I was listening to a radio commentary while driving a couple of hours ago and the talk show host--I didn't catch his name--said the jury was out on whether Bergdahl had deserted and we should be very careful not to impune the name of a uniformed member of the armed services without knowing about that for sure.
But some 50 of our soldiers were killed when out looking for Bergdahl--
the level of violence escalated greatly in the months following his capture. His father mentioned he was more comfortable talking in Pashto than in English, but that could be lack of contact with any English speakers for the past five years. The five guys traded for his release were top Taliban leaders and had been classified extremely dangerous.
And yes, that certainly would appear to be encouragement for Islamic terrorists to look for more people to kidnap and hold for ransom.
And I can't shake the feeling too that Obama was almost desperate for something--ANYTHING--to get the VA and Benghazi scandals off the front pages. He had tried almost everything in his arsenal without success. But Bergdahl's release accomplished that.