.
A retired senior American military officer, who was briefed at the time on the search for Sergeant Bergdahl, said that even though soldiers were instructed to watch for signs of the missing American, they would have been conducting patrols and performing risky operations anyway.
Look, its not like these soldiers would have been sitting around their base, he said.
The soldier who spoke on condition of anonymity agreed that it was ludicrous to lay 100 percent of the blame for the deaths at Sergeant Bergdahls feet, and he acknowledged that patrols were going to get hit in Paktika during fighting season anyway.
This is why its important to get all of the facts instead of going all CNN on the story. For the right wing critics who claim the POW was an anti-American deserter, one only has to look at Dick Cheney who asked and received 5 deferments to avoid the draft for a villain. Or the right wing hero, Ted Nugent, who was so frightened at the prospect of going to war that he literally shit in his pants and remained unbathed for weeks in order to get out of serving his country. This man actually went to war.
It would be more productive as well as patriotic to welcome the newly freed POW home.
The facts will come later.
Link
The Times reviewed casualty reports and contemporaneous military logs from the Afghanistan war which shows that the facts surrounding the eight deaths are far murkier than definitive even as critics of Sergeant Bergdahl contend that every American combat death in Paktika Province in the months after he disappeared, from July to September 2009, was his fault.
During the most intense period of the search after Bergdahl disappeared two soldiers died.. Both of the now deceased soldiers were inside an outpost that came under attack. They were not out patrolling and running checkpoints looking for him. As for the other six soldiers,, they died in late August and early September.
The New York Times reports:
But an archive of military reports logging significant activities in Americas war in Afghanistan offers a contemporaneous written record of events in Paktika that summer. The archive was made public by Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Pvt. Bradley Manning, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for the leak.
The first two deaths the critics link to Sergeant Bergdahl involved a major assault by insurgents on a combat outpost called Zerok on July 4, 2009. Their view is that the Taliban knew the Americans were stretched thin by the search mission and took advantage of that opportunity to try to overrun it.
The other six American deaths in Paktika that summer occurred from Aug. 18 to Sept. 5, which Sergeant Bergdahls critics link to him as well.
You see a lot of anger because we lost guys not only at Zerok, but a decent amount of good guys looking for him, said a soldier from his unit who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Where those events are identifiable in the logs, they do not mention any link to Bergdahl search operations, although the logs are terse and contain few contextual details.
Mr. Bethea wrote that of the six men killed in August and September, two died in a roadside bombing while on a reconnaissance mission, a third was shot during a search for a Taliban political leader and three others were killed while conducting patrols two in an ambush and one who stepped on a mine.
He suggested some connection to Sergeant Bergdahl for several of the deaths, saying the Taliban leader and a village that was in the area of one of the patrols were thought affiliated with Bergdahls captors. He also said a village in the areas of the other patrol was near the area where Bergdahl vanished.
Still, those villages and insurgents were in the overall area of responsibility for the soldiers, and the logs make clear that the region was an insurgent hotbed. A log on May 21, 2009, for example, said it had historically been a safe haven for the Taliban.
A retired senior American military officer, who was briefed at the time on the search for Sergeant Bergdahl, said that even though soldiers were instructed to watch for signs of the missing American, they would have been conducting patrols and performing risky operations anyway.
Look, its not like these soldiers would have been sitting around their base, he said.
The soldier who spoke on condition of anonymity agreed that it was ludicrous to lay 100 percent of the blame for the deaths at Sergeant Bergdahls feet, and he acknowledged that patrols were going to get hit in Paktika during fighting season anyway.
This is why its important to get all of the facts instead of going all CNN on the story. For the right wing critics who claim the POW was an anti-American deserter, one only has to look at Dick Cheney who asked and received 5 deferments to avoid the draft for a villain. Or the right wing hero, Ted Nugent, who was so frightened at the prospect of going to war that he literally shit in his pants and remained unbathed for weeks in order to get out of serving his country. This man actually went to war.
It would be more productive as well as patriotic to welcome the newly freed POW home.
The facts will come later.
Link
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