After months of alleged delay for political reasons until after the elections, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, has been charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
The evidence of desertion is strong, leading many to question the long delay in the investigation. The impression has been that the Administration did not want to address the growing criticism of Taliban leaders with terrorist ties for a deserter. There has also been an allegation that lives were possible lost in missions that included searches for Bergdahl.
I have previously said that the Administration clearly violated federal law in this swap. The fact that Bergdahl is now viewed as a deserter is likely to rekindle the controversy, particularly over the allegation of possible lost lives in searches for Bergdahl.
For a discussion of possible defenses, see this earlier posting.
Normally, the fact that he suffered through five years of captivity with vicious terrorists would militate in favor of a lighter sentence. Article 85 makes desertion a crime that is punishable with up to five years. Article 99 (misbehavior) includes a maximum of confinement for life. That would give the defense a great incentive for a plea but the prosecutors may be sensitive to the prior allegations that the Administration has been delaying the case to avoid an embarrassing prosecution.
Great observation, Karen. Maybe they’re just “confused.”
You know, it is edifying to go back and read the earlier articles on Bergdahl, and compare the posts by commenters then and now. Some people are really backpedalling.
Issac…I admit to a tin ear for some forms of humor. Once you suggested, twice now, that Bergdahl was some kind of “spy” my tin ear went in to over-drive. THAT is just not done with the intention of their capture as part of the scenario. That’s pure Hollywood…which means I don’t take any of it seriously, let alone as humor. But, yeah, I can see in hindsight how you might have thought is was humor….just humor I don’t have, so there’s that.
Nick
On the BDS and ODS, I am split amongst BDS-60%, BDS+ODS(had no choice)-20%, and ODS-20%. Obama can cause this in everybody. Every administration can cause it. The three stooges who infected me are something that will not go quietly into that circus that comes along every four to eight years and seems to sprinkle fairy dust over the minds of Americans, inducing them to forget the realities of the weaknesses and take refuge in the illusions of strengths.
Is this the “proof” that Bergdahl was mentally ill and incapacitated???
“According to a fellow soldier, Specialist Jason Fry, Bergdahl was a quiet loner. “He wasn’t one of the troublemakers – he was focused and well-behaved.” Bergdahl was isolated by choice from his fellow soldiers; for instance, instead of socializing with his comrades during Thanksgiving, he studied maps of Afghanistan. Bergdahl told Fry before their deployment to Afghanistan, “If this deployment is lame, I’m just going to walk off into the mountains of Pakistan.”[1]
Bergdahl’s unit was deployed to Afghanistan in May 2009.[18] His unit was sent to an outpost named Mest-Malak in Afghanistan to conduct counterinsurgency operations. Bergdahl began learning to speak Pashto, and according to Fry, Bergdahl “began to gravitate away from his unit”, spending “more time with the Afghans than he did with his platoon”. Bergdahl’s father described his son to military investigators as “psychologically isolated”.”
It sounds like his desertion was planned, which actually undermines any argument against mental capacity. I wonder if he was some kind of activist or obsessed with the Taliban. But all that will come out in an investigation. I wonder if he considered living with the Taliban “lame.”
Being a “loner”, socially awkward, or not identifying with your fellows does not equate to being mentally ill. If so, then almost everyone in the engineering or physics department would qualify.
Again, and I know this sounds crazy to some people, but we should wait for an investigation before we blithely declare that he was mentally ill. Once the facts are out we can make a reasoned opinion on his mental state.
Farts often smell just like urdTays. So a good BS detector could be wrong about what it detects– artFay or urdTay. It if looks like itShay, if it smells like itShay, and if it tastes like itShay, then thank Dog you did not step in it.
I’ve known Ari for awhile. We both have great senses of humor and even better BS detectors.
Nick and Aridog
Lighten up. You’ve both lost your sense of humor. I was encouraged and inspired by the other comments to try my hand at humor through exaggeration and even commented on that. You both still couldn’t pull your heads out of where they were to smell the levity.
Aridog
The reference to Calley is valid. After the fact, in light of the atrocious and inexcusable actions taken by this guy and his squad, nothing really happened. They killed women and children in a ditch, hundreds of them. There was no connection with ‘orders’. This wasn’t a pilot loosing a bomb to ‘somewhere down there’. They looked at the children when they killed them. Their actions make Bergdahl look like a hero who had decided to go out and spy on the enemy by himself. So, put it in context and predict the future.
Learn to identify cynicism in humor.
Ari, Great comment.
Issac said … [were these comments really you, or a plagiarist?]
He was on a fact finding mission and getting caught and taken prisoner by the Taliban was all part of the plan.
That is such pure nonsense it should be beneath you to suggest. I have some experience in things military and I assure you no one is sent out as a pigeon by military design. Covert soldiers may be captured, but that is never the plan…it is a plan gone wrong. The risky part of such operations is the fact the Soldier or Marine is frequently out of uniform and wearing local civilian clothes…which can be determined to be against the rules of warfare by those places that choose to apply it….e.g., they can be shot on sight or discovery.
Hey if Calley can get off without meeting a firing squad or at least spending the rest of his life in prison, then why shouldn’t this poor sap get a medal or something. I guess it all depends on whose side you’re on, the Democrats or the Republicans.
No, it depends upon whether you are military, active or retired. Few of us thought Calley got the sentence he deserved. Few of us are Democrat or Republican on military actions per se. Look up WO Hugh Thompson (no relation to me) who used his small helicopter & machine gun to stop Calley’s platoon and report the incident. Now that guy is the “hero” of the My Lai affair. He & his crew did receive the Soldiers Medal, the highest for valor not against an enemy.
Isaac, Thanks for a more measured response. It’s the real you. My derision for Obama is of someone who actually donated money to the guy in 2007! That’s the first time I ever gave money to a pol. It is the last. When one is betrayed, when I’ve been conned, I am bound to have resentment. That’s normal. It’s not normal to see the horseshit, and pretend it’s not horseshit. I know you’re the son of a military man so I knew you understand just how wrong this was on so many levels.
BDS is Bush Derangement Syndrome. You believe I have ODS.
Susan Rice is a liar.
“Bergdahl served with honor…”
“The Ambassador to Libya was killed because of a videotape.
Tweets about the death of a Nigerian “writer” were incompetence or lies by negligence and dereliction.
How long do Americans have to suffer the loss of their liberty and their wealth?
Why did the Founders promise government limited to Justice, Tranquility, Common Defence and Promotion of General Welfare?
Why did the Founders provide the “blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” NOT TO THE GOVERNMENT, as Freedom and Free Enterprise without governmental interference.
Susan Rice is a liar who is covering up for a Secretary of State and a President who lied.
These are high crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated at the highest level of government.
I wonder when all the brilliant Ivy League graduates of superior intellectual capacity will admit to the truth…or does superior intelligence compel deceit and falsehood. There’s a paradox.
The ends justify the means.
Let’s ask the professor.
Let the “dictatorship of the proletariat” eat cake.
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On Susan Rice –
“Yesterday, the twitter sphere was in tears over the death of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, based on a widely-circulated New York Times obituary.
The New York Times said, the “towering man of letters whose internationally acclaimed fiction helped to revive African literature and to rewrite the story of a continent that had long been told by Western voices.”
Susan Rice, our towering woman of diplomacy, offered her condolences. After all, Rice is former ambassador to the United Nations, a graduate of Stanford, Rhodes Scholar, and author of a prize-winning dissertation at Oxford on African affairs.
So yesterday, she tweeted out two heart-felt messages.
(tweets deleted)
The only problem is, Achebe has been DEAD for two years. Yes he died on March 23rd, but it was 2013, not 2015.
Oops!
American Thinker notes her tweets were hastily deleted – but not before they were noticed.
The sad thing is, this woman is our National Security Advisor for goodness sake! You’d think she’d be a tad bit more up-to-date on current affairs and a tad bit more concerned about fact-checking. Oh wait, I forgot about that whole Benghazi video thing. Yeah, facts are so over-rated.”