Marshall: Fox News Analyst Crossed Line By Suggesting Taliban Should Kill U.s. Soldier

[allan]

http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim...ill-us-soldier/

or http://tinyurl.com/ly72k6

Political Insider Lt Col Peter’s video on above web site..also room for comments

Marshall: Fox News analyst crossed line by suggesting Taliban should kill U.S. soldier

2:49 pm July 22, 2009, by Jim Galloway

U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon), a former Army ranger, has signed onto a bipartisan letter from members of Congress condemning Fox News for an analyst’s suggestion that a captured U.S. soldier should be killed by his Afghan captors.

Read the letter here.

http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim...dahl-letter.pdf

This week, the Pentagon disclosed that Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl of Idaho had been captured, and that a video of the 23-year-old private was posted online by the Taliban.

On Fox News, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a military analyst for the network said the following:

Nobody that I’ve heard in the military is defending this guy. He is an apparent deserter. Reports are indeed that he abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post, and walked off. We’ll see what the ultimate truth of it is.

But if he did, if he’s a deserter at war time, well, as o of my old platoon sergeants used to say, he’s in beaucoup deep kinshee…

We know this private is a liar. We’re not sure that he is a deserter. But the media needs to hit the pause button, and not portray this guy as a hero….

I want to be clear. If, when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I’m with him.

But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies in wartime, I don’t care how hard it sounds, as far as I’m concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.

Here’s the video clip distributed by the liberal watchdog group, Media Matters:

Wrote Marshall and 22 other members of Congress, Republican and Democrat:

[Peters] implied suggestion that the Taliban should simply kill PFC Bergdahl to, “save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills,” was repulsive and deserves to be repudiated by your news organization.

We recognize and credit anchor Julie Banderas’ efforts to make it clear that Mr. Peters’ positions were not that of Fox News. However, that does not remove the responsibility your network has for the statements of one of its own analysts; especially those that suggest a member of the United States Army should be killed by his captors.

We demand an apology to PFC Bergdahl’s family and to the thousands of soldiers who put their lives on the line for our country. As a member of the military family, Mr. Peters should measure his remarks and remember that the United States will never abandon one of its own.

"Keep on, Keepin' on"

Dan Cedusky, Champaign IL "Colonel Dan"

See my web site at:

http://www.angelfire.com/il2/VeteranIssues/

[robert51]

I would wait till all the info is in... We had a guy in our company that went AWOL in nam after it was told to him that he was going to be killed by 4 other guys who he told on for selling Hard drugs to the troops in his company... Talk about a rock and a hard place... his choice was go on patrol with high as a kite guys .. Or have 4 after to kill you in the field... one of the guys he told on was his Sergeant seems the LT confronted the Sergeant with what he was told.... Now there is a real rocket scientist

[rentalguy1]

I can't argue with the colonel's comments. If he is a legit POW, then I am behind him and hope we get him home. If he is a deserter, well, I don't give much of a damn what happens to him. I do differ from his comments on one issue, though. I don't think the media needs to scale back at all until we know the entire circumstances.

[ZenArcher]

I find it astounding that people judge a man based on nothing more than what has been reported on the news. A POW has been marked as a deserter with little more than hearsay. People are basically calling for his death on national TV and here of all places he isn't even defended. The last I checked, "innocent till proven guilty" still meant something. Right now there is an American citizen, a soldier, in the hands of an enemy that has publicly beheaded its captives in the past and yet you want to wait for all the facts. All I can say is I find that utterly disgusting.

[Pete53]

Damn it the man is an American and a soldier who should be found and brought home. If the Military can't figure that out they need to come home. What happened to no one left behind?

[john999]

For Fox News to feature a guy who calls on the Taliban to kill a captured soldier is really beyound belief. Even Jane Fonda did not do that.

[broncovet]

Did it ever occur to anyone that by cleverly pretending to take sides with the enemy that his captors may not kill him? I dont think this soldier should be killed, rather, I think our military should try to determine his location and rescue him. He may be able to provide great intelligence to us, and deserves the benefit of the doubt on any issues of desertion.

It sounds like instead of killing an American Soldier, I think the firing of a "journalist" sounds like a better idea to me.

Edited July 24, 2009 by broncovet