Casual Observation

19 Comments

1. 

   Oui on June 4, 2014 at 2:58 pm

   Alaska is a great country, but for me it’s not about Obama and I agree all soldiers should be returned home when lost on the battlefield. Bergdahl is out of harms’ way, however the military will start an investigation. The release of Taliban leaders has been in the offing as part of peace talks. Nothing to show for it to date. War should be the last option and the President and military should have clear goals. Military intervention is never without repercussion. That’s why I’m hopeful about Obama’s West Point speech and change!

   Bowe Bergdahl could still face Army desertion charges, Gen. Dempsey says

   (CBS News) – It is widely believed that Bergdahl walked off the base where he was stationed in Afghanistan in 2009.

   Former members of Bergdahl’s unit have taken to the airwaves and social media calling him a deserter and alleging other soldiers were actually killed searching for him.  

   “You don’t get to pick and choose which POWs deserve to come home. I’m glad Bergdahl is back. It’s the end of a terrible chapter for our unit.”

   Josh Korder, a former sergeant in Bergdahl’s unit, has the names of those soldiers tattooed on his body.

   “They were never nationally televised for their sacrifices in the way that he is and he pretty much voluntarily walked away and in turn, caused, you know, the actions that may have killed them,” Korder told CNN.

   Nathan Bradley Bethea, who served as an officer in Bergdahl’s unit, said in an article on the Daily Beast website that Bergdahl was not on patrol, as some reports have suggested.

   “There was no patrol that night,” he wrote. “Bergdahl was relieved from guard duty, and instead of going to sleep, he fled the outpost on foot. He deserted. I’ve talked to members of Bergdahl’s platoon – including the last Americans to see him before his capture. I’ve reviewed the relevant documents. That’s what happened.”

   In his piece, Bethea named six American soldiers he said were killed in the search for Bergdahl.

   Gen Dempsey: Like any American, he is innocent until proven guilty.  

   ○ Freed Taliban Leaders Enjoy Life in Luxury in Qatar

   Well at least Bergdahl didn’t take his weapons with him to murder Afghan families …
   An earlier attempt by the U.S. to have Qatar mediate in a political framework for the Taliban lasted exactly one day before betrayal.

   ○ Obama Policy and Af-Pak Border Fallacy – Dec. 2009
   ○ iCasualties: Afghanistan Coalition Military Fatalities By Year

   • 

     Oui on June 4, 2014 at 3:32 pm

     Vanity Fair: America’s Last Prisoner of War  by Michael Hastings on June 7, 2012

     Bowe’s own tour of duty in Afghanistan mirrored the larger American experience in the war – marked by tragedy, confusion, misplaced idealism, deluded thinking and, perhaps, a moment of insanity. And it is with Bowe that the war will likely come to an end. On May 1st, in a surprise visit to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, President Obama announced that the United States will now pursue “a negotiated peace” with the Taliban. That peace is likely to include a prisoner swap – or a “confidence-building measure,” as U.S. officials working on the negotiations call it – that could finally end the longest war in America’s history. Bowe is the one prisoner the Taliban have to trade. “It could be a huge win if Obama could bring him home,” says a senior administration official familiar with the negotiations. “Especially in an election year, if it’s handled properly.”

     ○ US Forces Being Back-Stabbed by Pakistan Military
2. 

   Marie2 on June 4, 2014 at 3:14 pm

   Starts strong.  Good first conclusion:

   When these capering lunatics stand in front of the nation, the world, and without a single shred of decency, without the tiniest modicum of self-conscious shame, without any apparent awareness of their own boundless hypocrisy, and loudly protest the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from the clutches of our sworn enemies, I have to say no more.

   I’ve reached the limit of what little tolerance I have for this insane hatred.

   He later goes off with:

   The staggering hypocrisy of this becomes immediately apparent when you realize that the very same folks who would grant an unconditional pardon to the traitorous Edward Snowden, a man who provably and self-admittedly gave aid and comfort to our adversaries during time of war and who continues to do so to this very day, these same people would proclaim Snowden a hero and leave Bergdahl to die unlamented in a Taliban cave – solely because they despise Barack Obama and for no other reason.

   And this:

   For the last two years, these very same people have been screaming for Obama’s impeachment, because the President ordered the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American who publicly renounced his citizenship, declared his allegiance to our sworn enemies, and who then actively took up arms against the United States and loudly encouraged others to do so as well.  These same people would sacrifice untold numbers of American soldiers to capture a self-declared terrorist and give him a trial because they simply cannot and will not acknowledge that the president did the right thing, but these very same people would condemn Bergdahl and leave him to rot in Afghanistan without so much as an Article 32 hearing, solely to further their blind hatred of Barack Obama.

   Really?  Who are these people screaming for Obama’s impeachment that condemn both the drone killing of al-Awlaki and prisoner exchange for Bergdahl and support Snowden?  Those he names wouldn’t even support a fair and open trial for the prisoners in Guantanamo.  And if by “these people,” he means inconsistent ravings by Rand Paul, that’s one person.    

   • 

     BobX on June 4, 2014 at 4:44 pm

     Not to mention this massive fail…
     Congress never issued a war declaration.
     So, another make up my own facts moran.
     That was a waste of time.

     • 

       Marie2 on June 4, 2014 at 6:20 pm

       May be more fail in it than the two that jumped out at me and the one you noted.  Those, however, are so egregious that I don’t want to go back through it.  A shame because, as I said, it started off strong.

3. 

   c u n d gulag on June 4, 2014 at 3:46 pm

   GREAT POST!

   Thanks for the link, BooMan!

4. 

   BooMan on June 4, 2014 at 6:00 pm

   Also needed to be said.

   • 

     centerfielddj on June 4, 2014 at 11:11 pm

     The blogosphere has been buzzing about this column from Maureen- it’s highly mockable, all righty. Until clicking the link here, I hadn’t known the nut idea that Grandma Dowd’s column was expressing in the wake of her bad trip. Should have known that she would use it to engage in an extremely lame Reefer Madness cautionary tale.

     Did Maureen’s reporting discover that users in Colorado have gotten into accidents or harmed themselves or others in any way as a result of their pot consumption? No?

     Well, an extremely privileged member of the press elite had her peace of mind reduced for a brief period of time as she laid in her comfortable hotel room. Yes, that alone makes pot chocolate bars a priority issue for America.

     • 

       n1cholas on June 4, 2014 at 11:16 pm

       I believe Dowd ate 16x the amount she should have eaten because she’s a fucking idiot.

       Go drink 16x the amount of tequila it takes to get nice and tipsy and see how your evening goes.

       Oh, that’s right, tequila is legal. Never mind. Nothing to see here. Cannabis is bad, because Maureen Dowd is a fucking idiot.

       • 

         Marie2 on June 4, 2014 at 11:56 pm

         If this is this middle-aged woman’s first experience with pot, it makes her both an idiot and socially lame.  Nothing wrong with preferring Chardonnay to marijuana — I do as well — but would no more drink alone than I would smoke or eat pot alone.

         • 

           n1cholas on June 5, 2014 at 2:12 am

           It took all night before it began to wear off, distressingly slowly. The next day, a medical consultant at an edibles plant where I was conducting an interview mentioned that candy bars like that are supposed to be cut into 16 pieces for novices; but that recommendation hadn’t been on the label.

           Luckily for novices like children, there are all sorts of directions on the labels of beer, wine and liquor that provides directions on how much to drink if you’re a novice!

           The fact that she imbibed as much cannabis as she did and it just kinda sucked for a bit illustrates exactly why it is obscene for this drug to be illegal. Do the same with a bottle of hard alcohol, and you may not wake up.

           Cannabis isn’t for everyone, just like alcohol isn’t for everyone. I just find her little anecdote about the dangers of cannabis as a positive for it. The drug may not be for you, and you may not like the high, but there is virtually no toxicity to it, and an overdose usually ends with someone falling asleep for a few hours.

         • 

           The Voice In The Wilderness on June 5, 2014 at 9:03 am

           And every year some fraternity pledge dies after chug-a-lugging a quart of vodka. Let’s bring back Prohibition.

       • 

         centerfielddj on June 5, 2014 at 12:06 am

         I was incorrect- Dowd reports two deaths that she associates with Colorado’s new law. She has some problems with that “correlation is not causation” thing, however.

         Some of the measures she reports Colorado officials are considering are reasonable. Unfortunately, they’re reportages in a column which seems to exist so that she can tell us how scary the weed is. The title is dated as hell; the ending punchline is  

         • 

           n1cholas on June 5, 2014 at 2:16 am

           I can only imagine how the media will make a big deal out of deaths related to cannabis.

           Of course, if they don’t list side-by-side alcohol, prescription drugs and other illegal drugs to show the relative numbers, then you know it’s just Reefer Madness rebooted.

5. 

   wwwanderer on June 4, 2014 at 6:51 pm

   Juan Cole also strips their political hysteria bare.
   Dear GOP: The US has negotiated with Terrorists and Amnestied Them all through History

   The Taliban in Afghanistan are not a small terrorist group like, say, the Italian Red Brigades of the 1970s and 1980s. They are guerrillas belonging to a movement that at one point had captured the state and run it. The Taliban are now a guerrilla group, holding territory.
   The US has all along negotiated with the guerrillas it has fought on the battlefield. William Howard Taft (later president) in the Philippines was all for negotiation with Filipinos who rejected US rule, and he created “attraction zones” to win them over. At the conclusion of the Aguinaldo resistance to US occupation in 1902, Teddy Roosevelt declared a general amnesty for the resistance fighters. These resistance fighters had committed some atrocities, including on captured US troops, but Roosevelt just let them walk free. Talk softly, carry a big stick, and let all the terrorists go, seems to have been his motto.
   The US negotiated with the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, who were very much analogous to the Taliban and whom the US would now certainly term “terrorists.”  

   Is the Prisoner Swap Hysteria a sign of GOP War withdrawal Symptoms?

   • 

     Marie2 on June 4, 2014 at 7:47 pm

     So many ignoramuses; so little time.  Almost every freaking current event issue that gets RWNJ panties in a twist is at some level evidence of their ignorance — historical, legal, mathematical, ethical.  They even mostly fail the Biblical.  

6. 

   The Voice In The Wilderness on June 4, 2014 at 7:09 pm

   This:

   The staggering hypocrisy of John McCain continues unabated, the man is a disgrace to the uniform he once wore and the honor he swore to uphold. McCain, more than any other living American, should know what it’s like when governments value politics over their own citizens. Navy Lieutenant John McCain, if he still exists inside that wretched bitter old man, that John McCain more than any other should remember what it’s like to come home as a POW under a cloud of doubt and suspicion. But Vietnam was a long, long time ago and John McCain is a rich man now and more than willing to condemn others for his own sins.

   I couldn’t have said it better.

7. 

   MNPundit on June 5, 2014 at 1:49 pm

   Even the slate article writer was mainly trying to remind us not to paint him as a hero. I believe the suggestion was a dishonorable discharge then let basically ignore him to live his life as a civilian.

   • 

     The Voice In The Wilderness on June 6, 2014 at 7:53 am

     A DD? Whatever for?  I remember an Air Force General who was bopping six of his Colonels’ wives, essentially rape by coercion. He had threatened to destroy their husbands’ careers by giving them bad reviews if they didn’t comply. HE was allowed to resign and get a pension. No DD, no jail time which he deserved in my opinion. What damage to the troops and morale did HE do?
     Far worse IMHO than getting disgusted and walking off a base.

     We hear accusations that Bergdahl was anti-social by not engaging in illegal drinking. WTF? Was he even a drinker? Did he just want to stay out of trouble? This case reminds me so much of Pat Tillman.