Discussion for article #243759
From a Military perspective thatâs what he did. He deserted. In the face of the enemy too. Thereâs a bunch of peripheral chatter about him having good reasons for doing so but that will not matter. None of that mitigates the charge. He walked and he will be convicted of that. And heâll go to Leavenworth for a very long time.
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This season of Serial tackles the Bergdahl case. I;m very much looking forward to listening to it.
Glad he is facing trial, and glad we retrieved him to do so. A concept lost on the Fright-Wingersâ˘.
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BS, he came home to a heroâs welcome by the Obama administration. It was disgraceful to claim the reason we trade to get him was due to commitment to ânever leave a man behindâ.
He wasnât worth the lives lost or the money spent to retrieve him.
Take that somewhere else. No lives were lost as we now know and we donât leave menâŚalive or dead to the enemy. You may not like it Jar Head but thatâs the way it goes down. You donât get leftâŚno matter what.
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Whatâs âBSââŚ?
Go back to the articles when he first arrived. I stated very clearly I am glad we got him back, as ALL our people have to come home, regardless.
And that if it merited, he would have to face the music and the UCMJ process, which is what is this is.
Abject fail, meatball.
What cracks me up is our resident troll postures himself as a âMarineâ yet he advocates what amounts to âleave any man behind if I donât like his politics.â
What a disgrace.
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âjustamarine.â âJustâ meant ironically, because some of us are more equal than others.
Do we even know Bergdahlâs politics? Or does âjustâ just find him useful for bashing the president?
FYI, here were a few of my comments back in June of 2014 when Bergdahl was releasedâŚ
Discussion: Army To Probe Circumstances Of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahlâs Capture:
âNot that this will quell the braying idiots on the ârightâ but glad that this is being looked into by the Army.â
Discussion: Army To Probe Circumstances Of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahlâs Capture
âHe was still in good standing with the DoD and was promoted while in captivity. And the anonymous source for that article is not a substitute for a formal court of inquiry. Even if he is 100% guilty of desertion, it is irrelevant to the issue of getting him back, even if it is to stand trial.â
Discussion: Army Launches Investigation Of Bergdahl Disappearance:
"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."
Discussion: Conservatives Go From Zero To Impeachment In Record Time On Bergdahl:
Jim Wright, a retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer says it all4 in my view.
Itâs a righteous rant and worth the read. Here is a choice excerpt (again, all of it is worth the read):
They say itâs because Bergdahl is a deserter, that he could be a traitor.
And maybe he is. Maybe heâs both.
And maybe he isnât.
We donât know. No one knows, except for Bergdahl himself.
And Bergdahl has neither admitted his guilt nor proclaimed his innocence as yet. Thereâs been no Article 32 hearing, no trial, no court martial. The military and the intelligence agencies havenât 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. Thatâs it. Thatâs what we know. We donât know what events led to his capture, not all of them, not yet. We donât know the details of his captivity. We donât 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 Bergdahlâs 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 isnât about Bergdahl, itâs about Obama.
Certainly, some of Bergdahlâs 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, theyâd probably know, wouldnât they?
And, yeah, if I was one of them Iâd be damned resentful too and I have no doubt whatsoever that Iâd use this blog to protest those who would attempt to paint Bergdahl as a hero â if I knew for certain that he deserted, if Iâd lost friends searching for him.
I donât begrudge those soldiers one iota of their resentment, they earned it with their own blood.
And letâs say itâs true.
Letâs 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 Bergdahlâs intentions) isnât 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 â 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 heâll probably get little more than a bad conduct discharge and forfeiture of any benefits. Itâs unlikely that heâd see prison time â and, really, how would that even be a punishment compared to what heâs already been through? Likely he wonât ever face a hearing and heâll be administratively separated from the service at the Armyâs earliest possible convenience.
But, and hereâs the thing so pay attention, even if Bergdahl is tried and found guilty of desertion, even if heâs found guilty of treason as some would have it, heâll go to prison â we wonât give him back to the Taliban.
There is no crime so great that leaving him in the hands of our enemies is the indicated punishment.
He was, he is, one of ours. Period.
Of course it is only because they figure they can attack President Obama with this shit.The vile hypocrisy of the Fright-Wingers⢠on hits is breath taking.
Take the flip-flopping by the Klondike Kardashian, Sarah Palin before she deserted her post as Governor offered this statement on Bowe Bergdahlâs imprisonment:
âTodd and I are praying for Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, his family, and all of his fellow soldiers who are putting their lives on the line to defend our freedom and protect democracy abroad,â Governor Palin said. âThe capture of Private Bergdahl and the bombings in Jakarta prove that we have not defeated terrorism, and that radical extremists will stop at nothing to attack Westerners and our ideals.â
More than 7,000 soldiers and airmen stationed in Alaska are currently deployed overseas.
âOur men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform have the best training and experience of any military in the world,â said Lt. Gen. (AK) Craig E. Campbell, Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard. âWe know that when we deploy that anything can happen, and we pray that PFC Bergdahlâs fellow soldiers can find him quickly and reunite him with his family.â
You donât know what you are talking about. Tell that to the members of his unit who contribute the death of 6 soldiers to his desertion.
He should have been left to wither away and die.
The BS is your statement about being glad we got him back. He should have been left there to die with his Taliban comrades.
Those statements were made before it became clear that he was not captured but left on his own free will.
Obama knew the circumstances and still treated him to a heroes welcome. A real CINC would have just left him, but anything to rational realizing a few terrorist from GITMO.
Why does his politics matter? Why do certain liberals base their opinions on the politics of the individual. He deserted and should have bed left to live out his days with his Taliban brethren.
If you are really a marine, you should know that Bergdahl having spent time with the enemy means he had information. His debriefing and such likely yielded a lot of info, etc. You get info from people by engaging them. Basic concept, ask any FBI guy.
And there is no confirmation that lives were lost, in fact it appears to be one of those myths that get sold to the public, like Pat Tillman really being gung ho for the Iraq War, Jessica Lynch being ârescuedâ, etc.
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There were no deaths attributable to Bergdahl. That fiction was debunked in June 2014 when the prisoner swap occurred.
Repeating long-ago myths does your âleave anyone behind I donât likeâ position no favors.
Semper Fi in your case has become Whimper Why.
Liar. I posted my quotes at the time with links to them.
Now fuck off liar.
Liar. There was already huge questions about the manner of Bergdahlâs capture, And the online petitions pushed by Palin and others were not launched until a year before his release when it was pretty well known that he walked off his post.
Another lie for you, whose motto is âLeave no man behind as long as I agree with his politicsâ.
You are a fucking disgrace to the uniform (and that is assuming you are even telling the truth that you served at all).