Discussion for article #223982
The celebration about Bergdahl’s release was 100% warranted. The anti-American conservatives are free to go pound sand.
It’s quite bazarre to believe that an investigation wasn’t begun immediately upon Bergdahl’s disappearance. All the information absent Bergdahl’s own testimony has been amassed and documented so making it sound like the Army is opening an entirely new investigation now that we have the Sergeant back seems to be a tool to mollify the right wing screamers shrieking for blood.
Exactly Grieving4America. Hadn’t read your post before jumping in here.
I can’t help thinking that this Bergdahl hysteria by the right is going to be left in the dust now that the right has shifted their focus. They now have their toadies, lackeys, initial Iraq war-embeds, and stenographers in the press or on cable, all focused on how to ramp up another form of intercession into Iraq, military or otherwise…They will at the very least make political hay out of regional hostilities there, in order to get the President to assume responsibility for Bush’s Completely Predictable Failed War, for which they still refuse to barely mention his name…or have found ways to quickly change the subject in order to let all the Bushies off the hook.
One thing is obvious. All these rightwing NeoCons are working overtime at obfuscating the history of how Iraq was enabled to become the disastrous state it now finds itself in. Look at the evidence. Who does the media keep choosing to consult and rely on in all matters related to Iraq? Who avoids and refuses to give a clear accounting of how we inserted ourselves into Iraq in the first place? The media hasn’t spent one iota of time interviewing or getting any on-air commentary from those who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, or even the type of intervention that was used to thoroughly implant forces there on false pretenses. Who called off weapons inspectors so they could have their war immediately? That should tell the country a lot, right there. Its mass amnesia perpetrated by the same bullshit media, the same bullshit politicians, the same bullshit armchair generals, and the same people willing to take their eyes off of one bad situation over another. Its all bullshit.
As far as it goes with Bergdahl, he’s more a victim of political games by the right than any potential infractions for going AWOL. Sadly, he is more of a pawn than anything else right now, which is even more bullshit.
Did you miss this sentence in the Army statement?
“The investigating officer will have access to previously gathered documentary evidence, including the 2009 investigation.”
There really wasn’t any “Rose Garden ceremony”. Just the POTUS and the Bergdahl family at a podium, with some members of the media. How is that a ceremony? if it were McCain or Romney in the Rose Garden with these parents, there wouldn’t have been a whimper from Conservative about it!!
The United States Army announced Monday that it had begun an investigation into Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s 2009 disappearance in Afghanistan.
Pffft. No need. The right has already charged, tried, convicted and recommended a sentence. All we need to do now is freshen the paint in his cell, and maybe figure what size jumpsuit he’ll need.
USA!
They did investigate it to the extent they could. Without access to Bergdahl, it was inconclusive and would remain that way until we got him back. So even if the wingnuts who think he is literally a traitor and wanted to join the Taliban, of which there is no evidence to support that claim, we needed to carry out the swap even just to get him into custody to further investigate (and if warranted) charge him.
But as I said at the outset, getting our last POW out of enemy hands is a wholly sufficient reason for a White House celebration for the press to participate in.
The wingnuts are trying to make out that President Obama caused this by letting the future leader of ISIL out of detention back in 2009, so Bergdahl/ISIL will be conflated and spun for Iraq 3.0 (and general ODS) purposes.
The Army promoted Bergdahl TWICE while he was a POW.
Hardly the treatment they’d give someone they knew was a “deserter.”
Therefore, Susan Rice is correct. You don’t promote soldiers who aren’t serving with “honor and distinction”. Of course, they love to hate on her no matter what.
Simple point.
That he left his post and returned twice rises to the charge of AWOL.
Not desertion.
To my knowledge those two incidents went unpunished.
jw1
Yeah, no “fact remains” so get off your high horse. They did an investigation and concluded that he wandered off internationally as he had done twice previously. They could not investigate more thoroughly because he was unavailable.
He left his post intentionally the original investigation showed. That was preliminary, but people have a right to ask questions especially after the parents were treated so well at the White House yet one or more soldiers have reportedly died trying to find the wanderer. Critics raising the issues is protected speech under 1st Amendment and seems legitimate in light of the incomplete official record. As more comes out, he seems to have psychological problems but that doesn’t delegitimize raising of concerns, especially given the facts as then known. And it doesn’t make one right wing to have wondered allowed. He may yet face charges.
Victim? He’s maybe. a victim of Army deploying an unfit soldier who should have been screened out. Those who died looking for him - also victims.
I realize I’m being redundant, but the insane conservatives in this country are addicted to emotional outrage. They get some kind of adrenaline brain chemical bath like methamphetamine out of it. Once they have chewed all the outrage out of Bergdahl, they will move on to the next outrage, like Iraq, or they’ll always have Benghazi, for a quick hit.
You have to realize that they are addicts no different than Heroin addicts or Alcoholics–their drug of choice is OUTRAGE. Every day they tune into their GURUs of outrage on the radio and on Fox News and certain web sites–they get their fix, and they feel normal–for a few minutes. Then they need some more outrage. If you could drink it or smoke it, you could make billions off of these outrage junkies.
One quality an outrage junkie has no use for is MERCY. Another is compassion. Let the poor children starve, and let a soldier on the Autistic spectrum rot in an enemy sweat box. “YOU WANT ME TO BLEED for these people”??? Why–I am outraged! Outraged.
I pity them. I see what their outrage addiction has done to their souls. It has withered and pitted them and shrunk them into oozing necrotic pustules.
St. Cloud Times:
“U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan told veterans Friday that, after receiving classified briefings, he’s convinced no U.S. soldiers were killed trying to rescue U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.”
Speculation is fine. You’re entitled.
Trying to convince others of your narrative requires more than speculation.
I’ve offered an opinion by someone with classified clearance-- whose opinion differs from yours.
jw1
So it would seem like this is merely a continuation of that investigation and just a “new” investigation in name only. As I said it seems more of an effort to pacify the right wingers screaming for red meat than a launch of something entirely new.
Nobody died “looking for him”. That is a right-wing fiction.