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| Afghanistan | |||||
| Taliban video shows captive US soldier | |||||
| 2009-07-19 | |||||
WASHINGTON -- The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured, appeared on a video posted Saturday to a Web site by the Taliban, two U.S. defense officials said.
The soldier, whose identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier's family, says his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released Saturday on a Web site pointed out by the Taliban. Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the video is the captured soldier. The soldier said the date is July 14. He says he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.
He is interviewed in English by his captors, and he is asked his views on the war, which he calls extremely hard, his desire to learn more about Islam and the morale of American soldiers, which he said was low. Asked how he was doing, the soldier said on the video: "Well I'm scared, scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner."
He begins to answer questions in a matter-of-fact and sober voice, occasionally facing the camera, looking down and sometimes looking to the questioner on his left. He later chokes up when discussing his family and his hope to marry his girlfriend. "I have my girlfriend, who is hoping to marry," he said. "I have a very, very good family that I love back home in America. And I miss them every day when I'm gone. I miss them and I'm afraid that I might not ever see them again and that I'll never be able to tell them that I love them again and I'll never be able to hug them." He is also prompted his interrogators to give a message to the American people. "To my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it's like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring them home," he said. "Please, please bring us home so that we can be back where we belong and not over here, wasting our time and our lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own country. Please bring us home. It is America and American people who have that power." The video is not a continuous recording -- it appears to stop and start during the questioning. It is unclear from the video whether the July 14 date is authentic. The soldier says that he heard that a Chinook helicopter carrying 37 NATO troops had been shot down over Helmand. A helicopter was shot down in southern Afghanistan on July 14, but it was carrying civilians on a reported humanitarian mission for NATO forces. All six Ukrainian passengers died in the crash, and a child on the ground was killed.
Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors. But Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in eastern Paktika province near the border with Pakistan from an American base. The region is known to be Taliban-infested. The most important insurgent group operating in that area is known as Haqqani network and is led by warlord Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings including the July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed some 60 people. The Haqqani group also was linked to an assassination attempt on Afghan president Hamid Karzai early last year. On Saturday, a U.S. military official in Kabul, Col. Greg Julian, said the U.S. was "still doing everything we can to return him safely." | |||||
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #10 No, you don't, gromky. You don't wonder at all. You know the answer. >:-( |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-07-19 21:32 |
| #9 I wonder if the media will observe a conspiracy of silence to protect the soldier the same way that they did with their reporter. |
| Posted by: gromky 2009-07-19 20:34 |
| #8 I hope I'm wrong, but sad to say, but I doubt he is ever coming home. There is likely a videocaamera and a knife waiting for him after he has served all the use these savages can get from him. We are fighting primitive savages, and they will not plan to end this well. God protect him and save his soul. But there is a chance that his fellow soldiers will find him, and alive or dead, terrible retribution will come to those who hold him now... |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2009-07-19 20:01 |
| #7 In SERE training they teach you to say whatever it takes to stay alive. People who think they should hold out and die before saying something bad about the US are fools and watch too much TV. What everyone needs to know he doing what he needs to in order to survive. We, the public, need to be screaming that he is being forced to say these things. We need to know and understand the situation he is in and it is not a movie, it is real life. We need to understand what happened and why. Then and only then should we judge him. The true test of him will be when he is released. What he says when he has free will to speak will be the truth. Then we can judge him, right now he is scripted, told what to say and how to say it. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2009-07-19 17:38 |
| #6 More data please. It's hard to come to firm conclusions without it. It will probably take awhile for the Taliban to figure out how best to exploit this new bootie. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2009-07-19 11:14 |
| #5 Scooter, Our guys are routinely trained - in a fairly basic way - about what to do in the event of a 'worst case scenario'. (My son just graduated from USAF Basic Training and he says they got a whole day of it but that it will probably be the last he sees unless he deploys) USAF/USN/Army pilots and aircrew tend to get much more detailed training in this area than the ground troops (google SERE for more info) because they're much more likely to be captured on any given day. I've known people who have gone through SERE and to a man and woman they all say that the experience was priceless - and that they'd turn in their wings rather than go through it again. Having said all that, what this kid is doing isn't unreasonable so far. We're told to resist to our own limits but not everybody has the stones to do it like John McCain or Lance Sijan or George Day. As long as he's not actively making statements against the US and the Allies he'll get a clean bill of health when he gets home. We also don't know that the Talibunnies haven't slipped him something - they have no compunction about hopping up their own guys before sending them off to commune with Allan; I doubt they'd quail about tranking a prisoner. Also, you're right - squad leaders are taught that the lives and safety of their troops are paramount, which is why I'm inclined to believe that this guy somehow got lured off post. A squad leader bad enough to let this happen wouldn't survive long in Afghanistan - either the bad guys would get him or his own troops would report it up the chain. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2009-07-19 10:54 |
| #4 And lagging behind on patrol? That's what the |
| Posted by: ed 2009-07-19 07:37 |
| #3 I dunno about "defect" but ain't US soldiers trained to resist in any way possible when captured? His statements on tape sound kinda wishy-washy, as reported. And lagging behind on patrol? Isn't it a team leader's responsibility to keep his squad together? I think there's more to this story.... |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2009-07-19 06:41 |
| #2 he calls extremely hard, his desire to learn more about Islam and the morale of American soldiers, which he said was low. Asked how he was doing, the soldier said on the video: "Well I'm scared, scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner." Well then don't |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-07-19 06:18 |
| #1 Has the Red Cross/Crescent/Thingy been able to talk to him yet? Has he been provided with his own religious materials? Has he been provided with a chaplain of his own faith? In other words, has he been treated as well as the prisoners at Gitmo have been? |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-07-19 02:30 |