The charges leveled against freed POW Sgt Bowe Bergdahl this week are making less and less sense the more details of Army reports emerge, as the Army had apparently concluded that Bergdahl did none of the things he’s being charged with.
Bergdahl is facing two main charges, desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. The later was seen as particularly strange at the time, since the Army had already cleared him of misconduct during his near five years as a hostage months prior.
The latest details are that the Army report explicitly says Bergdahl never intended to desert, either. Bergdahl left his outpost in July 2009 to report wrongdoing, planning to walk to the nearest base to report it to senior officials.
The details of what he intended to report still haven’t come to light, but officials called them “disturbing circumstances,” adding that he “wasn’t planning to desert.” Charging him with desertion, then, makes no sense at all.
Hawks were objecting to the POW exchange last year when it happened, and have attacked Bergdahl for getting captured in the first place. It seems that this political bias against him is fueling a lot of the momentum behind the charges, as the facts that have come to light so far don’t support the charges at all.
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