Posted on 06/05/2014 8:52:28 AM PDT by maggief
President Obama said Thursday he would make “absolutely no apologies” for ordering the controversial prisoner swap to rescue Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the last American prisoner of war in Afghanistan.
Obama said he was never surprised by “controversies that are whipped up in Washington,” but deflected criticism from members of Congress and the military over the trade of five Guantanamo prisoners for Bergdahl, who has been accused of abandoning his post in Afghanistan before his capture.
“I make absolutely no apologies for making sure we get back a young man to his parents,” Obama said at a joint press conference with in Brussels with British Prime Minister David Cameron. Obama said he had “discussed with Congress that something like this could occur” and reiterated that his administration had pressing concerns about the health and safety of Bergdahl.
“With the fragile nature of these negotiations, we felt like it was important to go ahead and do what we did,” he said.
Obama reiterated that no matter what the allegations surrounding Bergdahl's conduct, the U.S. had a “basic principle” that they “do not leave anybody wearing the American uniform behind.”
“The American people understand this is somebody's child and that we don't condition whether or not we make the effort to get someone back,” Obama said.
The president also defended the decision to appear alongside Bergdahl's parents during an announcement of the deal on Saturday. Some have argued that decision elevated the soldier's profiles and invited the tougher examination of his conduct on the battlefield.
But Obama said he felt it was important to humanize the decision, and said he wrote "too many letters" to parents whose children don't return from war.
“I think it was important to understand this is not some abstraction, not some political football,” Obama said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
“...why would he start apologizing now?”
I bet he’s already apologized to the Taliban for taking so long to send THEIR boys back.
“The American people understand this is somebody’s child”
Mr. pResident, what will you say to the families of the people these five terrorist savages will now go on to kill?
What a crock.
Dumbo doubles down.
Leave no one behind—he left 41 Americans behind in Benghazi.
Oh, they didn’t have uniforms on—they were mostly CIA.
Someone, somewhere has the goods on this clown.
It is time to let it all out.
not a smidgeon of regret or apology
Indeed.
His defense is "sophmoronic"...
Unless they’re in Mexico or Iran. Then he doesn’t give a shit.
Sociopaths cannot apologize. They can order a subordinate to do it for them, but it wont be genuine. As we just saw since one of his flying monkeys apologized to DiFi. It was obviously not genuine.
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