Fox News analyst crossed line by suggesting Taliban should kill U.S. soldier

Marshall: Fox News analyst crossed line by suggesting Taliban should kill U.S. soldier

by Jim Galloway

U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon), a former Army ranger, has signed onto a bipartisan letter from members of Congress condemning Fox News for an analyst’s suggestion that a captured U.S. soldier should be killed by his Afghan captors. Read the letter

This week, the Pentagon disclosed that Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl of Idaho had been captured, and that a video of the 23-year-old private was posted online by the Taliban.

On Fox News, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a military analyst for the network said the following:

Nobody that I’ve heard in the military is defending this guy. He is an apparent deserter. Reports are indeed that he abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post, and walked off. We’ll see what the ultimate truth of it is.

But if he did, if he’s a deserter at war time, well, as o of my old platoon sergeants used to say, he’s in beaucoup deep kinshee…

We know this private is a liar. We’re not sure that he is a deserter. But the media needs to hit the pause button, and not portray this guy as a hero….

I want to be clear. If, when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I’m with him.

But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies in wartime, I don’t care how hard it sounds, as far as I’m concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.

Here’s the video clip distributed by the liberal watchdog group, Media Matters:

Wrote Marshall and 22 other members of Congress, Republican and Democrat:

[Peters] implied suggestion that the Taliban should simply kill PFC Bergdahl to, “save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills,” was repulsive and deserves to be repudiated by your news organization.

We recognize and credit anchor Julie Banderas’ efforts to make it clear that Mr. Peters’ positions were not that of Fox News. However, that does not remove the responsibility your network has for the statements of one of its own analysts; especially those that suggest a member of the United States Army should be killed by his captors.

We demand an apology to PFC Bergdahl’s family and to the thousands of soldiers who put their lives on the line for our country. As a member of the military family, Mr. Peters should measure his remarks and remember that the United States will never abandon one of its own.