American POW freed in prisoner swap. And the GOP doesn't like it.....

You'll find that when civilians are talking to vets and they drop lines like "Don't you support the troops?"

The sheer ignorance of it causes an inordinate amount of anger and resentment.

 

The furious search for Sergeant Bergdahl, his critics say, led to the deaths of at least two soldiers and possibly six others in the area. Pentagon officials say those charges are unsubstantiated and are not supported by a review of a database of casualties in the Afghan war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/u...idaho-pow-vanished-angered-his-unit.html?_r=0

 

Why should I? If you are going to accuse your opponents of not wanting to save POWs then certainly I can call you a douchebag, yes? I mean it's a pretty douchey thing to say, so why not?

 

I wasn't speaking to treeman

 

Again, this just shows that you've never served. Who is more likely to be telling the unaltered truth, the pentagon or the actual guys on the ground? Why not just link to the pentagon story where he was captured while out on a patrol while you're at it?

 

No you were speaking to me. I guess I should explain that vets get mad at civilians for dropping stupid "Don't you support the troops" lines even when they are talking to a different vet. The level of ignorance involved is unchanged.

 

We'll need a trial to figure that out.

 

Last I checked Obama scored big on Osama. He can get away with a couple of bad trades. political reasons.

 

Perhaps you would need a trial to figure that out, but it's pretty simple, the censored and altered BS that the public is fed by the pentagon is not really reliable. Military trials all too often rely on that censored, altered intelligence so they aren't any better than what the pentagon puts out.

One guy on the ground might be full of ish, but when numerous guys on the ground have the same or incredibly similar story and it is different than the official line of BS fed to the public by the DOD it shouldn't take a genius to figure out who is most likely telling the truth and who is lying.

 

Bobby,

I was making a joke about this train-wreck of a thread. I apologize if I have offended you. You should relax a bit, this forum is supposed to be a fun thing.


Sincerely,
Bum

P.S. I also think you are great

 

Not enough facts to tell. It depends on how the orders were given and if this was one of the times the military decided to give a detailed explanation of the rationale behind their orders.

It also depends if the members who spoke out about the situation are operating on hearsay, and rumors that have been flowing through the rumor mill.

Then there is the Pentagon, and what facts they've actually examined and what their objective is.

There is far too little known to say for sure which side is less reliable.

 

You don't have much faith in the institution you served do you?

 

If we went by your word, why bother having a trial to begin with?

 

Fair enough. Like I said previously, this issue is sort of personal for me because it very easily could have been my buddies out there roaming Afghanistan getting hurt trying to find this idiot who deserted his unit in country. I have lots of friends who disagree with the wars, hell I even have friends who went AWOL (some who still are) but doing that in country is so incredibly irresponsible I just can't forgive it. Even if he didn't actively aid the enemy, his actions directly led to the death of several soldiers so I don't have any sympathy for him.

I think the idea of trading 5 high ranking Taliban leaders for ANYONE is questionable, but the blowback wouldn't be anywhere near this intense from the military and from vets if it wasn't done to bring back a deserter.

For me at least this isn't a partisan issue and I have very little patience for those who are trying to make it one on either side, it's just that those trying to defend it are more easily spotted than those who are on the other side for political reasons because this action, at least in my opinion, was indefensible.

That's not to mean that I wanted the kid to rot in captivity in Afghanistan forever, I just don't think we should have handed over essentially terrorist leaders to get him back. Had we authorized an op to pull him out I would have had no problem with it, so long as once it was over, he was tried for his crimes.

 

Very little when it comes to having the truth be the victor. The truth doesn't matter much to the DOD, just ask Pat Tillman's family. Getting anything resembling truth out of the DOD is next to impossible once they've crafted the story they want to go with.

You don't have to go by my word, in fact, I wasn't there so I don't personally know anything, but I think you should trust the word of his squad members and other members of his company over the official DOD story.

As to why we should have a trial, no one has suggested that he be denied his due process. He is entitled to a trial by court marshal and we can hope that it will be with accurate and undoctored information.

 

From the "why am I not surprised" files

GOP Urged White House To 'Do All It Can' To Get Bowe Bergdahl

But prior to Bergdahl's release, Republican lawmakers were some of the sergeant's biggest advocates, and repeatedly pressed the administration to do something -- in fact, everything within its power -- to get him returned to the United States.

Take Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). On Feb. 18, 2014, he told CNN's Anderson Cooper that he could support such an arrangement, albeit reserving judgment for some of the details.

COOPER: Would you oppose the idea of some form of negotiations or prisoner exchange? I know back in 2012 you called the idea of even negotiating with the Taliban bizarre, highly questionable.

McCAIN: Well, at that time the proposal was that they would release -- Taliban, some of them really hard-core, particularly five really hard-core Taliban leaders, as a confidence-building measure. Now this idea is for an exchange of prisoners for our American fighting man.

I would be inclined to support such a thing depending on a lot of the details. [...]

COOPER: So if there was some -- the possibility of some sort of exchange, that's something you would support?

McCAIN: I would support. Obviously I'd have to know the details, but I would support ways of bringing him home, and if exchange was one of them, I think that would be something I think we should seriously consider.


Another outspoken champion for Bergdahl's release was Rep. Rich Nugent (R-Fla.), who wanted the administration to "do everything possible" for his safe return.

"Last year, on the fourth anniversary of Sgt. Bergdahl's capture, on the floor of the House of Representatives, I introduced a resolution in the House calling on the United States to do everything possible not to leave any members of the armed forces behind during the drawdown of Iraq and Afghanistan. Believe it or not, I had members of Congress come up to me and say, 'I didn't know we had a living POW in Afghanistan.' That was shocking to me," said Nugent, according to a Feb. 24 article in the Citrus County Chronicle.

 

This entire episode is just so emblematic of this Administration's complete and total incompetence. I assure you that the timing on this was done in a way to distract from the VA scandal. Everything with this administration is misdirection and public relations tricks. Deception at every turn, and complete dishonesty. Upstanding people with good intentions do not act this way.

 

That's hilarious. Politics as usual, how surprising.

 

Meanwhile, in a parallel reality, where Obama refuses to do the trade and that leaks out to the public....

The support for Obama's refusal to release terrorists has at least some general understanding and support by the Left and his supporter, while the outrage of leaving one of our, whether or not he deserted doesn't matter - he's one of our and we as American never ever leave one of our behind by the Right is deafening.

Said it ain't so.

 

Bless your heart.