Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Bowe Bergdahl


I had planned to write about Sgt. Bergdahl sooner but I just couldn’t seem to get around to it. You no doubt have seen this story on television or heard about it on the radio. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was captured in Afghanistan in June 2009 by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network. There is some dispute about the details under which he left the Army base and later became a P.O.W. On 31 May 2014 he was released from confinement by his captors in a prisoner exchange.  

In any other time in history this would have been a good thing. The thing is at no other time in history has Barack Obama been President. The Republican Party is determined to bring him down at all costs. It doesn’t matter what it does to the country in the process. I don’t think that every person in the Republican Party is a racist but the fact that the President is black brings out the racist and they are firmly implanted in the GOP. I truly believe it sickens them every time they see President Obama and know that he is the President of the United States of America. It got under their skin so much that they formed the Tea Party. For the most part they will not admit they are racist but it doesn’t take a genius to see it. 

Days and weeks before Sgt. Bergdahl was released Republicans were saying that we shouldn’t forget about Bowe. Saying we need to do all we can do to bring him home. Once he was released they were told that this too they had to disagree with. Prior to this happening I didn’t think the GOP could stoop so low as to disparage the release of an American P.O.W., but I was wrong. They would have him rot in captivity rather than Obama secure his release. The argument they are pretending to have is Obama should not have traded "high value” detainees for him. The GOP would rather have detainees than an American. We all know that is not true but it IS the way they were told to react. When some members of the GOP first heard about Bowe being released they posted positive things on Facebook, Twitter and their political websites. The next day they were all removed.  

I was asked if I was going to post anything about this story. I could have done it the same day I heard about it. I knew my thoughts on him would not change. I was very familiar with his story. Without a doubt I believe he should have been released. I am very happy that President Obama made the deal. I think we all know that there was no way in hell Congress would have ever Okayed the exchange. Only because the President wanted it. I understand the complaint about him not giving them the option but given their track record I don’t think I would have waited either. We all know that had he asked they would have said no. Then if anything had happened to Bowe they would have said “he is supposed to be our leader and he is not leading” or something to that affect. There is no pleasing these people so I’m happy Obama just did the right thing. I don’t believe the thing about it being an emergency and I wish he had just told the truth.

This was a long way of saying Obama did the right thing. If we were going to follow International law we were going to have to release those guys anyway because the war is ending. By law when the war ends we have to let the prisoners go. I know the GOP likes to call them terrorist but that is misleading because we are at war with these “terrorist”. Since we are going to let them go we may as well be sure we get our guy back.

I also understand that the GOP and smear machine is calling Sgt. Bergdahl a deserter because of the way he left the Army base. They are also saying that several soldiers were killed while they were out looking for him. Other things are also being said about him that I’m not even going to bother listing because it doesn’t matter. Bowe is an American citizen and innocent UNTIL proven guilty. The Republican Party being the party that likes to wave the Constitution around should try holding it still so they can read it. Even IF he did what they said he did then I would still say we should bring him home to stand trial. Like I said, we were going to have to release those guys anyway. There is NO circumstance under which we should EVER leave an U.S. Soldier behind during war time. NEVER. I don’t care what he is accused of doing. Even if there is video proof that he killed an American soldier then was captured by the enemy. We bring him home. We deal with him. We don’t leave him. EVER.

                                                                       ADDITION

A friend of mine suggested that I should add this to what I had written. I was not familiar with this website. So thank you Lee.

If you would like to see some good ole Right-Wing hypocrisy click here.