By Greg Richter From Newsmax

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl converted to Islam during his captivity by the Haqqani network in Afghanistan and even declared himself a “mujahid,” or warrior for Islam, Fox News reports.

Fox News obtained secret documents based on an eyewitness account of at least part of Bergdahl’s five-year captivity that began when he reportedly walked off his base in June 2009.

The documents show that Bergdahl’s relationship with his captors changed over time. He at one time was held in a cage after being recaptured when he had escaped. But at other times he had a seemingly friendly relationship with his captors, playing soccer and frequently laughing and using the word “salaam” – Arabic for “peace.”

He also participated in target practice with his captors and was allowed to carry a gun, according to the reports.

The documents were generated by the Eclipse Group, Fox reports. Eclipse is a private intelligence agency founded by former CIA officer Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, who was indicted in the Iran-Contra scandal, but pardoned during his trial by President George H.W. Bush.

Clarridge told Fox News that Eclipse was a subcontractor for U.S. Central Command from November 2009 through May 31, 2010. After that, he said he invested $50,000 of his own money into maintaining his informant network in Afghanistan.

The work resulted in a series of dispatches on Bergdahl’s activities and condition over the years. They began in October 2009 and ended in August 2012, Fox reports.

Thirteen early reports, including the one in which Bergdahl reportedly referred to himself as a “mujahid,” were sent to Brigadier General Robert P. Ashley Jr., director of intelligence at CENTCOM.

U.S. Marine Corps General James N. Mattis, who served as CENTCOM commander from August 2010 to August 2012, told Fox News that Ashley may have forwarded bits and pieces of the reports to him, but he had not seen the specific reports Fox News cited.

Fox News talked to experts who said the reports, if true, do not necessarily indicate Bergdahl converted to Islam or that he joined their war cause. He could have suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, in which long-held captives sometimes begin to sympathize with their captors, or he could have feigned allegiance to survive.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer told Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” that the documents lend credence to the idea that Bergdahl did not intend to defect from the Army when he walked off base. The reports indicate he tried to escape his captors five times, he noted, saying that indicates he was not with them willingly.

Further, he noted, the military’s action in rescuing him also indicates it did not consider him an enemy combatant.

“You don’t go after a defector in order to rescue him. If you’re dealing with a defector … you kill him, the way we killed Anwar al-Awlaki,” he said.

The New York Times, meanwhile, wrote about the 35-page classified report made two months after Bergdahl’s disappearance, which according to people who have seen it makes no mention of Bergdahl being disillusioned with his military service, as some of his fellow platoon members have been telling the media in recent days.

The report does, however, contain reports of Bergdahl shipping his computer and a journal home before he walked away, Times sources said.

For more on this story go to: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/taliban-islam-prisoner-conversion/2014/06/05/id/575475#ixzz33ueroqs8

 

Related story:

Obama advisers repeatedly told President not to deal

By Melanie Batley From Newsmax

President Barack Obama was repeatedly advised by several of the nation’s top military and intelligence officials not to engage in the prisoner swap to secure the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, which freed five senior Taliban leaders from Guantanamo prison, according to reports.

When the White House first began considering an exchange in 2011 and 2012, James Clapper, then director of National Intelligence, flat out rejected the release of the five detainees, according to The Daily Beast.

Leon Panetta, former defense secretary and CIA director, also confirmed Wednesday that he was opposed to a possible Bergdahl prisoner swap during his tenure and questioned the deal Obama reached last week.

Panetta recalled that at the time discussions of a Bergdahl prisoner swap took place, “I said, ‘Wait, I have an obligation under the law. If I send prisoners from Guantanamo, they have to guarantee they don’t go back to the battlefield.’ I had serious concerns.”

He added he “just assumed it was never going to happen.”

Clapper had a similar rationale, according to the Beast, and said the risk was too high that the Taliban leaders would return to the battlefield.

Intelligence and defense officials told the Beast that the deal that was arranged was hastily done, and in a manner that suggested it was designed to squelch dissent and impose the will of the White House.

“This was an example of forcing consensus,” one military official told the Beast. “The White House knew the answer they wanted, and they ended up getting it.”

Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has been vocal in her criticism of the deal and the White House’s failure to inform Congress. She told the Beast that lawmakers also signaled opposition to a deal when it was discussed a few years ago.

“Should we have gotten advance warning? I actually think so,” she said, adding, “We had participated in a number of briefings some time ago [on a possible future deal] and there was considerable concern.”

In an opinion piece Wednesday in The Washington Post, political commentator George Will said Obama’s behavior is reminiscent of former President Richard Nixon’s attitude toward governing: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

Will wrote, “This episode will be examined by congressional committees, if they can pierce the administration’s coming cover-up, which has been foreshadowed by the response to congressional attempts to scrutinize the politicization of the Internal Revenue Service. If the military stalls on turning over files to Congress pertaining to the five years of Bergdahl’s absence, we will at least know that there is no national institution remaining to be corrupted.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney came close to admitting that the decision ultimately came down to the president and his inner circle.

“It was the judgment of the team and the president that there was enough urgency here to ensure that Sgt. Bergdahl was safely recovered that a 30-day window of hoping that that opportunity remained open was not an option,” Carney said Monday, according to Politico. “Ultimately, as commander in chief, the president had the responsibility to take the action he did.”

Politico noted that the decision by the White House to pursue the deal “sends a clear message: As liberals and some conservatives have long argued, Obama is now willing to wield his executive powers to get the job done.”

For a second time this week, Obama on Thursday defended the deal and insisted he “absolutely makes no apologies” for seeking the release of Bergdahl.

When it comes to getting soldiers back from war, Obama said, “We don’t condition whether we make the effort to get them back.”

He reinforced the administration’s justification that Bergdahl’s declining health was the driving justification for the decision.

“We saw an opportunity, and we seized it. And I make no apologies for that,” he said.

PHOTO: Leon Panetta, left, and James Clapper

For more on this story go to: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Obama-Bowe-Bergdahl-Taliban-prisoners/2014/06/05/id/575362#ixzz33uftJAaH