“Chicken Hawks”: The Despicable Republican Attack On An American Prisoner Of War
It is hard to fathom. Major elements of the once-proud Republican Party have stooped so low that they are systematically attacking an American prisoner of war because they believe it discredits their political adversaries.
Only one word serves to properly describe such behavior: despicable. And the mainstream media outlets that have enabled this attack by taking it seriously are not much better.
Here are the facts:
On Friday, President Obama announced the release of the last American POW in Afghanistan — Bowe Bergdahl. In exchange, five Taliban prisoners were released from Guantanamo Prison into the custody of the Qatari government that had helped broker the prisoner exchange. The Qataris agreed to prevent the Taliban prisoners from returning to Afghanistan for a year, by which time America’s combat role in Afghanistan will have ceased.
Almost immediately, the deal was attacked by Republicans as “negotiating with terrorists” — an act that they say would encourage more “hostage taking.”
In fact, of course the deal was a traditional prisoner exchange — the kind that combatants do regularly at the end of — and often during — wars. Both sides released prisoners of war that were taken by the other on an active battlefield.
The president negotiated the exchange because his overwhelming responsibility was to fulfill his commitment not to leave any American soldier behind when America’s combat role in Afghanistan ends later this year. What would the Republicans have done — let him live out his life in the hands of the Taliban?
You bet this exchange was in the national security interests of the United States, because it sent a message to all of the men and women in the American military — people who have volunteered to risk their lives for their fellow Americans — that our country has their back — that we will not forget them and leave them to die in some far off place once a conflict is over.
In fact many of the critics of the exchange never saw a day of combat in their lives. They stayed safely at home — having dinners at their favorite restaurants, enjoying a round of golf on the weekends — while they demanded that other Americans go to war in the Middle East. And now they have the audacity to question whether it is worth it to exchanging some Taliban prisoners to free one of the people who actually went to fight in their wars?
Many of the loudest critics are precisely the same “chicken hawks” who were the architects of the Iraq War — the greatest security and foreign policy disaster of recent history — premised entirely on intentional lies to the American people. In fact, many of them should have lost the right to be taken seriously on any matter of foreign policy, much less the right to be taken seriously when they — in effect — advocate that an American soldier be left as a POW for the rest of his life.
But the right wing’s attacks did not end with assaults on the prisoner exchange itself. Now they have turned to attack the character of the POW himself and the circumstances in which he was captured.
The bottom line is simple. If Bergdahl’s violation of a rule made him an easier target for capture by the Taliban, it is up to the American military to decide the facts of the case — not the right-wing pundits. And if he should have been disciplined, that’s up to the American military as well — not the Taliban.
Whatever the circumstances, Bergdahl suffered five years of deprivation and hopelessness that is unimaginable to the sanctimonious “chicken hawks” who sat safely by state-side while others fought and died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In fact their attacks are reminiscent of the shameful way America treated returning Viet Nam veterans almost half a century ago.
This time, the “Obama derangement syndrome” that infects the right-wing pundit class has led them into a dark place that is simply over the top — even for them. Their Republican colleagues who are not so deeply infected by this disorder should restrain and silence them for their own good — and to protect what is left of the reputation of what was once a respectable political party.
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post Blog, June 3, 2014
“What Exactly Is Going On Here?”: An Interview, Arranged By Republican Strategists
President Obama made clear this morning that when it comes to rescuing American POWs, the nation’s commitment is unconditional. “Regardless of the circumstances,” he said, in reference to a question about Bowe Bergdahl, “whatever those circumstances may turn out to be, we still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity. Period. Full stop.”
Those comments, however, have not stopped questions about how Bergdahl was captured and whether he deserted his post. The New York Times reports this morning on an account from “a former senior military officer briefed on the investigation into the private’s disappearance,” who claims Bergdahl “had become disillusioned with the Army, did not support the American mission in Afghanistan and was leaving to start a new life.”
The furious search for Sergeant Bergdahl, his critics say, led to the deaths of at least two soldiers and possibly six others in the area. Pentagon officials say those charges are unsubstantiated and are not supported by a review of a database of casualties in the Afghan war.
“Yes, I’m angry,” Joshua Cornelison, a former medic in Sergeant Bergdahl’s platoon, said in an interview on Monday arranged by Republican strategists.
Though we don’t yet have all the details, and some of the allegations may be “unsubstantiated,” the emotional reaction from servicemembers is easy to understand. But it was those other eight words that also raised eyebrows: “an interview on Monday arranged by Republican strategists”?
What exactly is going on here? The release of an American POW from his Taliban captors in Afghanistan has become a political operation in which Republican strategists direct reporters to specific sources?
BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray and Kate Nocera reported this morning on the behind-the-scenes effort.
A former Bush Administration official hired, then resigned, as Mitt Romney’s foreign policy spokesman played a key role in publicizing critics of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the released prisoner of war.
The involvement of Richard Grenell, who once served as a key aide to Bush-era U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton and later worked for Romney’s 2012 campaign, comes as the Bergdahl release has turned into an increasingly vicious partisan issue.
The piece added that similar interviews were arranged with a variety of conservative media outlets, including The Weekly Standard, the Daily Mail, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.
One of Grenell’s partner at Capitol Media Partners told BuzzFeed the firm is not being paid for these efforts.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, June 3, 2014
“John McCain Position Switch On Bergdahl Deal”: Is He The Most Disingenuous Member Of Senate Or Simply Unfit To Serve?
It is not uncommon for politicians from all parties to be caught in the occasional act of political hypocrisy.
Still, Arizona Republican and one-time presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, has set a new high watermark when it comes to committing an act of hypocrisy so disingenuous as to raise the bar for all politicians seeking to achieve professional status in the time honored political tradition of speaking from both sides of the mouth.
Appearing this past Sunday on “Face The Nation”, McCain expressed his profound concern for the trade involving five top ranking terrorists for the return of Bowie Bergdahl.
Watch: http://youtu.be/QzFPm3QA568
Nothing much to see there, yes? After all, there is nothing unusual nor surprising in Senator McCain’s words given that there are is no shortage of people on both sides of the political divide who have some serious reservations as to the wisdom of the deal.
Certainly, Senator McCain, who has rarely met a war he didn’t like, would be expected to voice his concern and criticism.
The only problem is that just three months ago, Senator McCain, appearing on CNN, voiced his support for the very same deal that he now finds to be so profoundly disturbing.
Watch: http://youtu.be/8x9PQUBlFYs
While McCain notes that he objected to an earlier proposal that would have called for releasing the very same high value terrorists as an act of “confidence building” with the Taliban, he clearly states that he would support the release of these people if the prize were to be the American soldier being held by the Taliban. He later modifies his response to say that if the exchange were for one of these terrorists—whom he told us just this past Sunday were people responsible for the deaths of thousands—he would support the deal.
Does anyone out there believe that the critics would have been silenced if the exchange had only involved one terrorist…or two…or three? If you believe that our policy of not negotiating with terrorists is the correct policy, does negotiating for the release of one high ranking terrorist make it better? Yet, there is Mr. McCain voicing his support for a deal that , just three months later, he would go on TV to condemn.
I don’t think anything more need be said except that we should all be embarrassed and deeply concerned that this man continues to hold such an important position in our government.
By: Rick Ungar, Op-Ed Contributor, Forbes, June 4, 2014
“The Bowe Bergdahl Story Is Right-Wing Crack”: And Sure Enough, Republicans Are Hitting The Pipe Big Time
I was amazed but not surprised by my Twitter feed Monday. More than 200 tweets from conservatives, I would estimate, calling me a host of names and Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl a menu of worse ones. That’s the most ever in one day, I think, even more than for my most scorching anti-NRA columns, which have heretofore set the gold standard for inspiring drooling right-wing vitriol.
I was not, as I say, surprised. This story has every element right-wingers dream of. Every dark suspicion they harbor about President Obama can be wedged into the narrative conservatives are constructing about how Saturday’s prisoner exchange supposedly went down and what the president’s presumed motivations were. So I knew instantly, when I read Michael Hastings’s 2012 Rolling Stone profile of Bergdahl on Sunday afternoon, that this was going to be the next Benghazi. The story is right-wing crack. And sure enough, Republicans are hitting the pipe big time.
Some of the wilder criticisms of me notwithstanding, my column Monday made two basic points. First, if a Republican president had swapped five Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, all the people howling today would be spinning it positively. And second, while there are legitimate questions here—yes, I wrote that it was “fair to ask whether the price” of Bergdahl’s freedom was “too high”—what we’re about to get is another relentlessly politicized series of investigations that will be aimed not at determining the truth but at trying to turn possible errors of judgment by the White House into high crimes and misdemeanors. That’s the game here. Anyone who denies it is being naively or intentionally delusional.
Time, even the short amount that has passed between then and now, has proved me all too prescient—not that I’m patting myself on the back; it was a painfully easy call. The most notable development Tuesday was that former Romney adviser Richard Grenell was found to be setting up interviews for soldiers in Bergdahl’s battalion who wanted to go public trashing him. It may be, as Grenell’s partner said, that the soldiers found him on Twitter and it just kind of worked out that way. But the bottom line is what it is. These soldiers joining forces with a PR guy who used to work for John Bolton and then for candidate Mitt Romney, a man who is so deeply enmeshed in partisan politics, puts a political coloration on their words whether they mean it to or not.
I’m not defending Bergdahl here, and I didn’t Monday. Somebody on Twitter made a big deal out of the fact that I put the word “deserter” in quotes. You’re fucking-a right I did. He’s not officially a deserter. He is officially a sergeant in good standing. People can believe he is a deserter all they want, and maybe he is. But is the military’s official position worth nothing? That’s an interesting right-wing posture.
The military should investigate whether Bergdahl was a deserter, and it should court-martial him if the evidence supports doing that. In the meantime, what end is served by the character assassinations of him and especially of his father, who’s a citizen with all the usual rights? The creepy bottom line of the right-wing position, mostly unstated but often implied in tweets and comments, is that the U.S. government should have just left Bergdahl to die. That’s an appalling position. Bring him back alive, then let him face whatever justice he must face. But bring him back. That’s what civil societies do. What kind of society and leader lets their captive soldiers die in enemy hands? Recall that the guy who wouldn’t even trade a Nazi general for his own son (who died in German custody) was named Stalin.
That is why John Bellinger, a national-security lawyer in George W. Bush’s administration, said on Fox that he believes the Bush administration would have done exactly the same thing the Obama administration did. From Think Progress:
Asked about reports that Bergdahl deserted his unit in 2009, Bellinger added that the former hostage “will have to face justice, military justice.” “We don’t leave soldiers on the battlefield under any circumstance unless they have actually joined the enemy army,” he said. “He was a young 20-year-old. Young 20-year-olds make stupid decisions. I don’t think we’ll say if you make a stupid decision we’ll leave you in the hands of the Taliban.”
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, June 4, 2104
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