So did this guy desert the imperialist army or not?

[JackRiddler]

All those soldiers should come home, of course, since they shouldn't have been sent there in the first place. Even better if they had not believed the propaganda and enlisted.

But now I'm having trouble figuring this case out. So much haze around this. I'm wondering if he deserves our exceptional support, or if he is only being wrongfully praised as a war resister.

[840high]

1. He should come home but I am

reserving praise till we know more.

[JackRiddler]

2. "The US army is the biggest joke"

Okay, this is a sign in his favor. Was wondering if it was believable, given all the Republican inveterate liars giving him props and all (in their world-view, it's supposed to be a bad thing).

http://stopwar.org.uk/news/the-us-army-is-the-biggest-joke-says-soldier-bowe-bergdahl-released-by-the-taliban

SNIP

“The US army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at,” wrote Sergeant Bergdahl in an email later published by Rolling Stone magazine. “It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools, and bullies. The few good SGTs [sergeants] are getting out as soon as they can, and they are telling us privates to do the same.”

Sgt Bergdahl had joined the army when it was short of soldiers to send to Afghanistan as part of the “surge” in the number of combat brigades there. With too few men, it had started to issue “waivers” to recruits facing felony charges or drugs problems who previously would have been turned down for the army. For Sgt Bergdahl, a crack shot, well-educated and with a romantic vision of what professional soldiering involved, disillusionment set in fast.

Isn't that charming? If you steal this or that, or get caught as a retail soldier in the drug trade, you're a felon and thus not (normally) qualified to go massacre people in a foreign land.

His company was understrength and demoralised. He complained that three good sergeants had been forced to move to another company and “one of the biggest shit bags is being put in charge of the team”. The commander of his battalion was a “conceited old fool” and other officers were as bad: “In the US army you are cut down for being honest... but if you are a conceited brown-nosing shit bag you will be allowed to do whatever you want, and you will be handed your higher rank.”

Sgt Bergdahl had taken seriously the counter-insurgency strategy supposedly aimed at winning the “hearts and minds” of Afghans. Instead, he found that US soldiers regarded Afghans with aggressive contempt: “I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live.”