Bergdahl swap fiasco playing out as predicted
Posted by Richard on March 25, 2015
Like many others released from Guantanamo, at least three of the five Taliban commanders swapped for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl seem intent on rejoining the jihad. They won’t have to wait long.
The five are currently living in luxury in Dohar, Qatar, under the alleged supervision of that alleged ally of ours in the misnamed War on Terror. But their confinement to Qatar ends in May, and they’ll then be able to go where they please. Such as back to Helmand province to rejoin their comrades in arms, or maybe to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Bergdahl, on the other hand, won’t be rejoining the war effort.
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was freed by Afghan insurgents last May as part of an exchange for five Taliban prisoners, was charged Wednesday with having deserted his remote base before his capture in 2009.
The military charges, resulting from a long-awaited but tightly guarded investigation, include desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. A conviction could lead to a dishonorable discharge from the military and, in the extreme, life in prison for Sgt. Bergdahl.
The Bergdahl swap is playing out exactly as anyone with half a brain predicted.
Rick Shultz said
Although our actions in the Middle East don’t make a great deal of sense to me ALL the time, there are certain things that DO make sense, and I do understand why we do them. We have essentially a volunteer army here, and we have had for quite a while now. Now when you volunteer for something like military service it would seem that anyone who is halfway intelligent would realize that you will be required to take an oath to defend the country whose armed forces you are member of, and that oath is going to require you to obey orders and to obey regulations put in place with the purpose of defining what your duties will be as a member of that military force. It would behoove anyone with a modicum of intelligence to consider that, at some point, personal beliefs are going to come into conflict with these rules, and if they do, you are going to have to put aside personal beliefs and obey the orders you are given. This is something that you swear an oath to do, and in addition to the obligation you have to uphold the decisions made by your commanding officers, you have an even more important obligation not to let your fellow soldiers down. They are depending on you to do your job so they can count on not being killed or wounded by the enemy because you decided that personal beliefs were more important than their well-being. I have no use for anyone who will decide in the middle of a battle that while it’s great to soar with the eagles a weasel doesn’t get sucked into a jet engine. And I would want that weasel punished for allowing me to get killed or badly wounded because of his waffling and inability to do what he signed up for. I will be very pissed if this individual doesn’t get at least a BCD and some time busting rocks at Leavenworth.