Bergdahl Prisoner Swap:Obama Obeys ONLY the Laws He Wants To.

It is sad fact, but it's the times we live in.

It was in mid-August that the battalion, still in Paktika province, started taking casualties. On Aug. 18, a roadside bomb killed Staff Sergeant Clayton Bowen, 29, and Private First Class Morris Walker, 23.

Bowen's mother, Reesa Doebbler, says she was told by her son's former comrades that he was on a mission to provide election security, an account confirmed by other sources, including a U.S. military official. Reuters was unable to contact Walker's family.

Staff Sergeant Michael Murphrey, 25, died on Sept. 6 while setting up a security camp after a day spent distributing humanitarian aid, said Jack Kessna, a former member of Bergdahl's Blackfoot Company who has worked with other former soldiers to determine the cause of the deaths. Kessna said Murphrey's death could not be linked directly to the search.

Murphrey's sister, Krisa, said she was never given official information about his mission after his death and had to rely on accounts by her brother's comrades.

"Some say that he was not on a rescue mission, that he was on a humanitarian mission. And then some say that, sure it wasn’t a rescue mission, per se, but Bergdahl was always the secondary mission," she told Reuters.

Staff Sergeant Kurt Curtiss, 27, was shot on Aug. 26 while his unit was supporting Afghan security forces during an enemy attack. Reuters was not able to contact Curtiss' family.

On Sept. 4, Second Lieutenant Darryn Andrews, 34, died when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with a roadside bomb and a rocket-propelled grenade. Private First Class Matthew Martinek, 20, died a week later from wounds sustained in the same attack. The parents of both Andrews and Martinek told Reuters last week they believe their sons died searching for Bergdahl, saying they were told this by other soldiers in the platoon.

Former Private First Class Jose Baggett, who normally sat next to Andrews on every mission as driver and radio telephone operator, had been injured when a roadside bomb hit his truck on a previous mission. Martinek took his place.

"I even remember helping him pack his gear for the mission," Baggett said. "Worst day of my life to date."

Baggett says he doesn't think the death of the two soldiers, or anybody else, can be directly linked to the search. Even if Bergdahl had not walked off, the battalion still could have taken casualties during its 12-month tour of Afghanistan, he says.

A U.S. military official said that, like the other casualties, the two men were not engaged in a search for Bergdahl but were on a logistics mission.

Vierkant believes otherwise.

"It was what every mission was, every day: find Bergdahl," he said.

I'll believe the men who were there and not some random MSN report.

In mid-July, military officials called off the dedicated ground search and gave soldiers other primary missions after concluding that Bergdahl had been taken to Pakistan, according to a U.S. military official speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said some Bergdahl-related surveillance continued for about another month, and soldiers were also told to keep an eye out and to ask about Bergdahl while carrying out primary missions.

"I do not know of a specific circumstance or details of US soldiers dying as a result of efforts to find and rescue Bergdahl."

It would be difficult, even if intended and planned, to cram more hubris, incompetence and mendacity into a humane and sympathetic act.

The lopsided trade for Bowe Bergdahl was Israeli in inspiration — a high tolerance for future military risk in order to honor a national commitment. Because that tolerance is not infinite — no soldier is worth a nuclear weapon — it is always a judgment call. My tendency is to err on the side of freeing our people in uniform, even the lost, confused and negligent ones.

But the swap of five senior Taliban figures (two of them wanted for war crimes) for a private who wandered from his post was initially controversial, even within the Obama administration. It had been questioned by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director Leon Panetta. The skeptical view not so much lost as left.

The president made the final call, then proceeded to a discrediting error. President Obama chose to tell a simple moral story: the return of a hero. But the real Bergdahl story is enormously complex. There was, it seems, delusional naivete, a betrayal of an oath, the sacrifice by comrades and the release of dangerous enemies. And then came the White House balloon drop. It was like tacking a happy ending on to Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” This communications strategy also placed Bergdahl’s parents at the center of the story — beside Obama in the Rose Garden — exposing them to scrutiny and hostility.

In a matter of days, the administration managed to offend a tremendous variety of people, starting with members of Congress. In pursuing the Bergdahl deal without congressional consultation, Obama ignored the law — a grasping and probably unconstitutional law. Americans should not be shocked by the existence of such disagreements. At the disputed boundaries between the branches, sharp elbows are often thrown.

But it is generally not a good idea to ignore the law and then insult the lawmakers. The Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee was not called until two days after the photo op. The official excuses for refusing consultation have been flimsy and shifting. More important, the possible swap had been previously presented to members of Congress as one part of a broader political settlement with the Taliban. When the trade suddenly happened, it only determined the fate of a single man. Many in Congress, both Republican and Democrat, feel ignored and misled. And they are likely to be far more skeptical about future prisoner releases from Guantanamo, even if consulted.

The White House also needlessly offended members of the military. When national security adviser Susan Rice claimed that Bergdahl had served with “honor and distinction,” members of his unit felt compelled to speak out, because the word “honor” actually means something to them. So did others who joined a dangerous manhunt in a warzone. The rest of us have no reason to prejudge the facts in this case, but those who served with Bergdahl have every right to present their version of events.

The Bergdahl case reveals a disturbing gap between the White House and military culture. After Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers corrected the administration’s false narrative, anonymous White House aides accused them of engaging in “Swift-boating.” Consider that a moment. While the White House (still) claims that Bergdahl served with “honor,” aides now impugn the motives of those who served beside him — and who stayed at their posts. Particularly in a time of war, why are these attacks not a firing offense?

If the White House really believes that questions raised about the swap are uniformly partisan and political — even from the military — it has adopted the thinking of the bunker

It is also the type of thinking common while retreating. “This is what happens at the end of wars,” Obama explains. It is the tidying up on the way to the exits. The Afghan war, it appears, is already over in the president’s mind, leaving more than 30,000 U.S troops still in Afghanistan without much inspiration or strategic purpose. As well as leaving Afghan allies to wonder about the strength of the United States’ commitment to a non-Taliban future. Rather than an exit strategy, we have what Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations calls an “exit without a strategy.”

The Israeli approach to prisoner swaps is accompanied by an Israeli attitude toward enemies: Even if you are released, we will fight you as long as you fight us. The approach becomes more questionable without the attitude.

Bush lied us into invading Iraq.