Post by Daniel on Sept 24, 2015 12:15:06 GMT -5
Washington Post Comes to Bowe Bergdahl’s Defense
Roger Aronoff — September 24, 2015
The U.S. military “threw the book” at Bowe Bergdahl, charging him with “misbehavior before the enemy,” which could result in life imprisonment. Yet the mainstream media have clearly chosen sides before the case is decided. Members of the media have once again elected to skew their coverage of the Bergdahl case in order to place the Obama administration in a favorable light.
The swap of Bergdahl for the Taliban Five was met with considerable controversy. “This was a bad deal, all around,” we commented last year. “The administration tried offering the release of one terrorist detainee at a time. Apparently the Taliban turned it down. And two years earlier, President Obama was close to releasing the Taliban Five for nothing, except the right to claim he was once again advancing the cause of peace, this time with the Taliban.”
Perhaps one of the more egregious examples of media bias toward Bergdahl, and thereby the administration, can be found in a September 20 Washington Post front-page article entitled, “Disillusioned and self-deluded, Bowe Bergdahl vanished into a brutal captivity,” which emphasizes both Bergdahl’s mental health state and his brutal torture at the hands of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network.
“Emotional testimony has underscored the relentless brutality that Bergdahl had to endure, as well as the chaos caused by his disappearance and the lingering resentment of some of his comrades,” wrote Dan Lamothe for the Post.
Tales of Bergdahl’s maltreatment and torture evoke sympathy and horror. But the trade for the Taliban Five made the situation worse—both for future soldiers who risk kidnapping, and for the rest of the world, which must bear the brunt of future evil acts that could potentially be influenced by the Taliban Five’s leadership and reputation. At the very least, this was a propaganda victory for Islamic extremists worldwide.
continue reading
www.aim.org/aim-column/washington-post-comes-to-bowe-bergdahls-defense/
Roger Aronoff — September 24, 2015
The U.S. military “threw the book” at Bowe Bergdahl, charging him with “misbehavior before the enemy,” which could result in life imprisonment. Yet the mainstream media have clearly chosen sides before the case is decided. Members of the media have once again elected to skew their coverage of the Bergdahl case in order to place the Obama administration in a favorable light.
The swap of Bergdahl for the Taliban Five was met with considerable controversy. “This was a bad deal, all around,” we commented last year. “The administration tried offering the release of one terrorist detainee at a time. Apparently the Taliban turned it down. And two years earlier, President Obama was close to releasing the Taliban Five for nothing, except the right to claim he was once again advancing the cause of peace, this time with the Taliban.”
Perhaps one of the more egregious examples of media bias toward Bergdahl, and thereby the administration, can be found in a September 20 Washington Post front-page article entitled, “Disillusioned and self-deluded, Bowe Bergdahl vanished into a brutal captivity,” which emphasizes both Bergdahl’s mental health state and his brutal torture at the hands of the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network.
“Emotional testimony has underscored the relentless brutality that Bergdahl had to endure, as well as the chaos caused by his disappearance and the lingering resentment of some of his comrades,” wrote Dan Lamothe for the Post.
Tales of Bergdahl’s maltreatment and torture evoke sympathy and horror. But the trade for the Taliban Five made the situation worse—both for future soldiers who risk kidnapping, and for the rest of the world, which must bear the brunt of future evil acts that could potentially be influenced by the Taliban Five’s leadership and reputation. At the very least, this was a propaganda victory for Islamic extremists worldwide.
continue reading
www.aim.org/aim-column/washington-post-comes-to-bowe-bergdahls-defense/
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