Taliban Prisoner Sgt. Berdahl

The television news is full of the story of Sgt. Bergdahl being recovered from the Taliban in exchange for the release of five Taliban prisoners at Guantánamo. Bergdahl had been in captivity for five years. There is some question as to how he happened to be captured by the Taliban. Some reports say that he sneaked under the fence and was actually a deserter from his unit.
The Washington Times says the Pentagon on several occasions had ground-level intelligence on where Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was being held captive at various times — down to how many gunmen were guarding him — but special operations commanders repeatedly shelved rescue missions because they didn’t want to risk casualties for a man they believed to be a “deserter.” Commanders on the ground debated several times a rescue mission, but each time decided against such mission because the prospect of losing highly trained troops was too high a price to pay for rescuing a soldier who walked away from his unit before being captured by the enemy.
That's ridiculous! It's not the Army that I used to know 70 years ago.
The main consideration is that if the Taliban position where Sgt. Berdahl was being held was a major establishment, it should have been attacked by American forces, whether Sgt. Bergdahl was there or not. Apparently, the military has gotten the idea that following World War II every war engaged in should be of limited prosecution. That is to give the impression that there is a war on but actually operate with one hand tied behind the back. This was true in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan. The only exception seems to be the Desert Storm operation wherein American forces ousted Iraqi from Kuwait.
The other aspect is that while it appears that Bergdahl may have been a deserter, that is only hearsay. He is a soldier in the US Army and has every right to be retrieved from the enemy through attack procedures, if necessary. Following his recovery, he should then have been submitted to a court-martial to determine the legitimacy of the deserter charge. If found guilty, he should then have been shot, which I believe has been the standard procedure for deserters.
In other words, I claim the military did it all wrong. If they had done it right, five Taliban leaders would still be sitting in Guantánamo. We may have lost some men in a recovery operation, but likely would have wiped out a Taliban command post. We should also remember the reports that there was a mission looking for Berhdahl in which several squad members were killed. While we regret the death of those people, that is the function and risks taken by soldiers and an indication they were at least initially on the right track, until someone higher up decided to call off for rescue efforts. Those higher-ups should be chastised for their timid attitudes and demoted. We know that Pres. Obama is a peace monger, but unless he had given specific orders to not retrieve Sgt. Berdahl, it was the Army's responsibility to do it as expeditiously as possible.