The father of PFC Bowe Bergdahl — the 23-year-old soldier captured by the Taliban — has this advice for his son: “Stay strong.” Go HERE for must-read details from Jules Crittenden, who also gives his own take on this troubling story.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary says the U.S. is doing all it can to try and get Bergdahl back:
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed the capture of a US soldier by Taliban forces in Afghanistan as “outrageous” and vowed to do “everything we can” to free him, in an interview aired Monday.
“We are attempting to do everything we can to locate him and free him,” Clinton told US television network ABC in New Delhi during a visit to India.
The Taliban, whose resurgence in Afghanistan has led to heightened unrest in the country, released a video over the weekend of a visibly-shaken captive US soldier who was snatched by the Islamist militants in Afghanistan late last month.
The US military is “still trying to locate and bring him back,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, of 23-year-old Private First Class Bowe R. Bergdahl.
The reality? It’s a tall order, indeed. The Taliban has an underground network, and can easily move him from place to place. It will take some luck — not just skill — for U.S. military forces to both locate him and get to the spot while he is still there.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.