"Iceberg Right Ahead"

 

Sometimes I think any story we get out of Washington DC is like an ice-berg. You only see the top 1/3 of a berg, 2/3 of an iceberg is below the surface. Here is a case in point: The Bowe Bergdahl trade for Taliban Prisoners.

Bowe Bergdahl an Army private when captured (promoted to Sgt. in absentia during the last five years) was traded for five “master minds” of the Taliban that had been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for at least six years. The official story is: The US had been negotiating for five years to make a trade for Bergdahl and that on or about May 29^th of this year our “people” concluded he was in bad shape physically and might not live much longer, so negotiations were intensified and voila a deal was arranged in two days. He was handed back over to the US on May 31st. The official explanation of the hurried up negotiations and also illegally bypassing Congress (which by law has to sign off on anyone released from GITMO) was that “we never leave a man behind”.

BUT I WONDER:

Why (really) for the sudden hurry up? Given the fact that a week after he was back in US hands it was reported he was up and around in a German hospital and in good physical condition. What death-bed person is fine in less than a week? Given the fact that his fellow troops said he walked away from his post five years ago after several rants to his parents, friends, and fellow soldiers about how much he hated the Army, our being in Afghanistan and how much he hated America in general. It could be argued that we didn’t leave him behind, he was captured leaving America behind. Another issue is this:

Wasn’t Bergdahl already left behind? On any given day out of the last 1500+ days he was in captivity he could have been killed. If they had killed him a year ago, he would have been left behind, yes? This last year there was supposedly very little (if any) negotiations going on at all? Does that sound to you like a committed effort to not leave someone behind? I mean we are to believe that we MUST get him right now because we don’t leave soldiers behind BUT you left him behind the previous 1500 days or more.  So if he had looked healthy on the video he'd still be there? That’s a big HUH to me. If negotiations could get done in 2 days why didn’t we pull this off four years ago? I’m not saying the story as told to us isn’t true in some respects but it leaves me with a feeling of what’s the real story here? What is the 2/3 of the story below the surface??