Posted on 06/09/2014 9:30:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, still in recovery, has become a political football to be kicked around by just about everyone, including Hillary Clinton—who is using Bergdahl’s release to distinguish herself, just ever so slightly, from President Obama. In her book, whose release this week will dominate the airways and news media, and in an interview tonight with Diane Sawyer, Clinton finesses the fact that she originally opposed making a deal with the Taliban for Bergdahl, a decision she portrays as one of the “hard choices” she had to make. Though now she’s defending Obama over the Bergdahl decision, she stressed to ABC’s Sawyer that there were “competing interests and values” involved in the decision. It’s a waffle typical of Clinton, who tries simultaneously to pander to hawks while placating the liberal base of the Democratic party.
Here’s the bottom line: if Bergdahl did desert, or leave his post without permission, then bully for him. If only more American troops had deserted that war, or refused to serve, or simply stopped enlisting in the “volunteer army.” Perhaps Bergdahl was simply shell-shocked, or suffering from PTSD. Perhaps he had just had enough. Perhaps he did indeed intend to seek out the Taliban in his own version of peace talks. Perhaps he, himself, can’t really explain why did it, although—as reported here last week—the evidence reported two years ago in Rolling Stone suggests that he had thoroughly been alienated by the war and by the conduct of American forces. If any of that is true, than the Republicans ought not wish to out Bergdahl on trial. Because he, and his lawyers, could turn such a trial into a broader inquiry into the insanity of a war that has lasted thirteen years, and which appears will continue through 2016 at least.
The say-anything conservatives and Republicans—many of whom slammed Obama for years for not doing more to get Bergdahl released, only to say now, like Charles Krauthammer, that Bergdahl is a deserter and a traitor—aren’t daunted by the fact that Bergdahl has described his years in captivity in stark terms. After twice trying to escape, he was put in a cage, and tortured. But that hasn’t stopped Senator Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican, from saying that he doesn’t necessarily believe Bergdahl’s account:
I think there are going to be a lot of things that Bergdahl tells the Army and the medical folks that he’s talking to now that is going to be very difficult to validate.… That’s not to say they’re not absolutely true, but we weren’t there.… We have nobody who was on the inside. So we don’t know exactly what happened in his life over the last several years, except we do know he was captured and he’s been in the Taliban’s hands.
Yesterday, appearing on ABC’s This Week, the leader of the House intelligence committee raised what appears, at first, to be a legitimate point about the negotiations to free Bergdahl. His release, said Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who heads the House intelligence committee, was initially designed as part of a broader set of talks to make a deal with the Taliban. (Let’s leave aside Rogers’s comment that the White House “made a serious, serious geopolitical mistake,” adding, “We’ve empowered the Taliban”—who, of course, have a lot of muscle and don’t need any empowering by the United States.) Rogers, along with Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, reports the New York Times, “argued that in 2011 the discussion of releasing Sergeant Bergdahl was couched as a ‘confidence-building measure’ to allow a broader reconciliation with the Taliban.” Though efforts were made to strike such a deal, the talks eventually went nowhere. Said Feinstein, according to the Times:
If you release them upfront, there would be no reconciliation; if you release them after progress or at the end and had the agreement to do so, that you might get a reconciliation agreement. And that, subsequently, apparently, fell apart.
But that’s all mixing apples with figs. As both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have pointed out repeatedly, and as even Hillary Clinton acknowledges, getting Bergdahl released was a good thing, in itself, whether or not it led to or helped engineer a reconciliation with the Taliban. On the other hand, it’s fair to question whether or not the Obama administration has done everything it could to negotiate a deal with the Taliban. For years, and especially since Obama took office in 2009, it’s clear that the only way out of Afghanistan that could result in a relatively stable political arrangement was to rebalance the Afghan government, bring the Taliban in, set up some sort of federal system giving the southern, Pashtun areas a measure of autonomy, and—above all—getting Pakistan, India, Iran and others in the region to buy in to the new set-up. Despite efforts along those lines, beginning with Richard Holbrooke’s work years ago, the administration never really invested appropriate energy in that direction.
For the Republicans who are accusing the Obama administration now of mismanaging the Bergdahl release, however, the real issue isn’t whether or not Washington was working hard enough to make a deal with the Taliban; indeed, had such a deal been reached, most Republican would probably have condemned it as appeasement or worse.
Meanwhile, in a sign of how despicable some anti-Obama people can be, the FBI is now investigating threats made against Bergdahl’s parents—threats that may have been made made by people angered by charges, whether spurious or not, that American troops were killed while conducting searches for Bergdahl.
The controversy will continue all week, during briefings by US intelligence and other officials on Capitol Hill and when Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel testifies on Wednesday before what is sure to be a raucous and hostile House Armed Services Committee.
The Nation. Ugh.
conservatives and Republicans—many of whom slammed Obama for years for not doing more to get Bergdahl released
Name them.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dreyfuss was Middle East Intelligence director of the Executive Intelligence Review, the flagship journal of the Lyndon LaRouche movement. In the 1990s Dreyfuss wrote on intelligence issues and foreign affairs, and profiled a number of organizations and public figures, including then governor of Texas, George W. Bush, and senators Trent Lott and John McCain. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, he has written about the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War.
It has become painfully obvious the guy was a deserter and that Obama has let go the terrorist dream team to get him and make him into some kind of hero. All the documents, even from 2 days after his runaway, shows he was hooking up with the Taliban.
The left is desperate to make this stop and shift the blame.
Let’s talk “War on Women” where there really is one.
Some wishful thinking from little Bobby the lib. LOL! “Could” but it isn’t going to. Sorry Bobby!
Lefties always sing the same song
Lyndon LaRouche. Says it all
“The Nation describes Dreyfuss merely as “an investigative journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in politics and national security.” Nowhere does it inform its readers that its principal correspondent on Iran is a former member of a fascistic organization who publicly defended the Shah’s dictatorship.”
Bergdahl is a distraction. No doubt that is why the Nation promotes it.
Bergdahl isn't in Muslim country panning the next 9-11 is he? Obama bringing home a "potential" deserter who we're not yet sure of isn't the issue here is it?
No, it's the five 4-star Taliban generals who we ARE sure of that Obama freed up to carry out jihad against America. THAT is the issue here.
Well said.
“Taliban Mullah in Chief” Hussein Obama has chosen “Secretary of Defending the Taliban” Hagel to continue to make Grand Bargains with Gitmo Prisoners so that Gitmo can be closed on the last day that all US Military Personnel finally abandon Afghanistan to the Taliban.
The Nation speaks about Bergdahl.
Really? Can the author please refresh my memory about who these "say-anything conservatives" may be?
Yeah, right. This is a particularly crude attempt to rally the old antiwar movement around their Dear Leader, ignoring the fact that they have been famously silent over the previous six years. Suddenly they’re believers again. Uh huh.
bkmk
“Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, he has written about the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War.”
Obviously, he hasn’t learned a damned thing since then.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.