Posted on 06/07/2014 6:03:45 AM PDT by kristinn
Four months ago, Sen. John McCain said he would support the exchange of five hard-core Taliban leaders for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
"I would support ways of bringing him home," he told CNN, "and if exchange was one of them I think that would be something I think we should seriously consider."
But the instant the Obama administration actually made that trade, McCain, as he has so often in the past...
SNIP
Though we criticized the administration for ignoring the law in not informing Congress of the transfer of the Taliban detainees 30 days in advance, leave it to Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and other hyperventilators to claim that continued release of prisoners from Guantánamo without prior notice is now considered an impeachable offense, a ludicrous leap.
SNIP
This duck-and-cover response is the result of the outrageous demonization of Bergdahl in the absence of actual facts. Republican operatives have arranged for soldiers in his unit to tell reporters that he was a deserter who cost the lives of several soldiers searching for him. In fact, a review of casualty reports by Charlie Savage and Andrew Lehren of The New York Times showed there is no clear link between any military deaths and the search.
SNIP
And a classified military report shows that Bergdahl had walked away from assigned areas at least twice before and had returned, according to a report in The New York Times on Thursday. It describes him as a free-spirited young man who asked many questions but gave no indication of being a deserter, let alone the turncoat that Obamas opponents are now trying to create.
If anything, the report suggests that the army units lack of security and discipline was as much to blame for the disappearance, given the sergeants history.
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
so it was the US ARMY’s fault he wandered off in Afghanistan; he was just a free-spirited young man .. who couldn’t follow instructions!
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No the lack of discipline seems more to be that he was not punished for going AWOL...
he should have been kicked home to the US and kicked out of the military...
He wasn’t reliable and he proved himself a danger to his fellow soldiers that he might not be there when they needed him...
The ARMY as Nanny?
Widdo Bowe wandered off...and the Nanny didnt give em a nice toy to keep em happy??
How can there be an America where PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY is viewed with such disdain??
so it was the US ARMY’s fault he wandered off in Afghanistan; he was just a free-spirited young man .. who couldn’t follow instructions!
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Heres another thing...
I wonder if they were afraid to discipline him...
all he had to do was say he was a homosexual...or if they thought he might be...
and they would not dare say BOO to him...
Hes obviously white or it might have been the race card thingy...
its just awfully strange that a guy in a warzone could just go and come as he pleased..
etc
An assertion recently come to light from a less than reliable DoD contractor with baggage. Not a hard, cold fact.
Will military leaders take the WH meme without questionit was the military’s fault, he has a mental problem, etc?
PresBro has gone rogue and the military be damned, like he has done with Dims in Congress.
When will the left wake up to see they are in the same boat as the rest of us?
The comments at link are a perfect example of the delusion liberals live by. They are completely convinced that Bergdahl is an innocent victim, or hero, and that conservatives have jumped the shark to lambaste Dear Leader, on this *brilliant* trade. Sickening.
I wish the posts, here, could be posted at that site - for an injection of truth.
The NY Slimes would likely defend the Nazis, today, and somehow cover-up/overlook their numerous atrocities committed. Pathetic how far they’ve - ALL liberals - descended into anti-Americanism.
d. This time he sent all his possessions home prior to walking away.
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Oh yes forgot about that bit...
but I thought he sent them home much earlier weeks before ???
He might have sent them home and then began his practices...
who knows he wasn’t meeting up with the enemy, his little Islamic terrorist friends...the Afghans he loved so much ???
He had already been learning Pustco(sp)
Was he arranging his final leaving...the actual desertion ???
Here’s another gem:
“...it is the militarys duty to get them back if they are taken prisoner. Thats what the Obama administration did in this case...”
The Times, and the Salt Lake Tribune for printing this, are in full propaganda mode, of course.
The theme is presenting Obama as more honorable than the military and, in particular, the soldiers who have been near these events.
Every paragraph is as stunningly slanderous as the comments to the article.
“...it is the militarys duty to get them back if they are taken prisoner. Thats what the Obama administration did in this case.”
It’s as if the Times is under strict orders, and so enamored by the attention that they don’t see that they have sunk to the level of tabloid in their ridiculousness.
The theme might point out an attempt to portray BO as a great champion of not leaving anyone behind.
Did McCain expressly say he would do a five for one trade? That is not the same as saying he would consider a swap.
Liberals can’t stand anyone saying they are wrong
Sounds more than vaguely, well Soviet -- not surprising from the leading newspaper of Moscow-On-Hudson.
The concept was re-introduced on a large scale during the GermanSoviet War.[3] On June 27, 1941, in response to reports of unit disintegration in battle and desertion from the ranks in the Soviet Red Army, the 3rd Department (military counterintelligence of Soviet Army) of the USSR's Narkomat of Defense issued a directive creating mobile barrier forces composed of NKVD personnel to operate on roads, railways, forests, etc. for the purpose of catching 'deserters and suspicious persons'. These forces were given the acronym SMERSH (from the Russian Smert shpionam - Death to spies).[4][5] SMERSH detachments were created from NKVD troops, augmented with counterintelligence operatives, and were under the command of the NKVD.[4]
With the continued deterioration of the military situation in the face of the German offensive of 1941, SMERSH and other NKVD punitive detachments acquired a new mission: to prevent the unauthorized withdrawal of Red Army forces from the battle line.[4][5] The first troops of this kind were formed in the Bryansk Front on September 5, 1941.
On September 12, 1941 Joseph Stalin issued the Stavka Directive No. 1919 (Директива Ставки ВГК №001919) concerning the creation of barrier troops in rifle divisions of the Southwestern Front, to suppress panic retreats. Each Red Army division was to have an anti-retreat detachment equipped with transport totalling one company for each regiment. Their primary goal was to maintain strict military discipline and to prevent disintegration of the front line by any means, including the use of machine guns to indiscriminately shoot any personnel retreating without authorization.[6] These barrier troops were usually formed from ordinary military units, and placed under NKVD command.
Like clockwork
If there is ANY doubt about who’s side these jerkovs are on . . then that person should not vote
McCain said he would “consider exchange” in order to bring the soldier back. He did NOT say he would consider an exchange for the five high ranking terrorists we gave up.
McCain’s answer was political in nature and deliberately ambiguous. But it remains this author deliberately reports, without any facts, his personal beliefs of what McCain meant.
New York Times - “demonizing people is wrong”
... except in the cases of Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, the Koch Brothers, responsible gun owners, anyone concerned about Islamic terrorism, Chick-Fil-A ownership, etc. etc. etc.
That is so surreal, isn't it? But the average LIV has no clue about Benghazi. Talk about leaving someone behind. We live in interesting times. My disdain, to put it politely, for this administration and the media is palpable.
“When will the left wake up to see they are in the same boat as the rest of us?”
Not only never, but they’ll glom on to the next liberal pres candidate and we’re in this again.
In the comment section someone says that republicans are overreacting - the five released will no doubt be taken out as soon as they try to do anything to harm us.
It’s stunning.
But, that's different from saying that Bergdahl's defection is the Army's fault. He's the deserter and should bear the consequences.
I wish McCain would just go away permanently, but he insists on injecting himself into the middle of otherwise-important issues like this one.
My advice is to ignore the NYTime’s invocations of McCain's statements; McCain has nothing to do with the real story or the merits of the Repub’s challenge.
McCain is a permanent embarrassment to the party. Have we fixed the problem yet with the Repub primary rules, where Dems can cross over in New Hampshire and tip the scales? That was a disaster.
What I said. NYT EB is comprised of lazy ideological hacks. They still think that whatever NYT prints becomes the word of god. Intellectual laziness coupled with rote excuses that don’t even make sense any more.
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