Five for one

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

This really belongs in Laffs:

Bergdahl's Defense: I Was Planning to Come Right Back

(Bloomberg View) -- Former Taliban prisoner and U.S. Army soldier Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl told military investigators that he left his base in June 2009 to report on misconduct in his unit and always intended to come right back. That will also be his defense if and when he faces a court martial for desertion, according to his lawyer.

“He had concerns about certain conditions in the unit and things that happened in the unit and he figured that the only way to get any attention to them would be to get that information to a general officer,” Bergdahl’s lawyer, Eugene Fidell, told me Thursday. Fidell plans to argue that Bergdahl was thus technically "absent without official leave" (AWOL), rather than a deserter. The distinction could mean the difference between one month of confinement or life in prison for his client.

Bergdahl himself put forward this account of events in an interview with General Kenneth Dahl, whose report formed the basis for the Army’s decision to charge Bergdahl this week with desertion, an offense that holds a maximum penalty of five years, and misbehavior before the enemy, a charge that could earn him life in prison if convicted. Bergdahl claims that he didn't feel he could raise his concerns about his unit with his direct supervisors and needed to speak with a higher-ranking officer. Bergdahl always intended to return to his base, says Fidell.

On Wednesday, Fidell released a statement by Bergdahl about the conditions of his imprisonment, as well as a legal memo Fidell wrote this month about Dahl’s report. “While hedging its bets, the report basically concludes that SGT Bergdahl did not intend to remain away from the Army permanently, as classic ‘long’ desertion requires,” the memo says. “It also concludes that his specific intent was to bring what he thought were disturbing circumstances to the attention of the nearest general officer.”

Bergdahl had left his base, called Mest-Lalak, in Paktika province when he was picked up by the Taliban and then subsequently held for more than five years. Fidell says he doesn't consider Bergdahl a whistleblower in the classic sense, but says his client didn't feel comfortable reporting the alleged incidents to his direct superiors because some of them were part of the conditions he intended to report.

“No, he was not planning to walk to China or India,” Fidell writes in the memo, contrary to claims by some soldiers who served with Bergdahl. “Nor is there any credible evidence that SGT Bergdahl left in order to get in touch with the Taliban.”

In a series of e-mail communications revealed by Bergdahl's father to to Rolling Stone magazine in 2012, Fidell's client wrote, “The future is too good to waste on lies. And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be American. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is all revolting."

Bergdahl told his parents they would be receiving boxes containing his possessions. He also detailed his complaints about his unit in the e-mails, including that three “good” sergeants had been forced to move to another company. He said his battalion commander was a "conceited old fool."

He also expressed overall anger and resentment about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and the way it was being executed. "I am sorry for everything," he wrote. "The horror that is America is disgusting."

Fidell doesn’t deny Bergdahl wrote those e-mails, but argues in his memo that Bergdahl was a naïve and sometimes misguided young man. Also, since Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban shortly after he left the base, he was AWOL for less than three days, Fidell wrote, meaning the maximum punishment should be one month’s imprisonment and one month of reduced pay.

“SGT Bergdahl has been vilified as a coward in the absence of a shred of evidence to support that description,” Fidell wrote. “Whatever physical danger SGT Bergdahl may face when he reenters private life (and I fear he will), it would be very difficult to assemble an impartial court-martial panel.”

There are several other arguments in Fidell’s memo, including that the Army’s decision to return Bergdahl to regular duty after he was freed shows that the military condoned his actions, a legal term known as “constructive condonation.” According to that defense, if the Army returns a soldier to regular duty after a desertion, the Army is thereby absolving the soldier of punishment. Fidell also claims Bergdahl shouldn't be charged with avoiding "hazardous duty" because being outside the wire without a weapon was more dangerous than being inside the base with a rifle.

These arguments may be long shots.[Ya think?]Sympathy in the military and the public for Bergdahl is scarce. His hometown, which stood by him during his captivity, canceled his welcome home celebration. Polls of the military show that a majority of soldiers want to see him punished. Administration officials no longer repeat National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s claim that Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction,” as she did last year.

(The first thing to note would be that this guy's a great one to be talking about "self-righteous arrogance"...)

So let's see...

Berghdahl deserts his post and goes wandering off alone into the Afghan night, in an area known to be teeming with Taliban fighters, without his rifle, expecting to find a general out there somewhere to whom he could report some sort of "misconduct" in his unit. And then he intended to wander back to his post...

So that's his story? Really?

Let's just say that in the history of cunning plans, that one wouldn't rank right up near the top...

Here's a little more detail on the "misconduct" he wanted to report . (From CNN's website)

Bergdahl was planning to report what he believed to be problems with "order and discipline" in his unit, a senior Defense official tells CNN. A second official says Bergdahl had "concerns about leadership issues at his base."

Okay, now maybe he does have a point...

Afterall, in his unit, "order and discipline" was apparently so poor that soldiers felt perfectly free to desert their posts in the middle of the night and go wandering off into hostile territory alone without their weapons...

That really should have been reported to somebody...

This line of defense is not only laughably absurd, but think of how galling it must be to the members of his unit who actually did serve with "honor and distinction" for this weasel to be trying to claim that they were the ones behaving improperly...

To say nothing of how the families of the brave men who lost their lives looking for this SOB must feel about it...

[Crackpot]

I wouldn't fully discount it considering that any plan involving wandering blindly into hostile enemy territory is bound to be problematic.