[Thanos]

$1:

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.

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:

$1:

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.

[Goober911]

Thanos Thanos:

$1:

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.

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:

$1:

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.

Good post. On the money

[BRAH]

Christopher Hitchens opinion on this would have been damn interesting, he was the ultimate bad ass.

[Goober911]

BRAH BRAH:

Christopher Hitchens opinion on this would have been damn interesting, he was the ultimate bad ass.

Well he is in Heaven. You can always ask the Creator if he has anything to pass on.

[Goober911]

From the news reports it "appears" he was a deserter. How many are going by that vice hard evidence?

[Thanos]

There was nothing to indicate that Hitchens was ever in favour of impromptu lynchings so I highly doubt that he'd be too impressed with what's being attempted on Bergdahl. Hitchens was pro-war for reasons of his own, mostly because he regarded the horror show in places like Saddam's Iraq to be a genuine threat. This doesn't automatically extend to some assumption that he would therefore lockstep agree with the batshit behaviour of the American political right, and anyone who thinks that he'd go along with any of this is fairly handicapped by their own flaccid thought processes.

[BRAH]

Thanos Thanos:

There was nothing to indicate that Hitchens was ever in favour of impromptu lynchings so I highly doubt that he'd be too impressed with what's being attempted on Bergdahl. Hitchens was pro-war for reasons of his own, mostly because he regarded the horror show in places like Saddam's Iraq to be a genuine threat. This doesn't automatically extend to some assumption that he would therefore lockstep agree with the batshit behaviour of the American political right, and anyone who thinks that he'd go along with any of this is fairly handicapped by their own flaccid thought processes.

He probably would have gone after Obama politically while saying leave Bergdahl to be dealt with by the US Military for possible desertion charges. The only one who could come close to Hitchens would probably be Sebastian Junger as he's been to Afghanistan numerous times even before 9/11.

Goober911 Goober911:

BRAH BRAH:

Christopher Hitchens opinion on this would have been damn interesting, he was the ultimate bad ass.

Well he is in Heaven. You can always ask the Creator if he has anything to pass on.

[Goober911]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06 ... ly-missed/

[BRAH]

Goober911 Goober911:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/05/special-forces-members-noticed-something-in-the-bergdahl-release-video-that-you-probably-missed/

It's an interesting perspective and possibly the first of many that will come out.

[Freakinoldguy]

Goober911 Goober911:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/05/special-forces-members-noticed-something-in-the-bergdahl-release-video-that-you-probably-missed/

They're quite right about all SOP's that seem to have been broken and it's a good thing the Taliban didn't have any nefarious intentions during the exchange but, every time I see that video I can't help but think about the book "The Manchurian Candidate".

[BRAH]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

Goober911 Goober911:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/05/special-forces-members-noticed-something-in-the-bergdahl-release-video-that-you-probably-missed/

They're quite right about all SOP's that seem to have been broken and it's a good thing the Taliban didn't have any nefarious intentions during the exchange but, every time I see that video I can't help but think about the book "The Manchurian Candidate".

It seems more like Homeland.

[Goober911]

The writer is no Obama fan
Interesting article.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... irty-deal/

WASHINGTON — What is it with Susan Rice and the Sunday morning talk shows? This time she said Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had served in Afghanistan “with honour and distinction” — the biggest whopper since she insisted the Benghazi attack was caused by a video.

There is strong eyewitness evidence that Bergdahl deserted his unit and that the search for him endangered his fellow soldiers. Otherwise, there would be no national uproar over his ransom and some of the widely aired objections to the deal would be as muted as they are flimsy. For example:

1. America doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.
Nonsense. Of course we do. Everyone does, while pretending not to. The Israelis, by necessity the toughest of all anti-terror fighters, in 2011 gave up 1,027 prisoners, some with blood on their hands, for one captured staff sergeant.

2. The administration did not give Congress 30-day notice as required by law.
Of all the jurisdictional disputes between president and Congress, the president stands on the firmest ground as commander in chief. And commanders have the power to negotiate prisoner exchanges.

The administration might have tried honesty here and said: Yes, we gave away five important combatants. But that’s what you do to redeem hostages. In such exchanges, the West always gives more than it gets for the simple reason that we value individual human life more than do the barbarians with whom we deal.

No shame here, merely a lamentable reality. So why does the Bergdahl deal so rankle? Because of how he became captive in the first place. That’s the real issue. He appears to have deserted, perhaps even defected.

The distinction is important. If he’s a defector — joined the enemy to fight against his country — then he deserves no freeing. Indeed, he deserves killing, the way we kill other enemies in the field, the way we killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American who had openly joined al-Qaeda. A U.S. passport does not entitle a traitor to any special protection. (Caveat: If a POW is turned, Stockholm-syndrome-like, after falling captive, these condemnatory considerations don’t apply.)

[N_Fiddledog]

Here's another guy who's no Obama fan.

[Thanos]

The Bergdahl deal was condemned by Oliver North, who illegally sold missiles to Iran in violation of the law and then took the money and gave it to some cocaine-fuelled Nicaraguan death squads, whose specialty was murdering as many women and children that they possible could. Says it right there about the morality of the side that's pissed off at the Bergdahl exchange.

[Vamp018]

Nobody in the USMC is a Obama fan, as Obama negotiated with Terrorist, refused to help a decorated Marine held in Mexico, and illegally dumping OTM's on AZ with inhuman ways.