Politics
06.02.14
Bowe Bergdahl Is the Right’s New Benghazi
Buckle up: The right is going to try to turn the Taliban prisoner swap for ‘deserter’ Bowe Bergdahl into a Willie Horton moment for the president—and they’ll ride it to January 2017.
So let’s imagine that on Saturday night, the news had emerged not that Bowe Bergdahl was being freed but that he’d been murdered by his Taliban captors. What do you suppose we’d be hearing from Republican legislators? You know exactly what: Barack Obama is the weakest president ever, this is unconscionable. Which, of course, is exactly what we’re hearing from them now that the U.S. Army sergeant, held by the Taliban since 2009, has been freed. And it’s going to get worse. I’m even tempted to say forget Benghazi—Bergdahl may well end up being the flimsy excuse for the impeachment hearings they’ve been dreaming of before all this is over.
The Republicans’ audacity here is a bit beyond the usual. Let’s face it: There is no question that if President George W. Bush or a President McCain or President Romney had secured Bergdahl’s release in exchange for five Taliban prisoners at Gitmo, Republicans would be defending the move all the way. That business about notifying Congress? They’d have a dozen excuses for it. We got our prisoner of war home, they’d all be saying. That’s what matters.
But Obama does it, and Bergdahl’s freedom isn’t what matters at all. It’s that we negotiated with terrorists. Well, yes. We’ve been negotiating with the Taliban for a long time now, trying to end the war. See, they’re the people leading the fighting on the other side. When you’re trying to end a war, that’s generally who you negotiate with.
The five guys we returned to the Taliban are really bad guys, as Eli Lake and Josh Rogin wrote this weekend, and it’s fair to ask whether the price was too high. We can’t know the answer to that question today. But other criticisms are bogus. House intel chairman Mike Rogers said on TV Sunday that in cutting the deal, “you send a message to every al Qaeda group in the world that there is some value in a hostage that it didn’t have before.” That’s ridiculous. So al Qaeda groups didn’t know until this past weekend that taking an American hostage could give them leverage? Guerrilla forces have been taking people hostage since warfare began. We’ve even done lower-level prisoner trades in Afghanistan.
Looking forward, and looking more broadly at this situation, all the ingredients are here for a classic GOP Obama-conspiracy-mongering soap opera that can be dragged out until January 2017. The late combat journalist Mike Hastings wrote a long profile of Bergdahl in Rolling Stone in 2012, and it gets right to the heart of what may be the coming GOP case against him.
First of all, Bergdahl wasn’t any Republican’s idea of a patriot. Yes, he volunteered to join the Army, but only after he’d been turned down by the French Foreign Legion. Once on the ground in Afghanistan, he was a deeply disillusioned soldier. Shortly after his battalion took its first casualty, he emailed his parents a scathing indictment of the military and everything he saw around him. From Hastings:
“I am sorry for everything here,” Bowe told his parents. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live.” He then referred to what his parents believe may have been a formative, possibly traumatic event: seeing an Afghan child run over by an MRAP. “We don’t even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks … We make fun of them in front of their faces, and laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them.”
Bowe concluded his email with what, in another context, might read as a suicide note. “I am sorry for everything,” he wrote. “The horror that is america is disgusting.”
He wandered away from his unit. A Fox News commentator called him a “deserter.” He is officially in good standing in the Army and has even received the promotions due him during his time in captivity, but some consider him a deserter and traitor. Get ready to start hearing more of that.
Can Republicans make this resonate outside their base? Hard to say. I think to most Americans, this is a feel-good story. We value a life, one American life. Bibi Netanyahu traded one captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, not for five Palestinian prisoners. He traded Shalit for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. And there was broad agreement across the spectrum of Israeli politics that bringing Shalit to safety, even at that price, was the right thing to do.
But of course, that doesn’t matter to the right. No one outside their base cares much about Benghazi, but that hasn’t stopped them. They’ll keep pursuing Benghazi mostly to see if they can pin anything on Hillary, but when it comes to wet impeachment dreams, Benghazi may have just been pushed to the back seat. The crazy never stops.
AP
Kimberly Dozier
World News
06.04.14
The Real Reason the U.S. Didn’t Rescue Bowe Bergdahl
After a second escape attempt, the American hostage was being moved so often, American commandos would’ve had to raid a dozen safehouses in Pakistan at once.
The Pentagon rejected the idea of a rescue mission for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl because he was being moved so often by his Taliban captors that U.S. special operators would have had to hit up to a dozen possible hideouts inside Pakistan at once in order to have a chance at rescuing him.
That’s according to U.S. officials, who also say that the Obama administration also did not want to risk the political fallout in Pakistan from another unilateral U.S. raid, like the Navy SEAL raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011.
“A rescue mission would have been fraught politically as well as tactically,” according to a senior defense official briefed on the Bergdahl case.
The White House released five high-ranking Taliban members from Guantanamo Bay prison over the weekend in return for Bergdahl’s freedom, sparking outrage from lawmakers who were kept in the dark until the trade was done. Law requires Congress to be given 30 days notice before a prisoner is released from Guantanamo, but White House officials say Bergdahl’s deteriorating health necessitated the rapid action.
At the same time, many soldiers who served with Bergdahl have spoken out against him—blaming the Bergdahl for wandering off his post, and for diverting needed intelligence and surveillance resources to hunt for him. Some soldiers even blame Bergdahl for the deaths of a half-dozen troops, although those claims have been disputed.
Bergdahl was turned over to U.S. special operations forces by Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, an event the fighters filmed and turned into a propaganda video released on Jihadi websites Wednesday.
Two more U.S. officials and a former Afghan official said Bergdahl escaped his Taliban captors twice during his five years of captivity, once in the fall of 2011 as then reported by The Daily Beast, and a second time (apparently some time in 2012.) They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
In his second bid for freedom, which has not been previously reported, Bergdahl made it to a remote village in the mountainous part of Pakistan, the former Afghan official said. The villagers simply returned him to his captors in the Haqqani Network. The U.S. officials were not familiar with details of the second escape attempt.
However, three special operations officials say rescue missions to bring him back were contemplated multiple times over the years.
When Gen. Stanley McChrystal was in charge in Afghanistan, the U.S. had a better idea of his precise location, and a mission was mapped out and briefed to senior officials.
They rejected it, the officials say, because the mission planners warned of a high probability that Bergdahl and at least two to three special operations troops would be killed in the operation, so well-guarded was he by Haqqani fighters in a hard-to-reach mountain hideout on the Pakistani side of the border.
Subsequent commanders decided it was better to keep tabs on him via spies and satellites as best they could until he was moved to an easier-to-reach location, or negotiations with the Taliban freed him.
The situation was even worse for Pentagon planners considering rescue options in 2014. After Bergdahl’s escapes, the Taliban stepped up security around him further, and constantly moved him amongst roughly a dozen safe houses; successfully rescuing him would’ve meant launching as many as a dozen raids simultaneously—dramatically increasing the risk.
The Pentagon had put the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Michael Lumpkin in charge of the negotiations last year, after previous attempts to broker Bergdahl’s release had broken down.
Other special operations officials also maintained back channel communications with his captors through former Taliban officials, to keep tabs on his health and explore options for getting him back.
The senior defense official said the Pentagon stepped up negotiations with the Taliban via the government of Qatar after seeing Bergdahl’s proof of life video last December.
“We could see he looked rough, from the way he held his body and slurred some of his words,” the official said. “We got other accounts as well that his health was deteriorating,” he added.
U.S. Army spokesman Col. Steve Warren declined to comment Wednesday on the reports of Bergdahl’s attempted escapes or debates over whether to rescue him.
Pool photo by J.H. Owen
Michael Tomasky
Politics
06.04.14
The Bowe Bergdahl Story Is Right-Wing Crack
Never mind that Bush would have done the same as Obama. Republicans are hitting the pipe big time on the ‘deserter’—and their creepy bottom line is that he should have been left to die.
I was amazed but not surprised by my Twitter feed Monday. More than 200 tweets from conservatives, I would estimate, calling me a host of names and Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl a menu of worse ones. That’s the most ever in one day, I think, even more than for my most scorching anti-NRA columns, which have heretofore set the gold standard for inspiring drooling right-wing vitriol.
I was not, as I say, surprised. This story has every element right-wingers dream of. Every dark suspicion they harbor about President Obama can be wedged into the narrative conservatives are constructing about how Saturday’s prisoner exchange supposedly went down and what the president’s presumed motivations were. So I knew instantly, when I read Michael Hastings’s 2012 Rolling Stone profile of Bergdahl on Sunday afternoon, that this was going to be the next Benghazi. The story is right-wing crack. And sure enough, Republicans are hitting the pipe big time.
Some of the wilder criticisms of me notwithstanding, my column Monday made two basic points. First, if a Republican president had swapped five Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, all the people howling today would be spinning it positively. And second, while there are legitimate questions here—yes, I wrote that it was “fair to ask whether the price” of Bergdahl’s freedom was “too high”—what we’re about to get is another relentlessly politicized series of investigations that will be aimed not at determining the truth but at trying to turn possible errors of judgment by the White House into high crimes and misdemeanors. That’s the game here. Anyone who denies it is being naively or intentionally delusional.
Time, even the short amount that has passed between then and now, has proved me all too prescient—not that I’m patting myself on the back; it was a painfully easy call. The most notable development Tuesday was that former Romney adviser Richard Grenell was found to be setting up interviews for soldiers in Bergdahl’s battalion who wanted to go public trashing him. It may be, as Grenell’s partner said, that the soldiers found him on Twitter and it just kind of worked out that way. But the bottom line is what it is. These soldiers joining forces with a PR guy who used to work for John Bolton and then for candidate Mitt Romney, a man who is so deeply enmeshed in partisan politics, puts a political coloration on their words whether they mean it to or not.
The military should investigate whether Bergdahl was a deserter, and it should court-martial him if the evidence supports doing that. In the meantime, what end is served by the character assassinations of him and especially of his father, who’s a citizen with all the usual rights? The creepy bottom line of the right-wing position, mostly unstated but often implied in tweets and comments, is that the U.S. government should have just left Bergdahl to die. That’s an appalling position. Bring him back alive, then let him face whatever justice he must face. But bring him back. That’s what civil societies do. What kind of society and leader lets their captive soldiers die in enemy hands? Recall that the guy who wouldn’t even trade a Nazi general for his own son (who died in German custody) was named Stalin.
That is why John Bellinger, a national-security lawyer in George W. Bush’s administration, said on Fox that he believes the Bush administration would have done exactly the same thing the Obama administration did. From Think Progress:
Asked about reports that Bergdahl deserted his unit in 2009, Bellinger added that the former hostage “will have to face justice, military justice.” “We don’t leave soldiers on the battlefield under any circumstance unless they have actually joined the enemy army,” he said. “He was a young 20-year-old. Young 20-year-olds make stupid decisions. I don’t think we’ll say if you make a stupid decision we’ll leave you in the hands of the Taliban.”
Bellinger missed Bergdahl’s age at captivity by three years, but that aside, his is the humane and decent position. Bellinger also noted that the Bush administration—you know, the one that never negotiated with terrorists—released more than 500 prisoners from Guantanamo, returning them to the region. Was Dick Cheney howling about that the way he’s been howling about Bergdahl? I doubt it, since it was his administration.
Allen West, the one-term mistake whom the voters of Florida’s 22nd Congressional District quickly corrected, wants impeachment. Steve King, the multi-term mistake whom Iowans refuse to correct, tweeted that Susan Rice is “working for Al Qaeda.” The pipe, as Richard Pryor once testified, is irresistible and powerful. It comes to own you. The unfortunate thing is that as long as they’re sucking on it, the rest of us can’t escape.
06.02.14
Bowe Bergdahl Is the Right’s New Benghazi
Buckle up: The right is going to try to turn the Taliban prisoner swap for ‘deserter’ Bowe Bergdahl into a Willie Horton moment for the president—and they’ll ride it to January 2017.
So let’s imagine that on Saturday night, the news had emerged not that Bowe Bergdahl was being freed but that he’d been murdered by his Taliban captors. What do you suppose we’d be hearing from Republican legislators? You know exactly what: Barack Obama is the weakest president ever, this is unconscionable. Which, of course, is exactly what we’re hearing from them now that the U.S. Army sergeant, held by the Taliban since 2009, has been freed. And it’s going to get worse. I’m even tempted to say forget Benghazi—Bergdahl may well end up being the flimsy excuse for the impeachment hearings they’ve been dreaming of before all this is over.
The Republicans’ audacity here is a bit beyond the usual. Let’s face it: There is no question that if President George W. Bush or a President McCain or President Romney had secured Bergdahl’s release in exchange for five Taliban prisoners at Gitmo, Republicans would be defending the move all the way. That business about notifying Congress? They’d have a dozen excuses for it. We got our prisoner of war home, they’d all be saying. That’s what matters.
But Obama does it, and Bergdahl’s freedom isn’t what matters at all. It’s that we negotiated with terrorists. Well, yes. We’ve been negotiating with the Taliban for a long time now, trying to end the war. See, they’re the people leading the fighting on the other side. When you’re trying to end a war, that’s generally who you negotiate with.
The five guys we returned to the Taliban are really bad guys, as Eli Lake and Josh Rogin wrote this weekend, and it’s fair to ask whether the price was too high. We can’t know the answer to that question today. But other criticisms are bogus. House intel chairman Mike Rogers said on TV Sunday that in cutting the deal, “you send a message to every al Qaeda group in the world that there is some value in a hostage that it didn’t have before.” That’s ridiculous. So al Qaeda groups didn’t know until this past weekend that taking an American hostage could give them leverage? Guerrilla forces have been taking people hostage since warfare began. We’ve even done lower-level prisoner trades in Afghanistan.
Looking forward, and looking more broadly at this situation, all the ingredients are here for a classic GOP Obama-conspiracy-mongering soap opera that can be dragged out until January 2017. The late combat journalist Mike Hastings wrote a long profile of Bergdahl in Rolling Stone in 2012, and it gets right to the heart of what may be the coming GOP case against him.
First of all, Bergdahl wasn’t any Republican’s idea of a patriot. Yes, he volunteered to join the Army, but only after he’d been turned down by the French Foreign Legion. Once on the ground in Afghanistan, he was a deeply disillusioned soldier. Shortly after his battalion took its first casualty, he emailed his parents a scathing indictment of the military and everything he saw around him. From Hastings:
“I am sorry for everything here,” Bowe told his parents. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live.” He then referred to what his parents believe may have been a formative, possibly traumatic event: seeing an Afghan child run over by an MRAP. “We don’t even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks … We make fun of them in front of their faces, and laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them.”
Bowe concluded his email with what, in another context, might read as a suicide note. “I am sorry for everything,” he wrote. “The horror that is america is disgusting.”
He wandered away from his unit. A Fox News commentator called him a “deserter.” He is officially in good standing in the Army and has even received the promotions due him during his time in captivity, but some consider him a deserter and traitor. Get ready to start hearing more of that.
When it comes to wet impeachment dreams, Benghazi may have just been pushed to the back seat.
The argument will be made that he wasn’t worth saving, especially given what we had to give up. Hastings cites “White House sources” as telling him that Marc Grossman, Richard Holbrooke’s successor as AfPak coordinator, “was given a direct warning by the president’s opponents in Congress about trading Bowe for five Taliban prisoners during an election year. ‘They keep telling me it’s going to be Obama’s Willie Horton moment,’ Grossman warned the White House.”
Can Republicans make this resonate outside their base? Hard to say. I think to most Americans, this is a feel-good story. We value a life, one American life. Bibi Netanyahu traded one captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, not for five Palestinian prisoners. He traded Shalit for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. And there was broad agreement across the spectrum of Israeli politics that bringing Shalit to safety, even at that price, was the right thing to do.
But of course, that doesn’t matter to the right. No one outside their base cares much about Benghazi, but that hasn’t stopped them. They’ll keep pursuing Benghazi mostly to see if they can pin anything on Hillary, but when it comes to wet impeachment dreams, Benghazi may have just been pushed to the back seat. The crazy never stops.
Kimberly Dozier World News
06.04.14
The Real Reason the U.S. Didn’t Rescue Bowe Bergdahl
After a second escape attempt, the American hostage was being moved so often, American commandos would’ve had to raid a dozen safehouses in Pakistan at once.
The Pentagon rejected the idea of a rescue mission for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl because he was being moved so often by his Taliban captors that U.S. special operators would have had to hit up to a dozen possible hideouts inside Pakistan at once in order to have a chance at rescuing him.
That’s according to U.S. officials, who also say that the Obama administration also did not want to risk the political fallout in Pakistan from another unilateral U.S. raid, like the Navy SEAL raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011.
“A rescue mission would have been fraught politically as well as tactically,” according to a senior defense official briefed on the Bergdahl case.
The White House released five high-ranking Taliban members from Guantanamo Bay prison over the weekend in return for Bergdahl’s freedom, sparking outrage from lawmakers who were kept in the dark until the trade was done. Law requires Congress to be given 30 days notice before a prisoner is released from Guantanamo, but White House officials say Bergdahl’s deteriorating health necessitated the rapid action.
At the same time, many soldiers who served with Bergdahl have spoken out against him—blaming the Bergdahl for wandering off his post, and for diverting needed intelligence and surveillance resources to hunt for him. Some soldiers even blame Bergdahl for the deaths of a half-dozen troops, although those claims have been disputed.
Bergdahl was turned over to U.S. special operations forces by Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, an event the fighters filmed and turned into a propaganda video released on Jihadi websites Wednesday.
Two more U.S. officials and a former Afghan official said Bergdahl escaped his Taliban captors twice during his five years of captivity, once in the fall of 2011 as then reported by The Daily Beast, and a second time (apparently some time in 2012.) They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
In his second bid for freedom, which has not been previously reported, Bergdahl made it to a remote village in the mountainous part of Pakistan. The villagers simply returned him to his captors in the Haqqani Network.
In his first escape, Afghan sources said he avoided capture for three days and two nights before searches finally found him, exhausted and hiding in a shallow trench he had dug with his own hands and covered with leaves.
In his second bid for freedom, which has not been previously reported, Bergdahl made it to a remote village in the mountainous part of Pakistan, the former Afghan official said. The villagers simply returned him to his captors in the Haqqani Network. The U.S. officials were not familiar with details of the second escape attempt.
However, three special operations officials say rescue missions to bring him back were contemplated multiple times over the years.
When Gen. Stanley McChrystal was in charge in Afghanistan, the U.S. had a better idea of his precise location, and a mission was mapped out and briefed to senior officials.
They rejected it, the officials say, because the mission planners warned of a high probability that Bergdahl and at least two to three special operations troops would be killed in the operation, so well-guarded was he by Haqqani fighters in a hard-to-reach mountain hideout on the Pakistani side of the border.
Subsequent commanders decided it was better to keep tabs on him via spies and satellites as best they could until he was moved to an easier-to-reach location, or negotiations with the Taliban freed him.
The situation was even worse for Pentagon planners considering rescue options in 2014. After Bergdahl’s escapes, the Taliban stepped up security around him further, and constantly moved him amongst roughly a dozen safe houses; successfully rescuing him would’ve meant launching as many as a dozen raids simultaneously—dramatically increasing the risk.
The Pentagon had put the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Michael Lumpkin in charge of the negotiations last year, after previous attempts to broker Bergdahl’s release had broken down.
Other special operations officials also maintained back channel communications with his captors through former Taliban officials, to keep tabs on his health and explore options for getting him back.
The senior defense official said the Pentagon stepped up negotiations with the Taliban via the government of Qatar after seeing Bergdahl’s proof of life video last December.
“We could see he looked rough, from the way he held his body and slurred some of his words,” the official said. “We got other accounts as well that his health was deteriorating,” he added.
U.S. Army spokesman Col. Steve Warren declined to comment Wednesday on the reports of Bergdahl’s attempted escapes or debates over whether to rescue him.
Michael Tomasky Politics
06.04.14
The Bowe Bergdahl Story Is Right-Wing Crack
Never mind that Bush would have done the same as Obama. Republicans are hitting the pipe big time on the ‘deserter’—and their creepy bottom line is that he should have been left to die.
I was amazed but not surprised by my Twitter feed Monday. More than 200 tweets from conservatives, I would estimate, calling me a host of names and Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl a menu of worse ones. That’s the most ever in one day, I think, even more than for my most scorching anti-NRA columns, which have heretofore set the gold standard for inspiring drooling right-wing vitriol.
I was not, as I say, surprised. This story has every element right-wingers dream of. Every dark suspicion they harbor about President Obama can be wedged into the narrative conservatives are constructing about how Saturday’s prisoner exchange supposedly went down and what the president’s presumed motivations were. So I knew instantly, when I read Michael Hastings’s 2012 Rolling Stone profile of Bergdahl on Sunday afternoon, that this was going to be the next Benghazi. The story is right-wing crack. And sure enough, Republicans are hitting the pipe big time.
Some of the wilder criticisms of me notwithstanding, my column Monday made two basic points. First, if a Republican president had swapped five Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, all the people howling today would be spinning it positively. And second, while there are legitimate questions here—yes, I wrote that it was “fair to ask whether the price” of Bergdahl’s freedom was “too high”—what we’re about to get is another relentlessly politicized series of investigations that will be aimed not at determining the truth but at trying to turn possible errors of judgment by the White House into high crimes and misdemeanors. That’s the game here. Anyone who denies it is being naively or intentionally delusional.
Time, even the short amount that has passed between then and now, has proved me all too prescient—not that I’m patting myself on the back; it was a painfully easy call. The most notable development Tuesday was that former Romney adviser Richard Grenell was found to be setting up interviews for soldiers in Bergdahl’s battalion who wanted to go public trashing him. It may be, as Grenell’s partner said, that the soldiers found him on Twitter and it just kind of worked out that way. But the bottom line is what it is. These soldiers joining forces with a PR guy who used to work for John Bolton and then for candidate Mitt Romney, a man who is so deeply enmeshed in partisan politics, puts a political coloration on their words whether they mean it to or not.
People can believe he is a deserter all they want, and maybe he is. But is the military’s official position worth nothing? That’s an interesting right-wing posture.
I’m not defending Bergdahl here, and I didn’t Monday. Somebody on Twitter made a big deal out of the fact that I put the word “deserter” in quotes. You’re fucking-a right I did. He’s not officially a deserter. He is officially a sergeant in good standing. People can believe he is a deserter all they want, and maybe he is. But is the military’s official position worth nothing? That’s an interesting right-wing posture.
The military should investigate whether Bergdahl was a deserter, and it should court-martial him if the evidence supports doing that. In the meantime, what end is served by the character assassinations of him and especially of his father, who’s a citizen with all the usual rights? The creepy bottom line of the right-wing position, mostly unstated but often implied in tweets and comments, is that the U.S. government should have just left Bergdahl to die. That’s an appalling position. Bring him back alive, then let him face whatever justice he must face. But bring him back. That’s what civil societies do. What kind of society and leader lets their captive soldiers die in enemy hands? Recall that the guy who wouldn’t even trade a Nazi general for his own son (who died in German custody) was named Stalin.
That is why John Bellinger, a national-security lawyer in George W. Bush’s administration, said on Fox that he believes the Bush administration would have done exactly the same thing the Obama administration did. From Think Progress:
Asked about reports that Bergdahl deserted his unit in 2009, Bellinger added that the former hostage “will have to face justice, military justice.” “We don’t leave soldiers on the battlefield under any circumstance unless they have actually joined the enemy army,” he said. “He was a young 20-year-old. Young 20-year-olds make stupid decisions. I don’t think we’ll say if you make a stupid decision we’ll leave you in the hands of the Taliban.”
Bellinger missed Bergdahl’s age at captivity by three years, but that aside, his is the humane and decent position. Bellinger also noted that the Bush administration—you know, the one that never negotiated with terrorists—released more than 500 prisoners from Guantanamo, returning them to the region. Was Dick Cheney howling about that the way he’s been howling about Bergdahl? I doubt it, since it was his administration.
Allen West, the one-term mistake whom the voters of Florida’s 22nd Congressional District quickly corrected, wants impeachment. Steve King, the multi-term mistake whom Iowans refuse to correct, tweeted that Susan Rice is “working for Al Qaeda.” The pipe, as Richard Pryor once testified, is irresistible and powerful. It comes to own you. The unfortunate thing is that as long as they’re sucking on it, the rest of us can’t escape.
it's how low life lying scum operate, they know their flock will swallow without reflex. As you'll witness soon enough
so the least prepared man in the room releases five captives classified as dangerous who's releases were opposed by everyone for a documented deserted and now he chooses to impugn the reputations of the men who served with the deserter
1) you can't make this vile POS asshole up, he's rock bottom, he's a vile ignorant stupid man that will forever be known as a POS. History is going to laugh at him and his supporters.
2) how many times have I told you about their genetics? the consistencies in their argumentative style is so easy to see through. Can't win a debate by discussing facts, you create a narrative that impugns the reputation of your adversaries in a weak attempt to hide your ignorance.
pathetic souls they are, and the scum reeks so bad it makes good people gag
[h=1]General McCrystal: ‘We Don’t Leave Americans Behind. That’s Unequivocal’[/h]
By John Amato June 4, 2014 10:18 pm - Comments
Retired General Stanley McChrystal, who commanded Sgt. Bergdahl when he was lost in Afghanistan told Yahoo News that the critics should all pipe down until we have the facts and that we never leave Americans behind.
Retired General Stanley McChrystal, who commanded Sgt Bergdahl when he was lost told Yahoo News that the critics should all pipe down until we have the facts and that we never leave anyone behind. That's a strong rebuke to Republicans from a well respected military man who lost his job for criticizing president Obama, the man they are out to de-legitimize.
Yahoo News:
By John Amato June 4, 2014 10:18 pm - Comments
Retired General Stanley McChrystal, who commanded Sgt. Bergdahl when he was lost in Afghanistan told Yahoo News that the critics should all pipe down until we have the facts and that we never leave Americans behind.
Retired General Stanley McChrystal, who commanded Sgt Bergdahl when he was lost told Yahoo News that the critics should all pipe down until we have the facts and that we never leave anyone behind. That's a strong rebuke to Republicans from a well respected military man who lost his job for criticizing president Obama, the man they are out to de-legitimize.
Yahoo News:
Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal on Wednesday urged Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s critics not to “judge” him until all the facts are in and sharply defended the extensive and risky search efforts that claimed the lives of some of his fellow soldiers.
“We did a huge number of operations to try to stop the Taliban from being able to move him across the border into Pakistan,” McChrystal told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview. “And we made a great effort and put a lot of people at risk in doing that, but that’s what you should do. That’s what soldiers do for each other.”
--
McChrystal, who commanded the war effort in Afghanistan at the time of Bergdahl’s June 2009 vanishing, declined to shed any more light on the circumstances of his disappearance. “We’re going to have to wait and talk to Sgt. Bergdahl now and get his side of the story,” he said. “One of the great things about America is we should not judge until we know the facts. And after we know the facts, then we should make a mature judgment on how we should handle it.”
Asked whether he would have made the same prisoner swap, McChrystal replied: “We don’t leave Americans behind. That’s unequivocal.”
The military will conduct their own investigation and determine Bergdahl's fate and that's the way it should be, but Republicans have turned this situation into a toxic dump site like they've been doing with everything connected to Obama. I know the media needs content to fill their time slots, but when will they stop kowtowing to Republican propaganda?“We did a huge number of operations to try to stop the Taliban from being able to move him across the border into Pakistan,” McChrystal told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview. “And we made a great effort and put a lot of people at risk in doing that, but that’s what you should do. That’s what soldiers do for each other.”
--
McChrystal, who commanded the war effort in Afghanistan at the time of Bergdahl’s June 2009 vanishing, declined to shed any more light on the circumstances of his disappearance. “We’re going to have to wait and talk to Sgt. Bergdahl now and get his side of the story,” he said. “One of the great things about America is we should not judge until we know the facts. And after we know the facts, then we should make a mature judgment on how we should handle it.”
Asked whether he would have made the same prisoner swap, McChrystal replied: “We don’t leave Americans behind. That’s unequivocal.”
Guesser your true colors are coming out, you are now a full fledged apologist. This Bergdahl exchange could have been cleared properly thru Congress and this whole thing could have been avoided. There was no legitimate reason to do it behind everyone's back. Bergdahl is scum. Did you serve. Do you know what a deserter is. Is he American, who knows maybe he switched allegiances during that period of time. One thing is for sure, the Taliban would trade him in a New York second to get back five 4 star generals back while the war is still going on. The war will still be going on a year from now. Exhanges are usually made when a war is over. This is all about cleaning out Gitmo, nothing more, nothing less. If you try to defend Bergdahl you don't get it. If you try to rationalize that exchange as a legitimate attempt to bring home an American then you don't get that either. Obama dropped the contingency that would have prevented the Big 5 from returning to action. This is not an exception this is the way this administration runs everything. I don't know what you are trying to prove on this thread by posting what you posted. The twist to blame Republicans for exposing this for what it is trypical Obama regime. You are now paddling their boat....but in the wrong direction. Hope you have a life jacket.
Post Most
- From Bergdahl to Benghazi, Republicans fire up the scandal machine
- When a president goes rogue
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- The ghastly transaction that freed Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl
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[h=1]When a president goes rogue[/h][h=3]By George F. Will, Published: June 4[/h]What Winston Churchill said of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles — that he was a bull who carried his own china shop around with him — is true of Susan Rice, who is, to be polite, accident-prone . When in September 2012 she was deputed to sell to the public the fable that the Benghazi attack was just an unfortunately vigorous movie review — a response to an Internet video — it could have been that she, rather than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was given this degrading duty because Rice was merely U.N. ambassador, an ornamental position at an inconsequential institution. Today, however, Rice is Barack Obama’s national security adviser, so two conclusions must be drawn.
Perhaps she did not know, in advance of the swap of five terrorists for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the, shall we say, ambiguities about Bergdahl’s departure from his platoon in Afghanistan and the reportedly deadly consequences of his behavior. If so, then she has pioneered a degree of incompetence exotic even for this 10-thumbed administration. If, however, she did know and still allowed Obama to present this as a mellow moment of national satisfaction, she is condign punishment for his choice of such hirelings.
Perhaps this exchange really is, as Obama said in defending it, an excellent thing “regardless of the circumstances, whatever those circumstances may turn out to be.” His confidence in its excellence is striking, considering that he acknowledges that we do not know the facts about what would seem to be important “circumstances.”
Such as the note Bergdahl reportedly left before disappearing, in which he supposedly said he did not approve of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. And the notably strong and numerous expressions of anger by members of Bergdahl’s battalion concerning his comportment and its costs.
Obama did not comply with the law requiring presidents to notify Congress 30 days before such exchanges of prisoners at Guantanamo. Politico can be cited about this not because among the media it is exceptionally, well, understanding of Obama’s exuberant notion of executive latitude but because it is not. Politico headlined a story on his noncompliance with the law “Obama May Finally Be Going Rogue on Gitmo.” It said Obama’s “assertive” act “defied Congress” — Congress, not the rule of law — in order “to get that process [of closing the prison at Guantanamo] moving.” It sent “a clear message” that “Obama is now willing to wield his executive powers to get the job done.” Or, as used to be said in extenuation of strong leaders, “to make the trains run on time.”
The 44th president, channeling — not for the first time — the 37th (in his post-impeachment conversation with David Frost), may say: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Already the administration says events dictated a speed that precluded complying with the law.
This explanation should be accorded open-minded, but not empty-minded, consideration. It should be considered in light of the fact that as the Veterans Affairs debacle continued, Obama went to Afghanistan to hug some troops, then completed the terrorists-for-Bergdahl transaction. And in light of the fact that Obama waged a seven-month military intervention in Libya’s civil war without complying with the law (the War Powers Resolution) that requires presidents to terminate within 60 to 90 days a military action not authorized or subsequently approved by Congress.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), vice chairman of the intelligence committee, says the administration told him he would be notified about negotiations for the release of terrorists. He now says he cannot “believe a thing this president says.”
Obama says his agents “consulted with Congress for quite some time” about prisoner exchanges with the Taliban. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, says there have been no consultations since 2011. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) says “I don’t like it when the White House says the intelligence committees were briefed. Because we weren’t.” He says Obama is “referring to . . . 2011-2012, when I was still in grade school.”
Now, now. “Assertive” presidents can’t be expected to “go rogue” without ruffling feathers. And omelets cannot be made without breaking eggs. Etc.
This episode will be examined by congressional committees, if they can pierce the administration’s coming cover-up, which has been foreshadowed by the response to congressional attempts to scrutinize the politicization of the Internal Revenue Service. If the military stalls on turning over files to Congress pertaining to the five years of Bergdahl’s absence, we will at least know that there is no national institution remaining to be corrupted.
Read more from George F. Will’s archive or follow him on Facebook.
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[ Even the Afghan villagers say Bergdahl was looking for the Taliban. Doesn't matter to the libtards in here, if the left puts out a story, they'll swallow it hook, line and sinker ]
[h=1]Exclusive: Afghan villagers recall when Bergdahl stumbled into their midst[/h]
BY KEVIN SIEFF June 4 at 1:34 PM
The Taliban have released a video showing the handover of American soldier Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan.
Among the most tantalizing mysteries surrounding Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s departure from his U.S. military base in 2009 is this: Was he trying to find the Taliban? Or did he simply wander away and get captured? Politicians and members of the military have criticized the Obama administration’s decision to swap five jailed Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, saying the soldier may have deserted.
Until now, few details have emerged about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base. But The Washington Post has reached Afghan villagers who spotted Bergdahl shortly after he slipped away from his base. To them, it’s clear something was wrong with the American. And he seemed to be deliberately heading for Taliban strongholds, they say.
“It was very confusing to us. Why would he leave the base?” said Jamal, an elder in the village of Yusef Khel, about a half-mile from the American military installation. (Like many Afghans, he goes by only one name). “The people thought it was a covert agenda – maybe he was sent to the village by the U.S.”
Locals remember Bergdahl walking through the village in a haze. They later told Afghan investigators that they had warned the American that he was heading into a dangerous area.
“They tried to tell him not to go there, that it is dangerous. But he kept going over the mountain. The villagers tried to give him water and bread, but he didn’t take it,” said Ibrahim Manikhel, the district’s intelligence chief.
“We think he probably was high after smoking hashish,” Manikhel said. “Why would an American want to find the Taliban?”
Residents still remember the massive search effort that followed Bergdahl’s disappearance. But the village eventually returned to normal – albeit still with grave problems from Taliban fighters – and few locals thought about the American soldier until this past week, when his face flashed across Afghan news programs.
“I had forgotten about that abducted American,” said Manikhel. “I hope the U.S. can re-arrest the Talibs that they released.”
[h=1]Exclusive: Afghan villagers recall when Bergdahl stumbled into their midst[/h]
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...all-when-bergdahl-stumbled-into-their-midst/#
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...all-when-bergdahl-stumbled-into-their-midst/#
- 2419
- More
BY KEVIN SIEFF June 4 at 1:34 PM
The Taliban have released a video showing the handover of American soldier Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan.
Among the most tantalizing mysteries surrounding Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s departure from his U.S. military base in 2009 is this: Was he trying to find the Taliban? Or did he simply wander away and get captured? Politicians and members of the military have criticized the Obama administration’s decision to swap five jailed Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, saying the soldier may have deserted.
Until now, few details have emerged about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base. But The Washington Post has reached Afghan villagers who spotted Bergdahl shortly after he slipped away from his base. To them, it’s clear something was wrong with the American. And he seemed to be deliberately heading for Taliban strongholds, they say.
“It was very confusing to us. Why would he leave the base?” said Jamal, an elder in the village of Yusef Khel, about a half-mile from the American military installation. (Like many Afghans, he goes by only one name). “The people thought it was a covert agenda – maybe he was sent to the village by the U.S.”
Locals remember Bergdahl walking through the village in a haze. They later told Afghan investigators that they had warned the American that he was heading into a dangerous area.
“They tried to tell him not to go there, that it is dangerous. But he kept going over the mountain. The villagers tried to give him water and bread, but he didn’t take it,” said Ibrahim Manikhel, the district’s intelligence chief.
“We think he probably was high after smoking hashish,” Manikhel said. “Why would an American want to find the Taliban?”
Residents still remember the massive search effort that followed Bergdahl’s disappearance. But the village eventually returned to normal – albeit still with grave problems from Taliban fighters – and few locals thought about the American soldier until this past week, when his face flashed across Afghan news programs.
“I had forgotten about that abducted American,” said Manikhel. “I hope the U.S. can re-arrest the Talibs that they released.”
Liberal Logic 101:
Obama said sorry and we're all supposed to forgive and forget.
Dinesh D'Souza said sorry, yet he's still headed for the slammer.
How can this be?
Well, Dinesh is a mere subject (a pawn on the 'progressive' chess board), whereas Obama is King.
This is not your father's America anymore.
Obama said sorry and we're all supposed to forgive and forget.
Dinesh D'Souza said sorry, yet he's still headed for the slammer.
How can this be?
Well, Dinesh is a mere subject (a pawn on the 'progressive' chess board), whereas Obama is King.
This is not your father's America anymore.
Lindsey Graham says Republicans will call for Hussein's impeachment if he does it again:
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...mpeachment-push-if-more-prisoners-leave-gitmo
WTF????
Apparently once wasn't enough???
:madasshol
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...mpeachment-push-if-more-prisoners-leave-gitmo
WTF????
Apparently once wasn't enough???
:madasshol
Definitely not a fan of this swap. People are saying, "Maybe these guys have a chip in them to locate their activities?" That would be cool but I would bet these guys will get an extensive examination back home to see it they are chipped anyway. Also, some are saying that these 5 would have to be released soon anyways. I think those theories are just conspiracy but they are out there. Some of you hard core righties like conspiracies and connecting dots
The Republicans’ audacity here is a bit beyond the usual. Let’s face it: There is no question that if President George W. Bush or a President McCain or President Romney had secured Bergdahl’s release in exchange for five Taliban prisoners at Gitmo, Republicans would be defending the move all the way. That business about notifying Congress? They’d have a dozen excuses for it. We got our prisoner of war home, they’d all be saying. That’s what matters.
Hypothetically speaking of course. ^^^
Reality is President Barack Hussein Obama did do it.
He thought announcing the end in Afghanistan and the release of Bergdahl would make him look like he’d accomplished something.
And now it’s damage control as usual.
Never in a million years did he dream it would backfire the way it has.
Hypothetically speaking of course. ^^^
Reality is President Barack Hussein Obama did do it.
He thought announcing the end in Afghanistan and the release of Bergdahl would make him look like he’d accomplished something.
And now it’s damage control as usual.
Never in a million years did he dream it would backfire the way it has.
I thought I’d never say this but I kinda miss the fool.
Obama doubles down on stupid
We had a prisoner of war whose health had deteriorated and we were deeply concerned about. And we saw an opportunity and we seized it. And I make no apologies for that.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...dc88cc-ecbb-11e3-b98c-72cef4a00499_story.html
We had a prisoner of war whose health had deteriorated and we were deeply concerned about. And we saw an opportunity and we seized it. And I make no apologies for that.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...dc88cc-ecbb-11e3-b98c-72cef4a00499_story.html
