Notice how Bowe Bergdhal has disappeared completely from the news? Ever wonder why? Maybe it’s because it was never that big of a story after all. Once he was rescued there wasn’t anything to say. But the GOP had a lot to say, you may interject, when they tried to make it into some kind of Obama blunder. Of course they did but even their own sycophants wouldn’t buy it so the story just faded to journalism hell. All that noise was never about Bowe Bergdhal anyway. It was about a party without principal or platform looking for a way to attack the black President who had already kicked their ass twice.
Whether Bowe Bergdhal walked away from his post a deserter or a traitor, or whether he helped the Taliban when he was their prisoner, the bottom line is that we do not leave our soldiers behind. It doesn’t make any difference what the price is, and in this case, despite the howls of political bullshit coming from the blowhard Republicans, it was damned low. The reality was that he had to come home and the President brought him home.
Using that action as an excuse, the Right has vomited out a series of sanctimonious, self-serving pseudo-patriotic exhortations that would put a bellowing elephant to shame. Is any of it factual? Is any of it truly patriotic? Does any of it really have anything to do with Bowe Bergdhal? The answer to all questions is a resounding – NO. What it all has to do with, just like Benghazi, just like the IRA noise, is a party with no platform, no imagination and certainly no intelligence, grasping at straws.
One would think that John McCain would understand, and before this happened it seemed that he did, but once again McCain has surrendered to political expediency, much like he did when he chose the Nut from the North as his running mate and tried to put a barely lucid quitter, a heartbeat from the Presidency. McCain has no standing anymore, moral, intellectual or heroic and in that he is joined by a rather fatuous group of pretenders to TV time consumption.
Mike Rogers is on the tube continually predicting dire circumstances over any situation that the talking heads deem worthy of consideration. How this guy got on a committee that has the word intelligence in its name is beyond imagination. His basic assumption seems to be that he backs the “No man left behind” promise except when the Democrats do it. Rogers is so full of crap it’s a miracle he doesn’t explode. The Republicans keep screaming, regardless of the situation, that Obama is not consulting congress. Who the hell can find congress even to get directions to the john? They’ve all gone home just so they don’t have to do anything until after the election in November. The only thing these lazy, stupid clowns know how to do is collect their paychecks.
Diane Feinstein was on the tube whining about the fact that neither she nor other members of congress had been briefed on the Bergdhal operation. So was Saxby Chamblis, but who could find these lazy curs to brief them, and once briefed, does anyone really think that they would act? If they did, it would be the first time in five years. Where do these deadbeats get off complaining about anything? They have already given up on their jobs except when it comes to getting a little TV boost for their fundraising prospects and cashing their paychecks.
Congress has given up on serving the American people. They have passed no significant legislation since the ACA. They have nothing on the table for another half year. Why should the President consider them in any decision, which demands a timely reply? In giving congress the power to make a decision in this case he would probably have sentenced Bowe Bergdhal to death.
First there is the other side of the situation. The Right screams terrorist negotiating, like no one ever did that before, not like Bush or Reagan, both of whom set the process in stone. The facts are, that Bergdhal was a prisoner of the Taliban. The Taliban is not a terrorist organization but a revolutionary army fighting our invasion on their soil. We had an obligation to get our soldier back. We did that. We traded a bunch of broken old farts, to get him.’
None of the conjecture, right or wrong nor any of the facts change the one basic premise; that we did the right thing in rescuing Bowe Bergdhal. That is what we were supposed to do and that is what we did, Period, end of argument. How we handled it is certainly up for comment. I for one, don’t think that the Rose Garden party was a smart move by the White House.
As for who we traded for him? Contrary to Peggy Noonan’s opinion that we gave them Werner von Braun, Superman, Batman and Napoleon, these are actually a bunch of beaten men who have been seriously abused prisoners for 13 years and are just old guys, to whom, the new guys in charge will not be in a hurry to listen. Anyone who has any experience with returning to a job from which they have been long gone, will recognize the situation in which the guys who currently have the job have little interest in anything the old guy has to say or do. It’s just the way things are. Bergdhal may be nothing but we traded away less than nothing to get him. The Taliban can celebrate all they want but the fact is that it wasn’t much of a trade on either side. But let’s say Obama had gone to congress with the information that he wanted to make this trade. Is there anyone out there, sane or insane, who thinks that congress would have come up with any kind of expedited decision? Hell no. Bergdhal’s televised, severed head would be old news long before that accumulation of dead beats, assholes and drunken, bigoted degenerates ever came to any kind of decision.
Five old timers are sitting in living quarters in Qatar that are electronic marvels of communication with the CIA and probably a half dozen other outfits listening to everything that goes on there. The Taliban, being at least as smart as the CIA, won’t be discussing anything of significance with these guys and so they will rot for another year and then disappear into insignificance. It’s not that I think the Democrats are much better but the GOP would have used up the full amount of time and found a way to not come to a decision,. They would have used the same specious arguments that they are spewing out now. Bergdhal and his fate have absolutely nothing to do with the facts of the situation, nothing to do with prisoners of war or terrorists. Nothing to do with the Taliban. It’s all about a party that has no issues on which to run in the next election or the one after that.
Tom Friedman had the best advice on the situation. Why don’t we all wait a little while until we have something more than dumb opinions on which to base what we say? Why other than selling oil is it necessary for our media to run off in every direction without knowing what the hell they’re talking about or what is going on? Maybe it’s not the President we should be attacking; maybe it’s the media.