Bowe captured_soldier

This is my opinion about the POW swap, 5 old guys who were in Gitmo for a long time for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl an American soldier who served his country. I think it is a good deal. Bowe deserves to be free! The Taliban guys have grown old and can’t return to the fight.

Who knows whether we put some kind of tracking device in them somehow?  Who cares anyway?

I hear McCain complaining that the President broke the law by making the swap. That grumpy old man has a poor memory. He too was a POW and should be rejoicing right now for the freedom of the last American POW from these stupid wars!

When I received orders for Vietnam in January 1969 I had been told we were fighting the Viet Cong and NVA so they would not come here to fight. Bull$hit!

I still don’t know the real reason we were in Vietnam. After several months in Nam I started to question why we were fighting there?

I saw lots of corruption while I was there. Black Market and theft were everywhere. The South Vietnamese were hired to unload boats with supplies for us infantrymen. They unloaded all right, one for the GI’s and one for them and so on and so forth. Then they brought those things they stole from the ship out to sell to us. When I got an R&R I went to the place where we departed from a day early. I was approached by an officer in the South Vietnamese Army to use my MACV card to get a small fridge and an electric fan. Both items an infantryman had no use for. That was the Black Market. They pay you $20 to buy them using your card and they get the items. Corruption was rampant there. I bet it is just as bad or worse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’m guessing, but I think Bowe saw stuff that he didn’t like. War breeds corruption! He made a mistake and more than paid the price for  it.  He has a conscience. That’s more than the idiots who are arguing that the swap should not have been done.

POW trades have happened for almost all wars. Those who argue that we should not trade for our soldiers don’t seem to understand that if we leave them and don’t try to swap for them we will have trouble getting people to join the service. In my case , I was drafted. Today our soldiers are all volunteers.

Now remember these are my thoughts about the swap and about an American POW. I’m willing to listen to others thoughts about Bowe. Let me know if you agree or disagree. Just keep it civil.

Private First Class Bowe Robert Bergdahl, Unit...

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Kalima
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Kalima
Admin

We ask for a certain amount of respect for other members here, and if you can’t remember that, we will be forced to remove your comment.

This is not HP. Please read our Terms of Use. Thank you.

Kalima
Admin

I removed the offending comment, and keeping the peace here is part of my job, and not in the least offensive to anyone who keeps to our rules in our Terms of Use.

Sorry if you felt offended.

AdLib
Admin

Kalima, appreciate your reiterating our policy so it’s crystal clear. Simply put, if a comment contains a personal insult against a fellow member, it’s going to be removed. And we have no tolerance for trolling.

This is hardly too high of a bar for reasonable people to clear…which is why I’d say there are so many reasonable people here.

Kalima
Admin

Just trying to do my job by keeping The Planet respectful, AdLib, and no, the bar isn’t too high.

TheHandyman
Member
TheHandyman

My, my, what a mature and erudite response. And yes, that is sarcasm…

TheHandyman
Member
TheHandyman

While the response to the Bergdahl trade by a rather large number of Americans is outrageous the self serving and out rights lies or the politicians on the right is about as low as that segment of the human species is able to crawl and still be seen above the slime they seem to relish living in.

McCain, who continues to to stick as many appendages in his mouth as possible, stands in front of cameras and describe the five prisoners traded for Bergdahl as being “the worst of the worst” and “people who had dedicated their entire lives to destroying America” without either knowing or deliberately ignoring that the facts are that these 5 men were captured by the Pakistani’s and turned over to the US and they were members of the Taliban Government. One of the men was a well known moderate Taliban who was good at negotiating and the Karzai Govt had for years tried to get him released so that he could act as an intermediary.

While The GOTPers continue to claim that this was all orchestrated by Obama as a political stunt it should be painfully obvious that the GOTP is for certainty doing the same.

Anyone in office 2 and a half years ago should have known about this trade. This trade is that old. According to several very reliable sources Obama wanted to make this trade 2 and a half years ago but Clinton and Gates refused to sign off on it as being “a sign of weakness” on the part of the administration. Imagine Hillary, Mrs Iron Pantsuit wannabe being afraid of being perceived as being weak. As for Robert Iran-gate Gates the fact that Obama appointed this criminal to his Cabinet shows his own proclivity to right-wing ideals or a certain air of ineptitude.

But Obama knew that if this deal wasn’t made now that it never would be. As this stupid, needless and unwinnable war comes to a close the release of these prisoners became inevitable and then there would be nothing to trade for Bergdahl except maybe weapons, something that Col. North and all the Reagan lovers should remember.

Several journalists have always suspected that the forcing of an entire Brigade to sign a non-disclosure form to not discuss Bergdahl was nothing more than and attempt by what had been described as one of the worse military units in the Army to cover their asses. They didn’t want anyone to discuss the things that happened that may have driven Bergdahl over the edge such as unit trucks deliberately running over a woman carrying a child and then the following trucks running over her body as well.

Of course Americans, unlike the Vietnam War, don’t really want to know the truth about much of anything be it our trumped up reasons for our wars or the connection between the causes of Global Warming, if they will even admit it exists, and the legal bribes almost all our elected representatives at all levels take from the owners of the Energy Companies that in their need for even more money they can’t use. Not only has the soul of a large segment of the population darkened they have also become willfully oblivious about that which really matters.

It isn’t just Bergdahl they now hate, it is people of color, people of the opposite party, and anyone who reminds them of what Americans used to be like.

I could go on for hours listing the ways in which this country has changed for the worse since my idealistic Peace Corps days but what’s the point? Humans have marked themselves as a dead end species. The only species who was told what would happen, how to prevent it, and yet chose not to do so believing that some imaginary Being would save them from themselves without remembering that said Being either decreed their ending or gave them the free will to alter their destiny.

Go here to see Amy Goodman and Matthew Farrel, a journalist and Afghanistan vet tell the true story of Bowe Bergdahl.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/6/6/the_inside_story_of_bowe_bergdahl

Ponyjohn
Member
Ponyjohn

o yeah thanks

Wallysmom
Member
Wallysmom

Firstly, thanks for your service in a war few really talk about or acknowledge. We don’t know the full story and the idea of being responsible and patient until all the facts are available is the way the media and the Congress should be handling this, not rushing out to every outlet to expound on the truthfulness or patriotism of Sgt. Bergdahl. By the Republican response it seems that they are more interested in a faux scandal than the safety of one of our own.

SearingTruth
Member

“I only remember shutting her eyelids.”
SearingTruth

A Future of the Brave

slightlycrazy
Member
slightlycrazy

there is a fascinating account in rolling stone’s archives written by michael hastings (the reporter who brought down mcchrystal), which really fleshes out this whole story. written in 2012, long before any of this gets political.

Kalima
Admin

If this is the case, and he didn’t receive counselling, then those who sent him to Afghanistan, are just as responsible. Of course the military will never admit to it.

—-

Bergdahl Is Said to Have History of Leaving Post

http://nytimes.com/2014/06/06/world/asia/bowe-bergdahl-walked-away-before-military-report-says.html

cognitogrrl
Member
cognitogrrl

Thanks for the link, Kalima. I see the NY Times reported that the homecoming celebration in his hometown was canceled (even tho’ Bergdahl will be unable to attend since he’s still in recovery or debriefing). However, in another story, someone in charge of the event said that the town is so small that it could not cope with the crowds expected if they went ahead with it, since his release. They made it clear that it was NOT canceled due to being ashamed of him.

Nirek, thank you for your service in Vietnam. I agree with you that Bergdahl could have been in a bad way psychologically and decided to take a hike. Whatever it was, he is still one of our own and has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. I’m glad he’s back.

Kalima
Admin

My pleasure cognitogrrl.

As much as I hate the speculation and false reports in the media, I enjoy it immensely when they are proven wrong at a later date.

Me, I like to decide once all the facts are in. From what I have read from fairly reliable sources makes me think that he should never have been sent to Afghanistan. Like you, I’m glad he is finally home and will get some much needed help.

Jeffrey L Mooney
Member
Jeffrey L Mooney

Republicans are once again trying to invent another “scandal”. And their ignorant “base” of supporters will devour their talking points and regurgitate them at every opportunity. The only people worse than republican legislators are the people stupid enough to vote for one of them.

MurphTheSurf3
Editor

Nirek, it seems to me that in the rush to judgement the critics have lost site of the young man in question…..

WAS BERGDAHL CHOOSING DEATH?

The more I read the more I think this young man, Sgt. Bowe Robert Bergdahl, a 22 year old Private when he was captured, had a breakdown of some sort.

He was home schooled, very involved with his church’s youth program and loved outreach to the needy, He got a GED in his early 20’s; studied Buddhism, martial arts, fencing; did not own a car choosing to bike for environmental reasons; and then he joined the army in 2008. This decision appears to have surprised many.

Bergdahl’s unit was sent to an outpost called Mest-Malak in Afghanistan to conduct counterinsurgency operations. Bergdahl began learning to speak Pashto, and, according to Specialist John Fry, a member of Bergdahl’s unit 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”

He seems to me to be a brooder who had great affection for a fellow soldier in his platoon at the remote outpost where he took part in counter insurgency – and thus saw the war’s impact on local people’s in a way that makes your Vietnam memory poignant and powerful- and from which he walked away. His friend, who he met in training and grew close to, was killed.

We know that he mailed his most personal effects to his family a couple of days before he disappeared. His final e mail to them read: “The future is too good to waste on lies. And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be american. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is all revolting…..The system is wrong. I am ashamed to be an american. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools…I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live. We don’t even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks… We make fun of them in front of their faces, and laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them…I am sorry for everything. The horror that is america is disgusting…There are a few more boxes coming to you guys. Feel free to open them, and use them.”

THIS IS A SUICIDE NOTE.

He walked off, leaving his weapons, and armor behind and I suspect he expected to die and was captured instead.

Hastings, Michael (June 7, 2012). “America’s Last Prisoner of War”. Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/americas-last-prisoner-of-war-20120607

Who is Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl? http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/51336717.html

White House defends prisoner swap in tense Hill meeting http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/bowe-bergdahl-obama-officials-capitol-hill-congress-private-meeting-107424.html

Kalima
Admin

The Real Reason the U.S. Didn’t Rescue Bowe Bergdahl

After a second escape attempt, the American hostage was being moved so often, American commandos would’ve had to raid a dozen safe houses in Pakistan at once.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/04/the-real-reason-the-u-s-didn-t-rescue-bowe-bergdahl.html