It feels like a lot longer than a week since Serial’s first episode of its second season aired. In real life Bowe Bergdahl’s story has moved on substantially, with the news on Monday that Bergdahl will face a court martial (1) for his alleged desertion.
The story also made its way into the presidential race with Bergdahl’s attorney, Eugene Fidell, saying Donald Trump should stop “his prejudicial months-long campaign of defamation” against Bergdahl after the Republican frontrunner said he should be shot. Websites have produced primers on the case, guides and more primers, videos asking whether Bergdahl is a hero or deserter, and podcasts on what to expect at the court marshall. But we’re not focusing on that right now. Episode two is all about the story of his capture, as told through an interview with the Taliban, which was the carrot left dangling in front of our noses at the end of last week’s episode.
‘I was talking on the phone to this Taliban fighter’
Sarah Koenig brings us up to date with Bergdahl’s court marshall, summing it up in her signature laconic manner. The army’s in two minds whether to throw the book at him, she says, or say: “OK, yes. He screwed up in a huge way but five years with the Taliban? Enough is enough.” It’s delivered with a tone that suggests he’s a naughty child who has eaten his sibling’s birthday cake.
“I was talking on the phone to this Taliban fighter,” Koenig continues, as if it’s something you do everyday. They discuss the loss of life both sides suffered in order to retain Bergdahl or free him. The Taliban lost 15 fighters in one raid. So, was it worth it? “Some people are worth more than 1,000 individuals and he was worth more than 5,000,” the Taliban spokesman responds (2).
Then we’re presented with a contradiction of Bergdahl’s story: he says he was snatched by men on motorbikes. A local stringer who worked for Mark Boal says people told him that Bergdahl was often seen near a local village and that Taliban fighters had wanted to grab him for a while, ultimately capturing him by pretending to be local police while the soldier was in a Kochi tent. Bergdahl says that’s not true. This exchange is a lot like season one’s back-and-forth, except instead of former school friends we’ve got the word of one of the most famous US soldiers in the world and, well, the Taliban.
‘A ready-made loaf’
Bergdahl’s appearance in a Kochi tent and capture by the nomadic people is seen as utterly miraculous by the Taliban fighter. How could this enemy of the Quran just stroll into their lives? There’s an insight into Taliban banter here as well. They claim that when Bergdahl was taken, he kicked one of the Pakistani Taliban, to which the others (who were mostly Afghan) joked: “He knew you were Pakistani!” Oddly, Koenig says she didn’t get the joke – it is hardly complex.
The fun continues with a story about how the Taliban thought Bergdahl was drunk when he was captured, but they had to admit it was a slightly flawed accusation because: 1. they’d never seen a drunk person, and 2. they assume all westerners are drunk anyway.
Amid the jokes is Bergdahl’s version of events. He’s definitely sober while explaining that he knew he needed to carefully judge when to push things and when not to, because the consequences could be serious, deadly even. “It doesn’t matter how many kung fu movies you watch … you need to be realistic when you’re facing these people,” he says, bringing up another film reference after the Bourne one last week.
‘It was a new kind of crisis’
Bergdahl’s capture was an entirely new scenario in the Afghan/US conflict, says Koenig. But the US knew he would be moved constantly with the ultimate aim of getting to “home base” or “in Tom and Jerry terms” the hole in the wall where Tom can’t go. But the Taliban knew the US would be thinking that, so first they went west to Ghazni province. There’s a handy map on the Serial website for anyone who wants to visualise this. Ghazni was the scene of a recent Taliban jailbreak, and also where Afghan forces repelled 2,000 insurgents. Bergdahl was to be handed to a group in Pakistan, and the US were looking for him and threatening to “hunt” anyone who didn’t cooperate.
One of the most interesting parts of the series so far is the cultural differences presented and the genuine humour. When Bergdahl was refusing to eat and clearly depressed, the Taliban did a traditional dance for him in a field while they were hiding from US searches. It was meant to boost his morale but because he didn’t have a clue what was going on it had the opposite effect. Bergdahl doesn’t remember any dance. There’s a bit of Adam Curtis’s Bitter Lake here or, to a lesser extent, the sinister undertones and gallows humour of Errol Morris’s Standard Operating Procedure.
‘I think a lot of us would have shot him’
“If we would have found him I think a lot of us would have shot him,” says Darryl Hanson, one of Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers. Another says they “Haaaaaated him”. It’s a really interesting contrast to the bemused excitement and begrudging hospitality of the Taliban. The DUSTWUN lasted 45 days. Planes, helicopters, drones: hundreds of people “snapped into action” because as the US army creed goes: “Leave no one behind.”
They were flown into villages and made to check every house and all the women to make sure Bergdahl wasn’t disguised. Wikileaks reports show the scale of the search. They were actually right outside a house where he was being kept but missed him. It sounds like a scene from Apocalypse Now. Koenig sets up the contrast between the US (big machine hurtling through Afghanistan in a slapdash way) and the Taliban (smaller, honed to be able to travel freely and quickly). We zoom out here to show how, because of the US’s ultimately short-term approach to Afghanistan, the Taliban were able to regroup and seep back into areas like Ghazni (3).
“It was a tough, tough meeting,” says a battalion leader, who had to inform wives and relatives of soldiers who were searching for Bergdahl that it was dangerous. Morale was low in the soldiers, and fights broke out. Leaders tried to regain morale by handing out cans of beer and telling dirty jokes. But it was pointless because … Bowe was in Jerry’s mouse hole, AKA Pakistan: “Bowe would spend the next year learning how to escape. Next time on Serial.” Looks like we’re going to Pakistan.
Observations
- Everything that’s revealed on the podcast is admissible evidence during the court marshall.
- Thanks for your comments from last week, I’ve taken them on board.
- “A ready-made loaf” is a brilliant expression and arguably should have been the title of the episode.
- Sarah Koenig doesn’t get Taliban banter.
- Pop culture reference watch: last week – the Bourne films. This week - kung fu flicks.
- The kung fu reference cuts both ways though, and it is slightly amusing that the Taliban thought Bergdahl was a trained martial artist.
- Ranking the cliffhangerness of the “Next time on Serial” sign-offs: this week was a 6/10 cliffhanger, last week was around 8/10.
- It seems like bad jokes are a universal for soldiers in conflict.
Notes
(1) Bowe Bergdahl to face US army court martial over desertion charges
(2) Inside the Botched Rescue of Bowe Bergdahl
(3) Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation
