Y'know I've been tweet-told in the last couple days that because I don't have any kids in the military, I'm just not qualified or capable of understanding how dangerous the "Taliban Dream Team" is and how Bowe Bergdahl's return isn't worth losing them, since they obviously are so much more important and dangerous than anyone or anything else including KSM, Ramza Yousef, the Blind Sheik, Eric Robert Rudolph, John Wayne Gacy and the Unibomber.
I've been told because I wasn't a member of the Military myself that my view, analysis, opinion and fact gathering on the veracity of Bergdahl's fellow soldier's claims - soldiers who may have or may not have had wanton disregard for lives of Afghan civilians up to an including the negligent manslaughter of children - is simply beyond my ken.
I've been called an Obama "Puppet". Never mind the fact I Voted against both him and Hillary in protest of their campaign behavior on Super Tuesday 2008.
I've been told that the rights of Captured Foreign Terrorists are somehow less than the rights of anyone else under the Constitution, as if we were still living in the era of the Dred Scot Decision where the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, Article 1, Section 9 guaranteeing the Writ of Habeas Corpus, the Geneva Conventions and War Crimes Act were all merely a set of quaint but useless and outdated suggestions, or hints, or guidelines, not actually LAWS that mean anything - like serving any number of years in a Federal Penitentiary including Life and possible Execution if the subject dies of deliberate mistreatment - even though there have been not one, not two, but three different recent SCOTUS decisions on Gitmo that all say the exact opposite, that equal rights mean equal rights - [and btw some of them did die in custody during interrogation which was investigated by a Grand Jury & DOJ who haven't yet found "sufficient evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt"] - however a President with the all fired nerve to neglect to send a courtesy note to Capital Hill - when some Senators choose to walk out of Classified Bergdahl Briefings Early to go complain on Fox News about what they "didn't get told", and particularly since that briefing revealed that the Taliban had threatened to Kill Sgt. Bergdahl if the deal was publicly revealed before hand - all to facilitate a law requiring Congress be given advance notification on something they have no Constitutional decision making power over (under Art 2, Sec 2, Powers of the President to Grant "Reprieves and Pardons") is apparently a Crime Against Jehova Buddy Christ Lord God Vishnu Himself!.
... and it makes both Uncle Sam and Baldy the Bald Eagle Cry Tears of Baby Jesus Blood.
Apparently when you have a Prisoner of War, and you're winding down to the end of that War - you're supposed to just keep those Prisoners Forever, even if the War Ends - cuz you have them - and you do. Or something.
But y'know apparently I can't read, or comprehend my own native tongue, which is English. American English.
So I'm going to cede the stage for a moment and let someone else who these various Militarios will better respect and listen to.
Ladies and Gentlemen and Everyone, please venture over the flip to the searing words US Navy Chief Warrant Officer Jim Wright, retired...
(I'm going to quote liberally because his words deserve that level of RESPECT and if you want the post down for going beyond Fair Use - fine - but until I hear that request, or get a response from the writer whom I've already contacted for permission or mods take it down - it's here!)
http://aattp.org/...
Are we really going to do this?
Is this what it’s finally come down to, is it really?
Look at yourselves, you silly selfish bastards.
Look. At. Yourselves.
Go on, do it, find a mirror and look into your own dead zombie eyes and see the empty void looking back.
This revolting, disgusting display of hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy, is this what we’ve finally become?
Are we now so filled with foul bilious hatred, are we now so consumed with soul-destroying fear, do we now despise our own selves so much that we would actually protest the return of one of our own? Is that it?
Is that what we’ve become?
If so, then the sooner America collapses of its own maggot-ridden gangrenous rot, the better.
No. no, don’t you dare look away. Don’t roll your eyes and dismiss the question. Don’t change the subject. Don’t click on to another story you find more palatable. You started this. You look into your own rotten soul and you answer the question.
Is this who we are?
Because the utter unmitigated, unhinged, unbounded yellow-eyed hypocrisy that defines this sick twisted morally bankrupt philosophy has finally, today, reached its zenith. There is nowhere left to go.
I didn’t think these people could dishonor the spirit of this country any more than they already had, but I was wrong.
Oh, I get it. I understand that frightened people become more and more irrational, especially when they are allowed, encouraged, to feed incestuously on each other’s fear. And I get that they are afraid. I can see it in their faces, I can hear it in their voices. I get that they’re afraid of change. I get that they’re afraid of the future. I get that they’re afraid of the past. And I get that they’re afraid of the present. I get that they’re afraid of losing power and privilege and prestige. I get that they’re afraid of their capricious and childishly vengeful god. I get that they’re afraid of different races and different cultures and different accents and different religions and different sexual orientations and different viewpoints and different politics. I get it, they’ve screamed their small fears over and over and only a dead man could possibly miss it.
I get that they are so consumed with rage and so filled with naked hate and so programmed with their diseased ideology that it poisons their minds like a computer chip submerged in acid.
I get that they are so utterly terrified of the world that they piss themselves in abject fear at the mere thought of going to the grocery store without a goddamned gun stuck in their pants like an extra oversized prick.
More than anything, I get that they are afraid of Barack Obama, everything about him, every single thing about the president terrifies them. Obama stalks their feverish nightmares and he is the very symbol of their shameful impotence – so much so that they’ve written him into their precious bible, in a starring role as the devil, the destroyer of worlds.
I get it.
And hence we have the opening contatta. But it goes further folks, much further.
Some of the best notes...
They say it’s because Bergdahl is a deserter, that he could be a traitor.
And maybe he is. Maybe he’s both.
And maybe he isn’t.
We don’t know. No one knows, except for Bergdahl himself.
And Bergdahl has neither admitted his guilt nor proclaimed his innocence as yet. There’s been no Article 32 hearing, no trial, no court-martial. The military and the intelligence agencies haven’t even begun his debriefing. All we know for certain is that an American soldier was taken captive by the enemy, held for years, and returned as part of a prisoner exchange. That’s it. That’s what we know. We don’t know what events led to his capture, not all of them, not yet. We don’t know the details of his captivity. We don’t know the particulars of his release beyond the broad details that have been published in the press.
Nevertheless, Bergdahl has been condemned by the popular media, by social networks, by pundits and politicians, not because they know more about the situation than you or I do, but solely because they hate the president. If Obama was behind Bergdahl’s release, then Bergdahl is a traitor, Q.E.D. because the president must never, ever, be allowed even the slightest acknowledgement of patriotism.
This condemnation isn’t about Bergdahl, it’s about Obama.
On the nose that one was, I think.
Certainly, some of Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers say he deserted. That he was disillusioned with the war, with America, that he left his guard post and walked away into the desert in some foolish and quixotic attempt to reach China. They say that men, good men, real heroes, died searching for Bergdahl after he disappeared.
And those soldiers, they’d probably know, wouldn’t they?
And, yeah, if I was one of them I’d be damned resentful too and I have no doubt whatsoever that I’d use this blog to protest those who would attempt to paint Bergdahl as a hero – if I knew for certain that he deserted, if I’d lost friends searching for him.
I don’t begrudge those soldiers one iota of their resentment, they earned it with their own blood.
And let’s say it’s true.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that Bergdahl is indeed a deserter, that his capture by the Taliban was a result of his own cowardly actions.
So?
So what?
Last time I checked, the punishment specified for violation of UCMJ Article 85 (or Article 86 depending on Bergdahl’s intentions) isn’t to throw him to our enemies!
Ultimately, Bergdahl will have to face his accusers, and if the allegations of desertion are proven true then he will answer for the crime of desertion as specified under the Uniform Code of Military Justice – which technically could include the death penalty since the desertion is alleged to have occurred during time of war and in the face of the enemy. Far more likely, of course, if Bergdahl is convicted of desertion he’ll probably get little more than a bad conduct discharge and forfeiture of any benefits. It’s unlikely that he’d see prison time – and, really, how would that even be a punishment compared to what he’s already been through? Likely he won’t ever face a hearing and he’ll be administratively separated from the service at the Army’s earliest possible convenience.
But, and here’s the thing so pay attention, even if Bergdahl is tried and found guilty of desertion, even if he’s found guilty of treason as some would have it, he’ll go to prison – we won’t give him back to the Taliban.
And neither should Americans
protest his return to his home town by harassing the residents there. It's not just spitting on him, it's spitting on the
entire town. It's pissing on the sacrifice and the honor of the soldiers who (may have) died trying to get him back. But some people have done just that. People who clearly have No. God. Damn. Shame!
Ahem, pardon the digression - anywhich...
For the last two years, these very same people have been screaming for Obama’s impeachment, because the President ordered the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American who publicly renounced his citizenship, declared his allegiance to our sworn enemies, and who then actively took up arms against the United States and loudly encouraged others to do so as well. These same people would sacrifice untold numbers of American soldiers to capture a self-declared terrorist and give him a trial because they simply cannot and will not acknowledge that the president did the right thing, but these very same people would condemn Bergdahl and leave him to rot in Afghanistan without so much as an Article 32 hearing, solely to further their blind hatred of Barack Obama.
For the last eighteen months these very same people have been screaming for Obama’s impeachment. Impeachment? Hell, some of these silly sons of bitches, including sitting members of Congress and members of the military, have marched on the White House demanding the actual overthrow of the United States government and the imprisonment or death of the President, because four Americans died in Benghazi, Libya. They are outraged, outraged beyond logic, beyond prudence, beyond reason, because they believe Obama didn’t do absolutely everything possible up to and including an armed military invasion to save those men. But these same people, these very same people, would leave an American soldier to die at the hands of the Taliban and they refuse to cheer his safe return, solely because they hate Barack Obama beyond all rational bounds and they will not allow this administration any victory no matter how small – even when they themselves have been condemning Obama for leaving an American serviceman in the hands of our enemies.
Yeah, ^^That^^ Baby - ^^That!!^^!
We don’t negotiate with terrorists?
Jesus Haploid Christ, we do business with terrorists on a daily basis and have all the way back to WWII when we contracted with the Mafia to run arms into occupied Sicily.
We don’t negotiate with terrorists, what a fucking joke.
Answer me a question, if we can sell arms to terrorists, to our own enemies, then you tell me why we can’t negotiate with those same terrorists for the return of our own people.
If our people aren’t worth it, if they aren’t worth more than the value we place on arm sales and political maneuvering, then you go right on and tell me what all the shouting is about over Benghazi. Go on, I’ll wait.
If our people aren’t worth four or five terrorists sitting in a Gitmo prison cell, then you tell me why we’ve spent the last twelve years in two wars, why we traded the lives of six thousand servicemen and why we killed hundreds of thousands Iraqis and Afghans to avenge three thousand Americans. Go on, tell me why it was okay for the previous administration take a hundred enemy lives for every one of ours, but it’s not acceptable for the current administration to trade five terrorists for the life of one American soldier – especially when we gave six American lives as a down payment looking for him after his disappearance. Why were the Americans who died on 911 any more valuable than Bowe Bergdahl?
And if Bergdahl is guilty of desertion, then don’t we owe it to those six dead soldiers to bring him home and make him account for his cowardice?
Yes, absolutely. If he deserves to be punished then
we should do it, not them. However, until he has been adjudicated by a court - he's
Innocent until Proven Guilty and should be treated as such - or else, what exactly the HELL have we been fighting to "Protect" these last 13 years? The rights of an Rabid Online Angry Mob to digitally
Lynch a Returning POW? Can you believe we've actually found ourselves in
this place? Now I guess it's "Support The Troops [Except for the Ones Obama Likes - Then it's
Fuck 'em!]"
These people should be disgusted with themselves. They should be deeply ashamed. But they aren't. We all know they aren't.
Summing up.
Whether or not Bowe Bergdahl is a hero or a deserter or just a hapless fool who screwed up under the enormous pressures of war, he’s still an American.
He’s one of ours and and there’s only one thing to say:
Welcome home, Soldier.
Welcome home.
Yes, "Welcome Home, Sgt.", that should be the first thing any of us have to say about it, and until
all the facts are in - the last thing. But unfortunately, even though we're obviously willing to kill for them, we refuse to actually be willing to
live up to the ideals of what American is supposed to be.
Someday, perhaps. Someday. Not Today.
Vyan