I did a post a few days ago, Bergdahl and the price of War . The New York Times today has an article that does a much better job of explaining the point I was trying to make in that post. Bergdahal’s unit was indeed dysfunctional but mostly because it was in a dysfunctional situation.
The platoon was, an American military official would assert years later, “raggedy.”
On their tiny, remote base, in a restive sector of eastern Afghanistan at an increasingly violent time of the war, they were known to wear bandannas and cutoff T-shirts. Their crude observation post was inadequately secured, a military review later found. Their first platoon leader, and then their first platoon sergeant, were replaced relatively early in the deployment because of problems.
But the unit — Second Platoon, Blackfoot Company in the First Battalion, 501st Regiment — might well have remained indistinguishable from scores of other Army platoons in Afghanistan had it not been for one salient fact: This was the team from which Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl disappeared on June 30, 2009.
Even more than Iraq the effort in Afghanistan was undermanned and under supplied from day one. Now I don’t know if more blood and treasure would have changed the inevitable outcome but I suspect not. It’s yet another example of how we have to recognize the limits of American power. Pat Tillman became disillusioned with the effort and in all probability was killed by his fellow soldiers. Bowe Bergdahl became disillusioned and wondered off and was captured by the Taliban. He went through 5 years of hell so I’m not really sure what is worse. I am a Vietnam war era veteran and know and knew many who served in SE Asia so it makes me very angry when those who have never served attack Bowe Begdahl and his family. I don’t know what the circumstances were and probably never will but I do no something about the mental strain that results in being given an impossible mission.
More from the Times:
Indeed, an internal Army investigation into the episode concluded that the platoon suffered from lapses in discipline and security in the period before Sergeant Bergdahl — a private first class at the time who was promoted while in captivity — disappeared into Paktika Province, two officials briefed on the report said.
But their problems in many ways reflected those of the Pentagon’s strategy writ large across Afghanistan at that moment of the war. The platoon was sent to a remote location with too few troops to seriously confront an increasingly aggressive insurgency, which controlled many villages in the region. The riverbeds they used as roads were often mined with improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s; simply getting supplies or traveling back to their home operating base could be a nerve-racking ordeal.
While it’s true that the Bush administration may have dropped the ball in Afghanistan because the had their eyes on an even more senseless war in Iraq it did becomes Obama’s war. As I said below RE Vietnam:
Many of us in the military at that time thought that the war in Vietnam was was a waste and misguided. When LBJ’s White House tapes were released we discovered that those at the highest level also believed this which meant the continuation war was nothing short of criminal as over 50,000 of Americas young men died in a senseless war.
Most of the wars since WWII have been senseless, perhaps the Korean War was a draw. In the end Iraq will become a client state of Iran and Afghanistan will once again be run by the Taliban. Senseless!!!