Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Marine who was declared a deserter nearly 10 years ago after disappearing in Iraq and then returning to the U.S. claiming he had been kidnapped, only to disappear again, is back in U.S. custody, officials said Sunday. Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, 34, turned himself in and was being flown Sunday from an undisclosed location in the Middle East to Norfolk, Va. He is to be moved Monday to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to a spokesman, Capt. Eric Flanagan. Maj. Gen. Raymond Fox, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Lejeune, will determine whether...

U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl has made no admission of wrongdoing since being released by the Taliban last month, officials said on Wednesday, adding that he has yet to be asked the tough question of why he left base before his 2009 capture. Army officials said the two-star general investigating Bergdahl's disappearance in Afghanistan will seek to bring up that subject with the soldier sometime after his outpatient treatment in Texas is finished in about two weeks and before the expected completion of the Army's probe in mid-August.

On This Week with George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning, ABC News Chief White House correspondent Jon Karl asked former Vice President Dick Cheney if his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week, in which Cheney and daughter Liz accused President Barack Obama of wanting to take America “down a notch,” was tantamount to calling Obama a traitor. “It almost seems like you’re accusing the president of treason here,” Karl said, “saying he’s intentionally bringing America down a notch.” While adding that he intended “no disrespect” to Obama, Cheney launched into a comprehensive critique of the president’s foreign policy, which he...

Thirty-eight members of the U.S. Congress wrote an open letter on Thursday to Secretary of State John Kerry, asking him to use "every legal means" necessary to rescue Christian mother Meriam Ibrahim and her two young children currently being held inside a Sudanese prison. "We request that the U.S. State Department, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, review granting Mrs. Ibrahim Significant Public Benefit Parole, asylum, or refugee status, as appropriate. In short, we urge that every legal means necessary be exhausted to ensure that she and her young children are provided safe haven," reads the letter,...

A former member of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl‘s platoon interrupted a Democrat on Capital Hill Wednesday as he asked an academic expert about conditions the soldier might have endured in Afghanistan to tell him “nobody else deserted.” Much to the consternation of U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., former Army Specialist Cody Full asked for permission to speak as the lawmaker was in the process of building a case that Bergdahl may have had reason to act in “an inexplicable manner.”

Secretary of State John Kerry cautiously signalled on Monday that the United States would be open to cooperating with Iran militarily in Iraq to beat back al Qaida-inspired fighters who pose an "existential" danger to that war-torn country and may look to target Europe and the United States. “This is a challenge to the stability of the region. It is obviously an existential challenge to Iraq itself. This is a terrorist group,” Kerry told Yahoo News Global Anchor Katie Couric in an exclusive interview. Prodded on whether the United States would consider cooperating militarily with Iran, Kerry replied: "Let’s see...

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the last American prisoner of war, returned home early Friday morning, his hero's welcome supplanted by a controversial prisoner swap and his reputation tarnished by accusations he was a deserter. He arrived in San Antonio from a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, where he'd been recuperating since his release May 31 in exchange for five Taliban figures held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 28-year-old Bergdahl, the longest-held American soldier since the Vietnam War, was taken to the San Antonio Military Medical Center.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday said Republicans should follow the lead of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Reid said Graham defeated conservative challengers and avoided a runoff after co-authoring immigration reform last year, unlike House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who was defeated in a shocking result the same night. ADVERTISEMENT “I believe the Republicans should follow the lead of Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham was part of the Gang of Eight to come up with immigration reform. He never backed down, backed up. He kept going forward on this issue,” Reid said. “We need more Republicans who are...

... “It was our judgment, and it was unanimous, by the way,” Hagel said. “It was the secretary of defense, secretary of state, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, director of national intelligence, attorney general. We all came to the same conclusion. . . .” And this is precisely the problem. President Obama felt “very strongly” that he had made the right decision — and nobody who worked for him was about to tell him otherwise. “There was not a dissent on moving forward with this plan,” Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told Time magazine. The real damage was self-inflicted:...

Today, when people talk about winning World War II, they often talk about freedom defeating tyranny. That is mostly true as the United States, the UK, Canada and Australia were indeed democracies. But it was not tyranny we went to war against. Indeed one of the powers that helped defeat Hitler was itself a dictatorship that only declared war on Hitler after having been invaded. Adolph Hitler didn’t suddenly become a dictator in 1939 or even 1941. He had been a dictator for years before war broke out. While he didn’t start out as such, soon after getting power legitimately...

A Democratic congressman offered a curious analogy on Monday to explain why the U.S. is dealing with the Taliban -- apparently comparing them to soldiers in the American Revolution. According to sources, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., made the comparison during a House briefing late Monday with administration officials on the trade of Taliban members for American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Nadler apparently made the point that the Taliban, as non-state actors, have a status similar to that of American soldiers who fought the British during the Revolutionary War. This comparison, Fox News is told, was met with a lot of groaning...

With regards to the release of five deadly Taliban generals for one deserter Islam-sympathizing US soldier, the excuse machine has become more and more ludicrous by the day. First Bowe Bergdahl's health was in danger. Next, we heard that Bergdahl was a soldier who served with honor and distinction,, so we had to rescue him.Next, we heard that platoon members who knew Bergdahl, and who criticizing him, were 'Swiftboating' him.Next, we were told that Bergdahls fellow soldiers may be psychopaths. Next, Obama fell back on the old, tired, 'racism/everyone hates me' card.Then, we were told by Obama that he has...

That is all....

Here’s John Kerry having a good time with Nabih Berri, the head of the Amal Movement, and speaker of the Hezbollah dominated Lebanese parliament. What better way to follow up the Taliban deal than to meet with another terrorist hijacker. Back in 1985, Amal and Hezbollah terrorists used the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 to demand the release of imprisoned terrorists. A TWA airliner, Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome, was hijacked by Shia terrorists of the Hizballah organization who demanded the release of Shia prisoners held in Kuwait, Israel, and Spain. The airliner was forced to fly...

Classified #Bergdahl briefing just finished. WH officials say Secy. Hagel made the final call on #Bergdahl swap.

Democratic strategist and former Gore-campaign manager Donna Brazile said this morning that veterans accusing recently returned Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl of desertion are part of a “PR campaign by Republicans.” After fellow panelist Ana Navarro noted that members of Bergdahl’s unit had consistently expressed concerns about the circumstances of his capture, Brazile said it was an effort to “muddy the waters” surrounding the prisoner deal. Quickly criticized for the comment by her fellow panelists on CNN, she said that she’d never impugn the testimony of a veteran, but stood by her comments. “That’s all they do . . . all they...

People are arguing about what the United States got out of the deal that swapped five top level terrorist leaders for one American soldier who was, at best, absent from his post in a war zone. Soldiers who served in the same unit with him call him a deserter. The key to this deal, however, is less likely to be what the United States got out of the deal than it is about what Barack Obama got out of the deal. If nothing else, it instantly got the veterans' hospitals scandals off the front pages of newspapers and pushed these...

As the news media cranked up the heat on the White House’s disastrous handling of the Veterans Affairs scandal, President Barack Obama decided it was time to change the subject and make the news about him again. So what does he do? Obama finalizes the release of five top Taliban commanders from Guantanamo in exchange for the Taliban’s release of one American soldier. Not just any soldier but “a high value” soldier Sargent Bowe Bergdahl, who deserted his duty in 2009 when he walked off his base in Afghanistan right into the enemy hands of the Taliban. And Bergdahl caused...

If you thought President Obama’s release of five top Taliban commanders in exchange for POW Bowe Bergdahl was bad, wait until you see what his Gitmo parole board plans. Desperate to empty the Guantanamo Bay prison by the end of his term, Obama quietly is giving “get out of jail free” cards for the flimsiest of excuses. One al Qaeda suspect captured in Afghanistan is considered reformed because he took up yoga and read a biography of the Dalai Lama. Another is eligible for release because of his “positive attitude.”

Secretary of state John Kerry has indicated that five Guantánamo Bay detainees released in exchange for an American soldier could be killed by drone strike if they return to the battlefield in Afghanistan. Kerry’s implied threat to the five Taliban fighters came as Republicans ramped-up their criticism of the deal to release Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a prisoner of the Taliban for five years until he was freed last week. The 28-year-old soldier has reportedly told medical staff at a base in Germany he was tortured and beaten by his captors, and once locked in a metal cage in total darkness...