5 high level Taliban commanders for 1 low level deserter?

anapaix wrote:

My b hole hurts

I don't doubt it after that pounding

Bad Wigins wrote:

Good Wigins wrote:

Lots of ifs, maybes, and probablys in there. Let's just stick to the facts.

The main point being that armies bring back deserters, by force if necessary, to discourage desertion. Are you saying that's not a fact?

Technically, Bergdahl was never classified as a deserter. He was AWOL, which is a minor administrative punishment. To be a deserter, one must be AWOL for 31 days. Bergdahl was "captured" on his second day. At this point, we have only Bergdahl's own testimony to contradict this and his military defense attorney would tell him to not say anything stupid. All he has to do is say that he was waiting for the right time to escape.

Unless something really damaging surfaces that has not already been leaked, he'll probably get a less than honorable discharge. I don't think this is fair, but life's not fair.

Of course, everything stinks to high heaven. Obama should never have negotiated with terrorists. He definitely shouldn't have held the Rose Garden ceremony with Bob Bergdahl sporting his wannabe Taliban beard and quoting from the Koran.

this is perfect for this thread:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/the-strip.html?ref=sunday&_r=0#1

this is good too - the washpo declares that mccain did a full and complete flip flop on the bergdahl case and what's worse, mccain refuses to acknowledge the flip flop.

It's ok to change your mind, but then to deny that you changed your mind is the worst of all worlds - sign of a pure spineless politician, going with whichever winds blow him around.

...and typical of a republican party that will not tolerate any dissent.

I would probably be a republican if it hadn't been turned into the party it is today - clearly mcain knew he would be ostracized completely if he even moved slightly in a 'maverick' way on this, so he had to fall in line.

Lord knows the democrats are imperfect and they have major faults that make me cringe...but there is some dissent, some disagreement, some individuals there.

for ex, sen feinstein is very critical of obama on the bergdahl case

Your adored Israeli leaders often trade over 1,000 "terrorist" prisoners for just one or two Israeli soldiers.

I was wrong in my previous post. Today, I listened to an interview of Bergdahl's team leader and another guy who knew him. As a result, I've changed my opinion.

After Bergdahl's AWOL, IED attacks became more coordinated, more frequent, and more lethal. Apparently, the Taliban learned something about how we traveled that allowed them to be more successful in their attacks.

Should a link between these attacks and any information Bergdahl gave to the Taliban be proven, it could be a capital punishment offense.

So a prisoner who gives up information while being tortured is a traitor I your mind?

US Navy SEALS risk their lives hundreds of times per year for jerks like you. At least when they get captured by the Islamofacsists we out to get them the hell out of jail. Every man has his limits and individual US Navy SEALS can only take so much combat stress as well as we have heard about Bergdahl. The 5 for 1 POW exchange was a good deal. Thank President Obama for having the courage to match the US Navy SEALS.

fisky wrote:

I was wrong in my previous post. Today, I listened to an interview of Bergdahl's team leader and another guy who knew him. As a result, I've changed my opinion.

After Bergdahl's AWOL, IED attacks became more coordinated, more frequent, and more lethal. Apparently, the Taliban learned something about how we traveled that allowed them to be more successful in their attacks.

Should a link between these attacks and any information Bergdahl gave to the Taliban be proven, it could be a capital punishment offense.

really, fisky? your leap in logic is huge here. Guy was tortured, we have absolutely no evidence that he gave up any information intentionally or not, and you want him shot?

Get a grip, man. You're better than that.

Sorry for the delay in responding - been away for a lovely weekend relaxing.

I'm sorry, but I don't owe you or America an apology at all. And you know as well as I do, that I'm not criticizing America. I love America and what it's supposed to stand for. It's painful to see what it's become thanks to the dysfunctional political system and it's cheerleaders in the media who enable it.

In terms of your confusion regarding the difference between the UK, England and GB, I'm more than happy to explain, but I really doubt you're interested in learning about the geo-history of another country.

And really, through all your foul language and bluster, I have no idea what you're objecting to. This is a world-wide message board, with contributions coming from many different countries. I'm interested in the success of the USA as I consider it's founding and the noble aims to which it strives to be of importance not only to Americans but as an example to the rest of the world.

Perhaps you're so full of self-doubt that you can't cope with advice from friends, but we in Britain have been friends of America for a very long time.

President Obama has made some poor decisions as President and has disappointed many people, but the right's knee-jerk hypocricy about Bergdahl just strikes many people as typical of what the modern Republican party has become.

And just one quick history lesson, as I really need to correct your bizarre view about us having our "azz" handed to us a "world record" number of times, the last time Britain was invaded, was in 1066. Not bad eh ?

Tao Steve wrote:

The efforts to vilify freed prisoner of war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl have centered around claims that six soldiers were killed while searching for

Former Centcom Commander Gen. James Mattis also addressed Bergdahl’s recovery today on operational grounds, saying it would be a great boon for the military leadership, freeing them to act against Taliban fighters without fear of killing an American POW.

That appears to have been a non-trivial risk, as the Taliban reported that Bergdahl was several times near the location of US drone attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and could easily have been killed in the strikes.

Hey Tao Steve (a/k/a Dumbsh* t): Bergdahl was not held by the Taliban, which makes the rest of what you wrote worthless.

T Rex wrote:

[quote]Tao Steve wrote:

Hey Tao Steve (a/k/a Dumbsh* t): Bergdahl was not held by the Taliban, which makes the rest of what you wrote worthless.

Simply Amazing. I weep for humanity

Tao Steve wrote:

T Rex wrote:

[quote]Tao Steve wrote:

Hey Tao Steve (a/k/a Dumbsh* t): Bergdahl was not held by the Taliban, which makes the rest of what you wrote worthless.

Simply Amazing. I weep for humanity

Do you have no original thoughts/ideas? Or you just cut and paste someone else's words?

Sergeant Bergdahl was believed to have been held by the militant Haqqani network in the tribal area of Pakistan’s northwest frontier, on the Afghan border.

Those Talibaners are fighting for their countries against recreational thugs like Bergdahl. I'm glad Obama is ending the US war over there.

gentlemen, do not feed this troll under any circumstances

Just say no

nein

non

whatever - just don't do it

Cut and Paste Tao Steve thought the Taliban was holding Bowe? Too funny!

Good article on McCain's flip flop.

Unfortunately, anti-Obama opinions have already been formed and solidified on this "scandal" before details of the years-long origins of discussions leading up to this.

5 for 1 is the catch phrase you will hear forever now.

This is the same thing with Obamacare.

This was a Republican idea that Obama put into effect and now the Republicans crusade against it.

If Obama made a national holiday called Ronald Reagan day, he would get bashed for it.

1) Obamacare. That final result came after the inexplicable failure of the White House to take much of an interest in the rollout of its central domestic-policy project – Obamacare. By December, the Healthcare.gov exchange that the Department of Health and Human Services had 42 months and upward of $400 million to build turned out to be a complete flop.

Millions of people who had been promised they could keep existing plans found their insurance canceled, and millions more who managed to enroll in a plan found that they couldn’t keep their doctor, as Obama had promised. In the face of these disasters, Obama scowled at the cameras, proclaimed himself madder than anyone, and … left the people in place who’d failed.

Related: Double Digit Health Premiums Coming

When the sheer weight of the mandate and its penalties convinced eight million Americans to finally sign-up through the still-buggy website by the twice-extended deadline, Obama claimed victory. Just this week, though, we discovered that two million Medicaid enrollees or more may not have been processed correctly in that still-faulty system, and may not have coverage after all.

Who could have guessed that leaving the same incompetents to run the system they couldn’t produce correctly in the first place would create more problems? Pretty much anyone with any actual executive or managerial experience, actually.

2) Department of Veterans Affairs. The lack of responsiveness at the VA was such an issue that Obama campaigned on it in 2008. He demanded a huge increase in funding from Congress, and the VA annual budget went up 78 percent during his presidency, with $235 billion more in funding during the last five-plus years over the FY2008 baseline.

However, the last time Obama sat down with VA Secretary Eric Shinseki prior to this spring had been in July 2012. It took whistleblowers telling the media that wait lists had been falsified at VA facilities and that dozens of veterans in Phoenix had died while being denied medical attention to shake the tree.

A subsequent internal audit showed that 64 percent of all VA facilities had instances of wait-list fraud, and that 13 percent of all schedulers had received training in how to commit it. Obama scowled at the cameras twice in this scandal, pronounced himself once again madder than anyone, and only finally accepted the resignation from Shinseki just before the second presser.

Related: Pogo Blows the Lid Off Veterans Affairs Scandal

3) National Security. This week, we have another serious crisis, this time in national security, and the incompetence reached new heights. President Obama traded five high-ranking Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay for a soldier held captive for almost five years in Afghanistan. Two of the men released are wanted by the United Nations for war crimes, and one was a close associate of Osama bin Laden himself. Obama insisted he had confidence that the men posed no risk to American security while celebrating the return of an American service member.

Then the story began to fall apart. First, the White House mischaracterized the capture of Bowe Bergdahl as “on the battlefield” after serving “with honor and distinction.” The Pentagon had concluded in 2010 that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had in fact deserted his post, leaving behind a note to that effect and that at the least Bergdahl had wandered into Taliban territory on purpose.

Soldiers who served with Bowe Bergdahl erupted in outrage, accusing him of desertion and the Pentagon of actively suppressing the truth. State Department spokesperson Marie Harf responded to these first-person reports by soldiers who had served at the post Bergdahl abandoned by suggesting that they weren’t credible witnesses, while other White House insiders told NBC’s Chuck Todd that these soldiers were conducting a “swift boat” smear.”

Nor was that the only White House offense. A law passed with Obama’s signature requires 30-day notice before transferring any detainee out of Guantanamo Bay, let alone the highest-risk Taliban officials Obama released. The White House claimed there was no time to notify Congress before getting the deal done.

Related: More Mismanagement and Millions Wasted at VA

Yet the White House managed to put Bowe Bergdahl’s parents next to Obama for the Saturday announcement. They also insisted that the administration had ongoing consultations on the question of trading the five Taliban for Bergdahl. But the two chairs of the intelligence committees – Rep. Mike Rodgers, a Republican, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat – both said the last such consultation took place in 2011, and the overwhelming and bipartisan consensus opposed such a deal.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) later told Fox News that the file on Bergdahl given to the Senate Intelligence Committee when deliberating on this question never included Bergdahl’s note nor the testimony of other soldiers about the nature of his disappearance.

Obama asked Americans to accept his own assurances that the five released detainees would pose no threat to the United States. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel joined him in making those assurances and said that the cases had been reviewed thoroughly. The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake and Time Magazine separately reported, however, that the review had been rushed through to get the conclusion desired by the White House. Lake’s sources in the defense and intelligence communities called this “forcing the consensus,” while Time Magazine’s source made it even clearer. “There never was the conversation,” the official reported. “This was out of the norm.”

Related: The Bergdahl Affair Feeds Right Into 2016

While Hagel backed Obama’s story, others at the Pentagon strongly disagreed. Fox reporter Jim Angle reported that one source in the military said, “Many at the Pentagon advised the President not to make the trade.” Senior officials at the Department of Defense had warned the White House that releasing these five detainees would be “like handing over five 4-star generals of the Taliban.” Releasing them now, rather than at the end of US participation in Afghanistan that Obama plans for 2016, puts more than 32,000 Americans in Afghanistan at risk of these high-ranking Taliban commanders’ re-entry into the war.

Nothing about Obama’s performance in these scandals and debacles should give anyone confidence in his assurances -- not of security, not of competence, not even of being madder than anyone. The polling numbers suggest that Americans have finally reached a point where the incompetence and dishonesty are just too obvious to ignore any longer.