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The Library => The SGA => Topic started by: Tarheel on July 02, 2009, 09:30:20 AM
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I'm not going to politicize this; God-forbid that anything happens to this missing soldier.
US: American soldier captured in Afghanistan
3 hours ago [2 Jul 2009]
KABUL (AP) — US military spokeswoman says insurgents have captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan.
Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier has been missing since Tuesday. She said she could not provide further information.
Mathias said the military was using "all our resources to find him and provide for his safe return."
The soldier was not taking part in the major military operation launched in the southern Taliban stronghold of Helmand early Thursday.
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Source:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ijSi9m3h-DBGg4Cv6E4XiAYH6YcwD9968L1O0 (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ijSi9m3h-DBGg4Cv6E4XiAYH6YcwD9968L1O0)
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Perhaps this is a naive question -
Aren't we at war or engaging in military operations in Afghanistan? US soldiers have been killed, and I'm sure some taken captive. It's a HUGE deal, and I want all of our resources to be used to get this guy back. However, your post has the connotation of being more dire than regular. What gives?
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Rarely, in these latest conflicts, are our soldiers taken captive. Killed, yes. Held by some splinter groups that do not follow the Geneva Convention, not so much.
Given the choice, I might choose death over being held by some of these guys. I have looked them face to face. Even the ones that were our "friends" are not very nice people.
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Yes not good at all.
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Perhaps this is a naive question -
Aren't we at war or engaging in military operations in Afghanistan? US soldiers have been killed, and I'm sure some taken captive. It's a HUGE deal, and I want all of our resources to be used to get this guy back. However, your post has the connotation of being more dire than regular. What gives?
I defer to (and agree with) Pale Rider and Saniflush as the answer to your question regarding my reaction.
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Update....Still not good in my book.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090719/D99HIF5G0.html (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090719/D99HIF5G0.html)
Soldier held in Afghanistan is 23-year-old Idahoan
Jul 19, 10:03 AM (ET)
By PAMELA HESS and LOLITA BALDOR
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon has identified the American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured.
The Defense Department said in a statement Sunday that the soldier is Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, of Ketchum, Idaho. The statement also says his status is now classified as missing-captured, rather than whereabouts unknown.
In a video posted online by the Taliban on Saturday, he's heard saying he's "scared I won't be able to go home."
Before the Pentagon released Bergdahl's identity, two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the 28-minute video was the captured soldier.
The military said on July 2 that a U.S. soldier had disappeared after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured, said in a video posted by the Taliban that he's "scared I won't be able to go home."
Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the video posted Saturday on the Internet is the captured soldier, but the Defense Department has not released his name. The video provided the first glimpse the public has had of the missing soldier.
The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. He is sitting and dressed in a nondescript, gray outfit. Early in the video one of his captors holds the soldier's dog tag up to the camera. His name and ID number are clearly visible. He is shown eating at one point and sitting cross-legged.
The soldier, whose identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon, says his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released on a Web site pointed out by the Taliban.
He said the date was July 14 and that he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.
He's interviewed in English by his captors, and he is asked his views on the war, which he calls extremely hard, his desire to learn more about Islam and the morale of American soldiers, which he said was low.
Asked how he was doing, the soldier said on the video:
"Well I'm scared, scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner."
He later chokes up when discussing his family and his hope to marry his girlfriend.
"I have a very, very good family that I love back home in America. And I miss them every day when I'm gone," he said.
He is also prompted by his interrogators to give a message to the American people.
"To my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it's like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring them home," he said. "Please, please bring us home so that we can be back where we belong and not over here, wasting our time and our lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own country. Please bring us home. It is America and American people who have that power."
A U.S. military spokeswoman in Afghanistan, Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, said the Taliban was using their captive for propaganda.
"I'm glad to see he appears unharmed, but again, this is a Taliban propaganda video," she said. "They are exploiting the soldier in violation of international law."
It is unclear from the video whether the July 14 date is authentic. The soldier says that he heard that a Chinook helicopter carrying 37 NATO troops had been shot down over Helmand. A helicopter was shot down in southern Afghanistan on July 14, but it was carrying civilians on a reported humanitarian mission for NATO forces. All six Ukrainian passengers died in the crash, and a child on the ground was killed.
On July 2, the U.S. military said an American soldier had disappeared after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner.
Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors.
But Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in eastern Paktika province near the border with Pakistan from an American base. The region is known to be Taliban-infested.
Afghans in contact with the Taliban told The Associated Press that the soldier was held by a Taliban group led by a commander called Maulvi Sangin, who operates in the area where the American went missing. They said the fighters initially planned to smuggle the soldier across the border into Pakistan but ruled that out because of U.S. missile strikes and Pakistani bombing attacks against militant targets in the area. Instead, they decided to move him north into Taliban-controlled areas of Ghazni province.
The Afghans spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of arrest or reprisal, and it was impossible to independently confirm their information.
A brigade commander for the Afghan national army in southeastern Afghanistan, Gen. Asrar Ahmad Khan, said Afghan and coalition forces have been working together for 15 days searching for the missing soldier.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the militants holding the soldier haven't yet set any conditions for his release.
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I'll politicize this - why not? Very few in Washington will be as concerned for this young man as we are.
If they kill him... may Allah have no mercy on their flea bitten souls as US missles rain down hellfire and brimstone on entire swaths of Afghanistan while SEAL teams infiltrate and silently slice throats and other vital organs to show that NO ONE fucks with the United States military...
Oh, wait...
Obama is in charge...
So much for that.