'Incomprehensible' to leave soldier behind

Secretary of State John Kerry couldn’t be more correct in validating the decision to bring Bowe Bergdahl home from his Taliban captivity.

“What I know today is what the president of the United States knows, that it would have been offensive and incomprehensible to consciously leave an American behind, no matter what, to leave an American behind in the hands of people who would torture him, cut of his head, do any number of things,” he said in an interview with CNN. “And we would consciously choose to do that? That’s the other side of this equation. I don’t think anybody would think that’s an appropriate thing to do.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/208598-kerry-released-gitmo-detainees-could-return-to-fight

The debate over Sgt. Bergdahl’s release is raging. I, too, have questions about it. I want to know if he deserted his post. I want to understand the circumstances surrounding his captivity.

We’ll get those answers in due course.

However, the notion that Americans might consciously leave someone behind as we wind down our war effort in Afghanistan chills me to the bone. Yet some of Bergdahl’s harshest critics have pronounced him guilty of treason — without due process — and said that a traitor should be left to rot.

It’s clear the Obama administration mishandled many aspects of this matter. It’s been a public relations nightmare.

The bottom line, though, is that an American soldier is safe.

If he did something wrong, then let the military adjudicate it.