Free Republic

The former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency blasted President Obama for downplaying the threat from Islamists and overstating our readiness due to an "allegiance to ideology" that skews decisions and policies that are at odds with what's happening on the ground. Retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn decried the Democrats and media elites who focus on gun control and "Islamophobia" instead of religion. "It's a cancerous form of radical Islamism and we cannot allow it to exist on this planet anymore," he said. Flynn made his remarks in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation: While Obama has claimed...

Bowe Bergdahl compared his first year in Taliban captivity — starved, stinking and chained to a bed — to being tossed in a closet and forgotten. “Picture someone taking a bag, throwing it into the closet, shutting the door and just forgetting about it. That was basically how they treated me,” he said. (snip) Although watching over Bergdahl was a high honor, the guards were often bored and would pass the time by making videos of him, interrogating him with ridiculous questions or shaving his beard into shapes they found amusing, he said. “They ask you, is Obama gay and...

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who disappeared in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held by the Taliban for five years, appeared Tuesday before a military judge on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Bergdahl was arraigned during a short hearing and deferred entering a plea and did not decide whether he wants to face a court-martial with a jury or one with just a judge. He said little beyond answering "yes" and "no" to questions about whether he understood his rights and the court proceedings. He wore an Army dress uniform with a...

The decision to refer the case of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl to a general court martial on charges of desertion by Gen. Robert B. Abrams, the head of Army Forces Command at Ft. Bragg, N.C., shows there remains at least one general not cowed by President Obama's purge of command officers deemed insufficiently subservient to his policies of appeasement and unilateral disarmament. As Breitbart reported: Bergdahl, who was kidnapped by the Taliban following his abandonment of a forward operating base in Afghanistan, was charged this year with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. If charged with the latter, he could potentially...

When Republican members of Congress learned in November 2011 that the Obama administration was contemplating a swap -- Taliban terrorists for captured ArmySgt. Bowe Bergdahl -- they wrote to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of their fears. Mrs. Clinton wrote back that they had nothing to worry about. The White House would follow the law requiring a 30-day heads-up. "I want to make clear that any transfer from Guantanamo will be undertaken after consultation with Congress and pursuant to all legal requirements for transfers, including those spelled out in the FY2012 [National] Defense Authorization Act," she said of the law...

Army Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl broke his silence about leaving his base in Afghanistan to NPR’s popular “Serial” podcast. In it, he claims he deserted his unit to highlight poor leadership” and rapidly realized he was “in over his head. “Doing what I did is me saying that I am like, I don’t know, Jason Bourne. I had this fantastic idea that I was going to prove to the world that I was the real thing, he stated. You know, that I could be what it is that all those guys out there that go to the movies and watch those...

Richard Hoagland, the acting U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, discussed with Code Pink and anti-Israel activists what he said was classified information, during an October 3 meeting with the groups in Islamabad. Code Pink, a liberal anti-war organization known for disrupting Republican and conservative public events, uploaded a video of the meeting to an Internet video sharing website on Oct. 5. Realizing what he had said, Hoagland told the activist gathering: “I probably just, you know, got into big trouble with what I just said.”

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl may never serve a day in prison. An Army officer is recommending that Sergeant Bergdahl face a lower-level court martial. That would mean no jail time, punitive discharge for leaving his post in Afghanistan. Donald Trump called Bergdahl a "no-good traitor" who should've been executed. Senator John McCain said in a statement: "There are allegations that some American soldiers were killed or wounded, or at the very least put their lives in danger, searching for what is clearly a deserter."

<p>The attorney defending Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl says that the officer who presided over his Article 32 hearing last month is going to recommend that he face a lower-level court martial, thus sparing him a long prison sentence.</p> <p>An Army officer is recommending that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a lower-level court martial and be spared the possibility of jail time for leaving his post in Afghanistan, his lawyer said Saturday.</p>

I really have only posted about 3 vanities in 10 years, so forgive me. I was wondering if it would be possible for the family of a slain soldier to sue Bergdahl for wrongful death? Not so much for the money, but to get the facts out.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — An Army officer is recommending that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl face a lower-level court martial and be spared the possibility of jail time for leaving his post in Afghanistan, his lawyer said Saturday. Defense attorney Eugene Fidell said Lt. Col. Mark Visger has decided Bergdahl’s case should go to a military system similar to civilian courts that handle misdemeanor charges. It limits the maximum punishment to reduction of rank, a bad conduct discharge and a short jail term, though that isn’t being sought, Fidell said. ... Paul Boyce, a spokesman for the U.S. Army’s Force Command, released...

LAS VEGAS (October 9, 2015) — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Thursday that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl should have been executed for leaving his post in Afghanistan. "We're tired of Sgt. Bergdahl, who's a traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed," Trump said to cheers at a rowdy rally inside a packed Las Vegas theater at the casino-hotel Treasure Island.

Another super deal from Obama and Kerry When Obama and Kerry inked the Iran nuclear deal without demanding the release of four American hostages as a condition of the deal, they were naturally questioned about that decision. Kerry was his usually smug, irritated self, implying that no one should press the issue publicly because some sort of greater deal was in the works to deal with the hostage issue If the deal we’re hearing about is the one he had in mind, it’s another example of Obama and Kerry either being the world’s worst negotiators, or - as the boss...

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's platoon commander had fallen asleep after pulling night watch at a remote outpost in Afghanistan when a soldier woke him. "Sir, we need you to get up. We can't find Bergdahl," Capt. John Paul Billings recalled hearing, adding that at first he thought it was a joke. "These guys are just messing with me. They want me to … call higher headquarters." It was no joke. Prosecutors offered three witnesses describing the search for the missing soldier at a hearing Thursday in San Antonio that will help decide if Bergdahl faces a court martial. Contradicting some talk...

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO – FORT SAM HOUSTON, Tex. — The Army general who carried out an investigation last year into the alleged desertion of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl believes that a jail sentence would be “inappropriate,” despite the massive search caused by him walking away from his unit’s outpost in Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl testified Friday in Bergdahl’s case that he found the soldier “unrealistically idealistic” about other people, and remorseful for the massive search his actions caused. He left his platoon’s outpost, Observation Post Mest in Paktika province, with plans to run 19 miles to the larger...

It’s pretty easy to understand The Donald’s appeal: even though he’s rough around the edges, usually has the funkiest hair in the room, and often leaves much to be desired on the charm front: he’s a WINNER. And before you-know-who, America loved winners and WINNING!Ever since you-know-who we’ve become accustomed to being taken to the cleaners, looking like schmucks and being generally relegated to the has-been rag pile. In negotiation after negotiation Big Guy, and his SOS of the moment, have ended up with the short-end of the stick. Team Obama’s negotiations can be boiled down to a simple strategy...

HOUSTON – Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's commanding officer said Thursday that his platoon was left "emotionally busted" by the physically and emotionally draining search for Bergdahl after he went missing from their post in Afghanistan six years ago. Testifying at the outset of an Article 32 hearing to determine if Bergdahl should face a military trial on desertion and other charges, Capt. John Billings described the weeks of searching for the Idaho native, often on little food or sleep and in temperatures in the high 90s. "Physically, mentally I was defeated," Billings said, adding that he felt like he had...

Former Navy SEAL Jimmy Hatch says Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl “needs to know how much was risked” to try to save him after he was captured by the Taliban. “I want that kid to have his day in court, because he’s an American, and he’s got that coming,” Hatch said in an interview on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” on Friday. Bergdahl, who allegedly walked off of his eastern Afghanistan base in June 2009, has been charged with one count of desertion and one count of misbehavior before the enemy. Hatch dismissed the notion that Bergdahl had “suffered enough” for...

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. State Department announced this week that it finally is going to designate the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization, it was a nonevent for most of our countrymen. That's because few Americans know how deadly the organization is. For that we can thank those at Foggy Bottom who are wedded to the naive hope of a near-term "diplomatic breakthrough" in Afghanistan. Couple that misguided belief with the Obama administration's self-deception that the radical Islamic jihad against the West ended with the demise of Osama bin Laden and it's understandable why the Haqqani network...

full title...Former Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl hit with charge that has rarely been used since WWII and could mean life behind barsMilitary prosecutors have reached into a section of military law seldom used since World War II in the politically fraught case against Army Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier held prisoner for years by the Taliban after leaving his post in Afghanistan. Earlier this year Bergdahl was charged with desertion after the deal brokered by the United States to bring him home. And now he has also been charged with misbehavior before the enemy, a much rarer offense that carries...