US Army POW is released in swap for 5 Gitmo detainees.
- Thread starter aristotle
- Start date
I don't know if the military brass would go to such lengths to protect Obama from embarrassment, but Obama would certainly go to any lengths in ordering that nothing is allowed to embarrass him. We know that because he's made a career out of it.
But I don't know that Bergdhal is being whitewashed, either. He's been placed on duty in a desk job at Ft. Sam Houston in an office that deals with homeland security issues in civil support and security cooperation activities with Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas. Riveting stuff. He also lives on the base in noncom officer housing. Basically, he's living and working where they can keep a close eye on him, despite the pedestrian claim that that "he's just another soldier in the U.S. Army."
He's lawyered up, but being placed back on active duty will allow him to be informally questioned, and asked questions they probably couldn't otherwise ask if he was in custody under charges. The meat of the investigation is just beginning, and keeping him close and active is probably the best way to handle it.
I do think it's very odd that, so far, he has refused to speak to his parents.
When I was in anyone suspected of deserting would be in the stockade while the investigation took place. Which is where he belongs.
He had better watch his back, someone is going to "Tune" that guy up. Can't say that I blame them either. Soldiers tend to look out for each other.
With that thought in mind, it wouldn't be surprising if the military brass, knowing they have to put up with Obama only another 18 months or so, begin trying to right a lot of current wrongs. Our nation's professional military class is permanent and takes the long view, while the occupant of the White House is transitory, and in the current case, a whimsical social engineer clueless about military tradition.
Depends on what the investigation came up with. Abandoning the post is pretty bad in my opinion, and I think deserves being stripped of rank, pay forfeiture, and a dishonorable discharge, because there is no honor in abandoning your post in which others are counting on you to man. But I'm not in the military so I don't know how it works. It doesn't appear that he was sympathetic to the Taliban, and if that's the case then I don't think jail time is necessarily warranted. According to General Dahl, Bergdahl wanted to call attention to what he considered poor leadership of his unit, and believed that that by leaving his post and running the 14 miles to a nearby base he could cause a stir and gain access to a high-ranking officer to complain. So, according to Dahl, Bergdahl didn't abandon his post in sympathy for the enemy, but rather for personal reasons. There is no honor in that.
During the Vietnam War poor leadership was solved by fragging the lieutenant, not by running 14 miles to another base.