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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe creepy bottom line of the right-wing position is that Bergdahl should have just been left to die
from Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast:
____ This story has every element right-wingers dream of. Every dark suspicion they harbor about President Obama can be wedged into the narrative conservatives are constructing about how Saturdays prisoner exchange supposedly went down and what the presidents presumed motivations were. So I knew instantly, when I read Michael Hastingss 2012 Rolling Stone profile of Bergdahl on Sunday afternoon, that this was going to be the next Benghazi. The story is right-wing crack. And sure enough, Republicans are hitting the pipe big time.
Some of the wilder criticisms of me notwithstanding, my column Monday made two basic points. First, if a Republican president had swapped five Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, all the people howling today would be spinning it positively. And second, while there are legitimate questions hereyes, I wrote that it was fair to ask whether the price of Bergdahls freedom was too highwhat were about to get is another relentlessly politicized series of investigations that will be aimed not at determining the truth but at trying to turn possible errors of judgment by the White House into high crimes and misdemeanors. Thats the game here. Anyone who denies it is being naively or intentionally delusional.
Time, even the short amount that has passed between then and now, has proved me all too prescientnot that Im patting myself on the back; it was a painfully easy call. The most notable development Tuesday was that former Romney adviser Richard Grenell was found to be setting up interviews for soldiers in Bergdahls battalion who wanted to go public trashing him. It may be, as Grenells partner said, that the soldiers found him on Twitter and it just kind of worked out that way. But the bottom line is what it is. These soldiers joining forces with a PR guy who used to work for John Bolton and then for candidate Mitt Romney, a man who is so deeply enmeshed in partisan politics, puts a political coloration on their words whether they mean it to or not . . .
The military should investigate whether Bergdahl was a deserter, and it should court-martial him if the evidence supports doing that. In the meantime, what end is served by the character assassinations of him and especially of his father, whos a citizen with all the usual rights? The creepy bottom line of the right-wing position, mostly unstated but often implied in tweets and comments, is that the U.S. government should have just left Bergdahl to die. Thats an appalling position. Bring him back alive, then let him face whatever justice he must face. But bring him back. Thats what civil societies do. What kind of society and leader lets their captive soldiers die in enemy hands? Recall that the guy who wouldnt even trade a Nazi general for his own son (who died in German custody) was named Stalin . . .
read: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/04/the-bowe-bergdahl-story-is-right-wing-crack.html
related:
In a Facebook post, Army Gen. Dempsey said in response to "those of you interested in my personal judgments about the recovery of SGT. Bowe Bergdahl, the questions about this particular soldiers conduct are separate from our effort to recover ANY U.S. service member in enemy captivity."
He added: "This was likely the last, best opportunity to free him."
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)This was all pre-planned, and there are several factors at play:
1) Deny Obama any sort of credit, same as with OBL assassination--prevent any political advantage, at all costs.
2) Prevent the release of Gitmo prisoners and the closing of Gitmo.
3) Deny Obama any goodwill as he does the people's overwhelming bidding by ending the war--cast doubt on the wisdom and safety of ending the war and having any peace agreements with the Taliban.
4) Drive wedge between Obama and military community, but do it using (and possibly exploiting) politcal-minded young soldiers and retired military, who by their service are on a pedestal and whose honor and accounts can't be questioned.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)Leme
(1,092 posts)Benghazi has pretty much ran out. Same with IRS "scandal". ACA seems to be doing ok. VA problems were only political with someone to shoot at...Shinseki.
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this is a new horse they can ride, the others are tired.
bigtree
(85,992 posts)earthside
(6,960 posts)Plan 'A' for the Repuglican-Tea Party was that Bergdahl would die in captivity.
If Bergdahl had died in captivity or been killed, then the Repuglican-Tea Party would get to scream their bloody heads off about how Obama abandoned a GI in the field.
So, when Pres. Obama did what McCain and Ayotte and were demanding, i.e., that the President do whatever was necessary to secure Bergdahl's release, well, then the Repuglican-Tea Party just moved on to Plan 'B' -- scream their bloody head off about something, anything else.
In my estimation, the rightwing faux outrage over Bergdahl is so over-the-top and obvious this time that the backlash might be finally, substantively damaging to them. (Of course, the Democrats need strong push-back for that to work.)
As more and more rational folks start dissecting what the Fox 'News' mob is saying and as the utter hypocrisy of McCain, Oliver North, Dick Cheney, et al., finally breaks through to the general public, this notion of the Obama-haters that leaving a GI to rot with his captors will be seen as so anti- and un-American that the Repuglican-Tea Party may have finally 'jumped the shark' politically.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)I've listened to a bit of right-wing radio over the past few days (I've been in the office and a co-worker controls the knob...I have no choice), and I've been floored by the people calling him a traitor, accusing him of treason, etc. And for what? A few lines of text that he wrote in a letter that some right-wing trolls consider "un'Merican"? Apparently, according to these inbred, uneducated, right-wing idiots, expressing an opinion that isn't 100% supportive of everything America does now makes you a traitor who deserves death. If you're a soldier and your opinion even slightly deviates from the "Fuck yeah 'Murkah!" mentality that dominates our right-wing media, well, you just need to crawl off and die somewhere because your life is no longer worth anything.
The steepest penalty that Bergdahl could realistically face for desertion is 5 years in prison (Trivia: The U.S. military hasn't pursued a death penalty desertion case since WW2 because the steepest desertion charges can only be applied in warzones within declared wars. Afghanistan is a NATO "police action", and doesn't qualify). We largely abandoned the practice of executing deserters entirely after the civil war. In fact, the ONLY soldier executed for desertion since the Civil War was Eddie Slovik, who was executed in France in WW2. Eisenhower himself stated that Slovik was only executed because desertion was becoming a real problem among U.S. soldiers and he needed to "set an example". Over 20,000 U.S. soldiers deserted during WW2 , in active combat zones. Only one of them was executed.
We don't kill Americans for holding opinions we don't like, and we don't let Taliban terrorists kill them simply because they might be facing a couple years in prison when they get back home. The right-wing statements about Bergdahl have been disgusting and disgraceful.