Thom interviews Ralph Peters about his "the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills" comment, 20 July 2009

Thom: Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters is with us. NY Post, NewYorkPost.com the website that publishes his work. He’s also a Fox News military analyst, and, Lt. Col. Peters, welcome to the show.

Peters: A welcome to the show, Thom.

Thom: You were just on Fox News a little earlier this morning,

Peters: Actually, it was yesterday.

Thom: It was yesterday, ok. The clip is getting all over the Internet this morning.

Peters: Yes.

Thom: And in that clip, you speaking of this young man who has been captured by the Taliban, and they’re putting this video out, you said, and I quote “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.” Were you calling for the Taliban to execute this US soldier ?

Peters: No, of course not. And let me say, that yesterday I was very angry. And let me tell you why I was angry. Because there was an immediate move by many in the media to portray this soldier as some sort of hero. There are heroes in Afghanistan; you know, they come home in coffins, flag-draped coffins. Nobody knows their name. They're in military hospitals struggling to overcome life-changing wounds. Nobody knows their name. They are decorated for valor. Nobody knows their name. But you get this soldier who walked away from his post, and who a four-star general didn’t hesitate to call a deserter in an exchange I had with him yesterday. You get this guy, captured by the Taliban, on a video, lying, you know, lying about how he was, met up with the Taliban, lying about how his troops behaved, and suddenly we’re all sorry for him. Look, I was angry yesterday, so I overstepped the bounds. I don’t wish him ill. I sympathise with his family. But he is not a hero.

Thom: Yea, OK, I get your retraction, and apology, I guess.

Peters: No, it’s not an apology. It’s a retraction. We all say things that when we’re too heated that we don’t choose to.

Thom: Let me take this. When John McCain said, as a prisoner of war, that the United States was engaged in war crimes, that the President of the United States was a criminal, that he and others, who were flying with him, were bombing civilian targets intentionally, you know when he committed treason, by your definition here, and he said many of the same, actually far worse things than this young man said, would you call for John McCain’s censure at the very least, or punishment? You’ve kind of undone your call for this young man to be murdered by the enemy.

Peters: No. I never called for the young man to be murdered. You’re twisting that, Thom.

Thom: Well, no.

Peters: No. No, I didn’t call for the Taliban to murder.

Thom: You said the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and a lot of legal bills.

Peters: Yes, and frankly, he is going to face legal problems because the evidence suggests that he is a deserter.

Thom: Well, let’s say that he is. Shouldn’t that be then an opportunity for us to ask why is it that three entire units in Iraq have been in open revolt against their leadership? That we have the highest suicide rate in the history of the modern military? That we have over forty-two thousand people who are now officially AWOL?

Peters: Thom, none of this, what are your sources on this? Tell me your sources on this, because not one of those claims is true. Not one.

Thom: I refer you to Dahr Jamail's new book, "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan".

Peters: Oh, come on. Have you ever spend time with our soldiers, Thom? Thom, have you ever spend time with our soldiers? Do you know any soldiers ?

Thom: This is not about me, sir. This is about...

Peters: Well you're making, Thom, you can’t make claims that…..

Thom: I’m quoting Dahr Jamail who is a reporter who has written three books on this thing and is an award-winning journalist.

Peters: Thom. Award-winning by whom ? Now, Thom. When you make claims like that…..

Thom: Are you telling me that we don’t have forty thousand people who have gone AWOL since 2001 ?

Peters: AWOL can be somebody that just takes off for the weekend.

Thom: Are you telling me that we don’t have the highest suicide rate in the military since the Vietnam War ?

Peters: The suicide rate in our military is lower than in civilian society. Did you know that ?

Thom: Of course. But…..

Peters: Doesn’t that mean something ?

Thom: We have the highest suicide rate now in our military since the Vietnam War.

Peters: War is pretty stressful. Of course some…..

Thom: Shouldn’t we be using this, if this guy deserted, should this not be an opportunity for us to have a national dialog about whether or not we should be in Afghanistan ? Whether or not we should be rotating troops through combat mission after combat mission, when they’re already diagnosed with PTSD. Whether we should have twelve percent of our soldiers on psychotropic drugs in order to get them to function in combat ?

Peters: Thom, you know, just once in a blue moon, you should try sticking to the facts. But let me tell you what this is an opportunity for. This is an opportunity for recognizing the real heroes, the wounded, the dead. This guy, if he comes back, and I hope that he comes back alive, he is going to face a court-martial, based upon his actions, upon the allegations of desertion, walking away from his fellow troops in a combat zone. I wish that you could get some of his fellow platoon members and squad members on, and see what they think.

Thom: So you’re going to walk down the same road that the Bush administration did, with the guys at Abu Graib. Let’s blame the guy in the bottom. Let’s blame the grunt. Let’s blame the guy that easiest to blame.

Peters: Thom, do you think it's OK...

Thom: Let’s not have any conversation what-so-ever about the people who are making the policy, about the President of the United States, in this case a Democrat, who I think you would probably disagree with, you know, doing this when a Republican put him there, or the Department of Defense.

Peters: Thom, Thom, please, you're the one raising your voice. You do sound like…..

Thom: I’m raising my voice because you’re trying to interrupt me, and I wanted to finish my sentence.

Peters: Let me finish a sentence or two. First of all, you obviously don’t know that I’ve been against the troop surge in Afghanistan, that I’ve called for fewer troops in Afghanistan, that I’ve published in military journals and in print, grave doubts about the wisdom of what we’re trying to do in Afghanistan.

Thom: Then instead of blaming this guy, let’s have that be the conversation.

Peters: OK, well I’m blaming him, only in this respect, that according to allegations, evidence, he walked away from…..

Thom: This is a twenty-three year old kid.

Peters: No, he’s not. He’s a soldier. A soldier has duties. You can’t just make it up as you go along. This isn’t a Hollywood movie, Thom.

Thom: We’ll have to leave it at that. Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, New York Post, nypost.com thanks sir, for coming on.

Peters: My pleasure.

Transcribed by Gerard Aukstiejus.