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Title: SGT. BERGDAHL AND THE FOG OF WAR
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URL Source: http://fff.org/explore-freedom/arti ... t-bergdahl-and-the-fog-of-war/
Published: Jun 6, 2014
Author: Sheldon Richman
Post Date: 2014-06-06 07:29:11 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 278
Comments: 28
by June 4, 2014 The “fog of war” is a reference to the moral chaos on the battlefield as well as the rampant confusion. Individuals kill others for no other reason than that they are ordered to. Things deemed unambiguously bad in civilian life are authorized and even lauded in war. The killing and maiming of acknowledged innocents — in particular children and the elderly — is excused as “collateral damage.” No wonder that some individuals thrust into this morass sometimes act differently from how soldiers behave in romantic war movies. The hell of war is internal as well as external. We might remember this as the story of Sgt. Bowe Robert Bergdahl unfolds. Bergdahl volunteered for the U.S. military and was apparently a gung-ho soldier. Americans have not been conscripted since 1973, but young Americans are propagandized from childhood with the message that time in the military is service to their country. Few question this narrative; fewer seek rebuttals to it. You have to want to face the facts that governments lie and that the service is to an empire having nothing to do with Americans’ security. This, however, doesn’t relieve military personnel of responsibility for their own conduct. In 1951 — while Americans were fighting in Korea — Leonard E. Read, one of the founders of the modern libertarian movement, published “Conscience on the Battlefield,” in which a dying American soldier hears his conscience say that he — not the army or government — bears responsibility for his deadly conduct: “Does not the fault inhere in your not recognizing that the consequences of your actions are irrevocably yours…?” Bergdahl seems to have been plagued by this question. (See Michael Hastings’s revealing 2012 article.) In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell described a regime that used war to keep its population too frightened to ask questions and in which the enemy could change without notice. Orwell may have exaggerated, but not by much. The United States sided with one Afghan faction against the Soviets and their Afghan allies in the 1980s, then switched when it replaced the Soviets as invaders in 2001. On the surface, the war in Afghanistan seems easy to understand. The Taliban government gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, which attacked American targets in the 1990s and on September 11, 2001. But things are not so simple. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the U.S. government sided with the future Taliban and al-Qaeda. President Reagan called the Afghan mujahideen “freedom fighters,” subsidized their war, and hosted them at the White House. After the Soviet exit and years of civil war, the Taliban became the brutal theocratic government of Afghanistan, but not an anti-American terrorist organization. Indeed, as late as May 2001, President George W. Bush was helping the Taliban suppress opium production. After 9/11, the Taliban made various offers to surrender or expel bin Laden, but the Bush administration was uninterested. (This lack of interest predated 9/11.) Taliban attacks on American military targets since the U.S. invasion should not be construed as terrorism, but rather as combat between former government officials and the foreign force that overthrew them. Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes, points out that soon after American forces invaded Afghanistan, “there was no enemy to fight”: By mid-2002 there was no insurgency in Afghanistan: al-Qaeda had fled the country and the Taliban had ceased to exist as a military movement. Jalaluddin Haqqani [whose “network” held Bergdahl captive] and other top Taliban figures were reaching out to the other side in an attempt to cut a deal and lay down their arms. But, Gopal writes, “driven by the idée fixe that the world was rigidly divided into terrorist and non-terrorist camps, Washington allied with Afghan warlords and strongmen. Their enemies became ours, and through faulty intelligence, their feuds became repackaged as ‘counterterrorism.’” When Haqqani, a celebrated freedom fighter during the Soviet war, turned down a deal from the Americans because it included detention, the U.S. military attacked his home province and other areas, killing his brother-in-law and innocent children. If he wasn’t with the Americans, he was against them, and therefore it was open season. In this whirlwind of cynicism and relativism, can anyone be blamed for wondering what the point of the war was?
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#1. To: Ada (#0)
Service in US military currently has everything to do with job security of Democrat and Republican members of Congress who, as long as they fund wars against Israel's enemies, are assured of Jew support at election time under the auspices of a giant corporation called AIPAC.
After this point, the author strayed from his desired path. Non grunts, never were grunts, must accept the underlying foundation of military AUTHORITY. This authority is written in typical legal language that needs translation. Namely a grunts job in total is very simple, do battle, kill or be killed, AND IF YOU DISOBEY, WE WILL KILL YOU. Regardless of how one becomes a grunt that pressure is always there. The author failed, as most people do, to describe the social status of the majority of grunts, whether conscripts or volunteers. That part seems to embarrass too many people, so we describe them as being stupid, social misfits, on and on.
Bergdahl is not a grunt. He's an officer, a Sgt. Will this change your opinion of him?
I don't see Bergdahl being some victim of a "fog of war". Now, Harry "The Breaker" Morant, he got caught up in a bad circumstance that is still being discussed in Australia to this day. Here's a more fitting example of the "fog of war": service is to an empire having nothing to do with Americans’ security.
#2. To: Ada, armchair warriors (#0)
Few question this narrative; fewer seek rebuttals to it. You have to want to face the facts that governments lie and that the service is to an empire having nothing to do with Americans’ security.
#3. To: Cynicom (#2)
#4. To: Ada (#0)
-Alex Kurtagic
#5. To: scrapper2 (#3)
All enlisted are grunts, have been for ever, and now until eternity. I have no opinion, nor judgement. Such is up to the military, civilians have no standing in judging. Guilty, hang him. Not guilty, civilians need to busy themselves with their own affairs. Double jeopardy is not allowed. Bergdahl is not a grunt. He's an officer, a Sgt. Will this change your opinion of him?
#6. To: scrapper2 (#3)
Bergdahl is enlisted, he didn't receive a commission from Congress that made him an officer. Point of reference.
-Alex Kurtagic
#7. To: X-15 (#6)
He received promotions while he was in captivity. Dear Kenyan Leader referred to Bergdahl as "an officer" in his Rose Garden speech. Maybe He used an Executive Order to make Bergdahl an "officer?" Who needs Congress when you can use an Executive Order instead?
#8. To: scrapper2, Cynicom (#7)
Obongo is an idiot, he can barely distinguish night from day. You can call Bergdahl a non-commissioned officer due to his new rank of sgt., but he's not a commissioned officer. There's a huge difference between the two, and any commissioned officer will point that out in a heartbeat.
-Alex Kurtagic
#9. To: X-15 (#8)
ROFL! You've got a way with words, X-15. Obongo is an idiot, he can barely distinguish night from day.
#10. To: X-15 (#8)
Thanks for the explanation. You can call Bergdahl a non-commissioned officer due to his new rank of sgt., but he's not a commissioned officer. There's a huge difference between the two, and any commissioned officer will point that out in a heartbeat.
#11. To: scrapper2 (#9)
If Obongo hadn't become a politician his personal life would be a total wreck right now. Can you honestly see him mowing a yard? Changing the oil on his car?? Most likely he'd be in some kind of jam like his 'ideological brethren' tourists who got kidnapped in Ashcanistan, they're all from the same mold of idiocy.
-Alex Kurtagic
#12. To: X-15, hop on the horse (#11)
To me he appears to be a junkie. I'm not just throwing that up for shock value, I've seen all too many of them in my lifetime. There is a very good reason congress, et al, exempts themselves from drug screens because he isn't alone.
#13. To: Jethro Tull, X-15 (#12)
Edward Klein, best selling author and former editor of the NYT and former foreign editor at Newsweek, in his c. 2012 Obama bio entitled "The Amateur" says that Obama is totally unsuited "by experience and temperament" to be President. He suggests that if Obama were left to his own devices ( Michelle is the one with drive) he might not have amounted to much ("easy life"). Klein was pilloried for the characterization of Obama as being a clueless charlatan. But Klein conducted over 200 interviews for his book and he claimed he only included anecdotes/quotes/scenarios if they were substantiated by 2 different sources.
#14. To: scrapper2, X-15 (#9)
Grunt is a grunt. An officer is a...gentleman... Female officers are ladies, I leave it to your imagination as to what female enlisted are.
#15. To: Cynicom (#14)
Gruntettes
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
#16. To: Cynicom (#14)
By Act of Congress only :-) An officer is a...gentleman...
#17. To: Lod (#15)
Uhhhhhhh...No. Gruntettes
#18. To: Cynicom (#14)
What rhymes with grunts?? I leave it to your imagination
"If ignorance is truly bliss, then why do so many Americans need Prozac?" - Dave McGowan
#19. To: Ada, Lod, X-15 (#16)
And that act is a failure. One may take a load of horse manure, label it as "garden fertilizer", its still horse manure A grunt is a grunt. Lets check your power of observation and analysis. I was the only ....PNC....enlisted grunt in the Air Farce. Hint, self promoted, those rubes did not approve of it. Ten bucks to the winner. GO. By Act of Congress only :-)
#20. To: Cynicom (#19)
No clue, I lose.
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
#21. To: Lod (#20)
Sir Lod... Not that easy. Hint, PNC is a person with total disdain for the military,its authority and its lifers. Hurry afore someone else gets the ten bucks.
#22. To: Cynicom (#21)
PNC=Primary navigation controller Al Dork's Google is a wonderful thing.
#23. To: scrapper2, Lod (#22)
Hint....one who had and has total disdain for the military... Such person makes his own rank as a finger in the face of the military. I was terrible, I admit that, fought the bastards every step of the way,lost every time, thats okay, I left with self respect, they could not take that away. They had the nerve to offer me a commission, be a gentleman, I laffed in their face. Early on, an olde salt told me, "you are a poor sojer", I was so proud. Wear it as a badge of honor to this day.
#24. To: Cynicom (#21)
Private No Class?? Hint, PNC is a person with total disdain for the military,its authority and its lifers.
-Alex Kurtagic
#25. To: X-15, scrapper2, Lod (#24)
X... You are cheating...I posted that once afore and you remembered. Just damn. I will send the ten bucks.
#26. To: Cynicom (#25)
At ease, Private.....stack arms, there will be no flight missions today.
-Alex Kurtagic
#27. To: X-15 (#26)
I have been unmasked, outed as a rube grunt, one that never bent over. You did recall that from the past, right?????? PNC is the lowest of the low, no pretensions here. Watch him carefully, he must be up to something. One Captain that had been grounded same as me, uncovered my scheme. He was doing the same.
#28. To: Cynicom (#27)
It took me a few minutes, but the "fog of internet" cleared and I chuckled as I recalled your unorthodox uniform. Poor sojer, indeed!!!
-Alex Kurtagic
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