Posted on 06/04/2014 12:41:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Just when it seemed like the outrage on the political right over Benghazi had subsided to the point where only the announcement of House hearings put it back in the headlines, the exchange of captive U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl for five senior Taliban fighters at Guantanamo Bay came along.
Now President Obama finds himself amid another foreign policy and national security controversy with fresh legs that even features Susan Rice — the White House official who played a prominent early role in the Benghazi controversy — making an encore.
While it's still too soon to know whether the trade for Bergdahl will have the staying power of Benghazi — where four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, were killed during a September 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Libya — there are ominous signs for the administration of what may come.
Some progressives are accusing Republicans of trying to make the Bergdahl controversy into a "new Benghazi." But in some ways, the Bergdahl story has the potential to cast an even longer shadow over the remainder of the Obama presidency.
For one, there's the issue of whether Obama broke the law by not giving Congress 30 days' notice that he was moving detainees out of Guantanamo, something even some progressives say Obama did. That sets up a balance-of-powers clash with Congress unlikely to be quickly resolved. And it fits into the Republican narrative that Obama is willing to run roughshod over the law and Constitution when it suits his purposes.
Then there's the lingering question of the five Taliban fighters released in the Bergdahl exchange and whether they will one day re-emerge to threaten Americans. "These five individuals are not low-level, run-of-the-mill fighter-type terrorists," Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters on Tuesday. "These are the guys that raise the money, that made the plans to develop the IEDs, and in some cases are accused of inciting riots that wound up killing not hundreds but maybe even thousands of people, including Americans. ..."
"The president needs to look the American people in the eye and explain to the American people why he was justified in releasing the five individuals, and why their background didn't demand and mandate that they be detained at Guantanamo for an indefinite period of time," Chambliss said.
Add to that the controversy over Bergdahl's service record. Was he a soldier who "served his country with honor and distinction," as National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on the Sunday morning news shows? Or was he a deserter who, according to veterans of his unit, was responsible for the deaths and injuries of soldiers on search-and-rescue missions for him?
So far, the controversy mostly breaks down along traditional partisan lines, a point made by the National Journal's Ron Fournier. While some conservatives are going as far as calling for Obama's impeachment, progressives are generally ridiculing such calls and supporting the administration.
To that degree, the Bergdahl controversy is shaping up like Benghazi, which has been a strictly partisan affair through and through. It even began with Rice on Sunday news programs, this time strongly defending Bergdahl's service record. And that was before the military finished its own investigation.
It was her erroneous 2012 talking points, blaming the attacks in Libya on spontaneous protests to a film defaming Islam, that raised suspicions of a White House cover-up among Obama's most ardent opponents. Rice being out front in the White House's Bergdahl messaging was sure to trigger conservative alarms, and she did.
Worth noting is that the president didn't repeat Rice's language when he was asked during his European trip about accusations that Bergdahl was a deserter.
"But let me just make a very simple point here, and that is regardless of the circumstances, whatever those circumstances may turn out to be, we still get an American soldier back if he's held in captivity. Period. Full stop. We don't condition that. And that's what every mom and dad who sees a son or daughter sent over into war theater should expect from not just their commander in chief, but the United States of America."
That some military members are among some of the strongest critics of the trade that got Bergdahl released suggests just how difficult this issue could prove to be for the president going forward.
And NPR’s point is...?
What was meant to be a “ra-ra” American “hero” rally (MISSION ACCOMPLISHED) has blown back into the faces of the Obama Administration.
So much for the distraction from the ongoing scandals.
And what do they do here? Lie, obstruct, shield information, deny, and now attack the critics as “swiftboaters”.
Via Michelle Malkin…
“Combat Outpost Zerok was almost overrun, multiple soldiers were wounded and PFCs Justin Casillas and Aaron Fairbairn lost their lives fighting that day,” the soldier told me. (I wrote about their deaths in my July 8, 2009 column, not knowing they were related to the Bergdahl mess.)
Is there an explanation why Bergdahl is the ONLY Taliban ‘captive’ to LIVE!
Another empty scandal! The left never ceases to amaze in their lack of shame.
A lead dripping with sarcasm. I can’t stand these elitists.
It wasn’t the Benghazi scandal that the Bergdahl scandal replaced. It was the VA hospital scandal.
Its easy to make that mistake. There are so many Obama scandals; its hard to keep up.
“But let me just make a very simple point here, and that is regardless of the circumstances, whatever those circumstances may turn out to be, we still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity. Period. Full stop. We don’t condition that. And that’s what every mom and dad who sees a son or daughter sent over into war theater should expect from not just their commander in chief, but the United States of America.”
Idiot. What about the moms and dads who are about to lose 100-10,000 sons and daughters due to the release of 5 major terrorists?
CNN would never be shamed into covering this non-story.
Naturally, for NPR, only “the political right” has any interest in getting to the truth about Benghazi. Everyone else knows the main issue is to prevent Benghazi from damaging Hillary’s Presidential run.
Even if we are just going to try and execute him for desertion and possible aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war?
Naturally, for NPR, only “the political right” has any interest in getting to the truth about Benghazi. Everyone else knows the main issue is to prevent Benghazi from damaging Hillary’s Presidential run.
Cant they get the story right? We all know that the ambassador died of smoke inhalation. -sarc
bump
the articles about his desertion go back 5 years and the government never listed him as a POW, they said he walked off.... how did these Republicans pre-plan this so well?
Drudge is saying 14
Well of course. Because in their great zeal to see what sticks when throwing it at the wall ... our “pundits” rush to judgment and throw out every possible theory. This is one of the MANY casualties of not waiting on the truth.
But hey ... this chaotic approach has worked so far. Just ask Issa among others. *eye roll*
Unless your name is Andrew Tahmooressi....
Susan Rice trying to use Saul Alinsky’s Rule for Radical Number 4 - Use your adversaries values against them and make them live up to their own rules.
Patriotic Americans insist no American soldier be left behind and rightly so - it a fundamental core value to us.
Rice and the spin doctors want to use this ingrained value against the American people to cover for their negotiating with terrorists and trading 5 of the Talibans worst genocidal war criminals (they killed tens of thousands of their own people
in their quest for Islamic Purity and are even on the U.N.’s list of wanted war criminals) for a deserter who probably has committed treason as well.
What they did not factor into their calculations was the fact that these same patriotic Americans are not sympathetic to Bergdahl and most feel Bergdahl should be in a cell in Guantanamo Bay right next to the 5 guys Obama released and that the 5 Taliban war criminals should still be in Gitmo and never released.
Bergdahl and his desertion and possible collaboration are much less the issues in my mind than is the treasonous release of the Taliban 5. It more and more seems that the WH muzzie-symps were determined to release as many AQ/Taliban captives by whatever means available. Exchange for Bergdahl just happened to be the most convenient excuse at hand. We are looking at out and out treason by multiple players currently and formerly in the Obama administration.
An Age of increulity doth exist.
Incredulity..
Oops
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