Discussion: Report: Defense Department Doubts White House Justification For Bergdahl Swap

Discussion for article #223734

I don’t get it. Even if he wasn’t deathly ill, would that mean we WOULDN’T want him back? We had a chance to get him back. We did it. Good. Get over it.

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And these “senior defense officials” are…who? and How many are we talking about? If these people aren’t willing to identify themselves, there’s really no reason for me to either take their statements seriously or assume that they are more than just “disgruntled employees.” Does anyone really think that it’s difficult to find military officials who have an axe to grind?

At least we know who the platoon members who criticized Bergdahl are as well as their backgrounds.

More “immediate gratification” histrionics and rumor-mongoring by the MSM.

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Who are these “senior defense officials” who are willing to tell tales out of school? What do they really know? The Defense Department is a very, very big place. And people at the top may not have known much about what the Taliban was saying–even if the negotiations were carried out by military personnel rather than the CIA.

It was my impression that what the administration was saying was that his life was in danger, not that there was a direct threat.

But once again, we see the Obama administration speaking with too many voices.

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Why the fuck should any of this matter? So what, we’ll bring you home now – but only if you’ve been threatened by your captors and only if you’re not too healthy?

Tough shit, Private Ryan. We were going to get you out of this hell-hole, but you unfortunately scored too high on your most-recent fitness test. Please enjoy the remainder of your captivity.

Ten years ago, this “debate” would have been a Saturday Night Live sketch.

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“There are reportedly doubts by some…”

TOM!!! Are you applying for a job with FOX?

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Memo from “senior Defense Department officials” to troops serving in hostile territory: “Don’t get captured, because unless you’re clearly at death’s door, we won’t try to get you back.”

That should really improve morale.

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Hillary is a very strong force in 2016. Bagger pushback will go all the way til Nov. 2016 (and beyond). As my fellow Mexicans say,

“La fiesta esta empezando.”

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Miklaszewski also reported Tuesday on skepticism by some at the Pentagon toward the claim that Bergdahl’s failing health put the POW at risk of death

Truly this is so very chilling. At what point do they consider his health at enough risk to try to bring him home? One would think that the goal of your superiors would be to bring you home before your health disintegrated to the point of risking death, but obviously this last week has proved that isn’t the case.

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“Senior Defense Officials?” Do you have any idea how many people there are in the Pentagon with birds or stars on their shoulders? Yeah, I have no doubt some of them are Fox-toxxed wingnuts. That’s what the Pentagon is for. It’s a place to stash people who made general but aren’t fit for command. They force people who are fit to command to rotate through periodically so there’ll be a sanity check, of course. Which is why they kinda need to identify these “senior defense officials.”

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What a bunch of fucking ghouls.

It’s ridiculous that we’re still arguing about bringing a captive American home from a warzone.

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Exactly, as if somehow his release was critically dependent upon his being “at death’s door.”

“Well, he’s not quite dead yet, I guess we’ll just wait a little bit more until the politics get more favorable.”

There was obviously no physician present and communicating with the President’s team, thus his health status was a judgement call. Personally, I support erring on the side of Bergdhal. And, though he has his faults, I trust our President’s judgement more than I do some malcontents at the Pentagon, and certainly more than some two-bit gossip peddling mountebank on “Morning Joe.”

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For more information on this story see the previous TPM post, “Polls: Americans Divided By Party Lines On Bergdahl Swap.”

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Why do reporters always say some senior officials when they never give names? How do we know they were senior officials and if they really said this. Where is the evidence to back this up? I could say that some senior pentagon officials wanted a spaceship to go to the moon. LOL. The bottom line is that President Obama did not make this decision in a bubble or in a room where he was throwing the dice to see if it was even or odds to rescuing an American POW. It looks like republicans don’t care about POWs in war. They would rather the US leave Afghanistan and leave Bergdahl behind. Israel leaders trades thousands of prisoners who some are terrorist for their soldiers all the time and their country applauds, I believe that this insaneness is just because it was President Obama who got Bergdahl home.

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I’m sure their video analysis of his health is as good as their analysis of going to war: “[It will last] six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”

“Oil will pay for it.”

“Mr. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, ‘‘wildly off the mark.’’ Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops.”

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I just want to hear one of these mysterious “senior defense officials” come out and explain how they would have extricated Bergdahl
… or just come out and state that it is their position, that based simply upon opinion and various comments of others, that a break with past practice should have occurred and Bergdahl should have been left behind.

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Don’t think there aren’t some high-ups at DoD who wouldn’t like the President to be impeached.

And you know, that’s probably going to happen now. It’s almost like Pres Obama is daring them to do it. He knows the kind of damage that a kangaroo court will cause the Republiban.

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Miklaszewski sounds like a first-rate stenographer for some rightwing stooges in uniform from the left-behind brigade at the Pentagon still beholden to the Cheney/Rumsfeld faction, that never wanted to see this war (or any war for that matter) come to an end.

They burrow those fuckers in deep as I recall. I guess there are plenty of prospective armchair generals waiting to take their place on any rightwing cableshow that’ll have them as soon as this war officially comes to a close. In the meantime, without a job as a defense contractor available, they’ll just shoot blanks from the cheap seats in anonymity against the Commander-in-Chief…sullying their uniform even as they speak.

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saw that exchange… as if anyone in the pentagon who is going to be a stoolie for scarbro doesn’t already have an agenda. besides, iirc, didn’t those few senators who actually stayed long enough to watch that december video come away thinking that bergdahl looked ill.
scarbro was basically advocating leaving bergdahl to rot.

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Jim Miklaszewski is good friends with the Cheney’s…Liz Cheney in particular.

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