Bowe Bergdahl

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by bobabode

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...y.html?hpid=z3

Milbank nails it in an oped at the Post.

"Obama’s opponents came up with more links than a sausage factory. People in both instances had signed nondisclosure agreements! In both cases, there were contradictory accounts of what happened! Fox’s Sean Hannity found a tie between the two in his contention that “we’re being lied to an awful lot.”
Former congressman Allen West (R-Fla.) found the two instances similar because “there is a lot to this whole episode — like Benghazi — that we may never know.”Luckily for West, knowledge is not a requirement. He has already declared l’affaire Bergdahl an impeachable offense."

West is a hack. He well knows we may never know, because it may be the case that we cannot know.

None of us know why those five individuals were chosen for the exchange. One or more of them could now be a mole.

And the government will never share that information. THEY CAN'T.

This idea that our government should share ALL information with the public in regards to military and intelligence matters is downright stupid.

THEY CAN'T.

Dave

[BlueStreak]

We'll see if the dumbass GOP shares all of it's secrets with the whole world, when the day arrives that THEY have the Whitehouse............

Good luck with that.

Dave

[Wasillaguy]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

West is a hack. He well knows we may never know, because it may be the case that we cannot know.

None of us know why those five individuals were chosen for the exchange. One or more of them could now be a mole.

And the government will never share that information. THEY CAN'T.

This idea that our government should share ALL information with the public in regards to military and intelligence matters is downright stupid.

THEY CAN'T.

Dave

I'm sure we don't have to worry about any of those five. They've probably forgotten how to speak their native language by now.

It is possible one or more of them is a mole. It's also possible Bergdahl was sent home with a terrorist mission.

[bobabode]

So much for the characterization about the Taliban's "Worst of the worst" offered up by the bloviators at Faux Noise, plus McCain and his sidekick Lindsey.

http://www.latimes.com/world/afghani...605-story.html

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by Zeke

A self-righteous citizenry who blindly accepts American interventionism as patriotism? "American Exceptionalism" is bullshit.

Originally Posted by donquixote99

Substituting 'citizenship' for 'we' doesn't fix things for me. This is still a matter of saying 300 million people are 'one moral actor.' Which I don't see as making much sense.

I'm fine with saying the ignorant patriots are dummies, and should be blamed some. Just don't identify the whole shebang as them.

Zeke is so deep and complicated that I don't want to get into trouble by even suggesting that I'm saying the same thing as Zeke...so I'll frame this as a question. Reckon I might be saying something similar to what Zeke is saying, when I say...

So I waltz in here and vent my guts out and piss on cons and Republicans for trashing the country. And every couple of years I head over to the local public school and vote for the lesser of two evils, the vote whoring Democrats. And every four years I go out and do some canvassing for the Democrat vote whore for President, and then cast my vote for him (or maybe her next time). So that's what I do.

So when I say "we", I mean "we." If I were remarkably better than 5 below, dj, and whell, I suspect I would be doing considerably more than that. Not sure what that would be, since it would probably require immersing myself more actively in the political system...it gives me the runs just considering it.

Or I could go back to my old radical behavior, giving comfort, support, and an occasional half-pound of righteous weed...if not money and direct active involvement to bomb-making revolutionaries like Billy Ayers and Bernie Ornstein. But I'm old and my knees hurt, and Billy and Bernie are busy being educators and latter day celebrities.

Or I could continue to work one person at a time in the treatment room which I do once in a while, but it finally got to be too frustrating and I mostly retired from it. Or I could lend my time and money to other stuff like joining and supporting organizations that fight poverty and pollution and such...which I do.

But clearly what I do isn't ever gonna be enough to change very much, in any very meaningful ways (outside of one on one once in a while). So I consider myself "we". And I suppose, in my own analysis, I'm measurably better than the 5 below's, dj's and whell's of this problematic nation...but not measurably enough to matter very much.

Apparently you think you are DQ. Good for you. I'd like to feel that way too. But I don't.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

Even though I (sort of) understand what you're saying and agree with the following points;

1). To the right wing propaganda machine this is way more about Obama than it is Bergdahl.

2). That the military may have gone after him at the first clear opportunity anyways. Especially IF he was committing treason and giving the enemy useful information. (Which I doubt.)

Your style of delivery of these points, I really don't care much for, Ike.

"...fucking rag on a stick shithole in the desert where his unit was located...", really?

It may be a shithole, but that outpost is made up of of people who depended on him for mutual protection. He clearly violated that trust. It wasn't the outpost he abandoned, it was the people.

Dave

My comments on the station in Afghanistan comes from a few things I've read and heard about conditions at many Afghan stations from personnel who spend time at those stations. I didn't make up a rag on a stick in the desert...that came from a guy I met who finally had enough of this shit on his fourth deployment and started talking about what it was really like after his discharge last year. There's only so much certain humans can take. Stop-loss and mismanagement and Bergdahl's apt description of the ass-sucking that gets you somewhere in the United States military system overwhelms some people psychologically. It's so easy to call them despicable, deserters and traitors. I for one refuse to get on that bus.

Then again, when it comes to the members of our "professional volunteer military" who aren't doing so well in that system, I suppose we could just go back to what Dr. Hunter S. Thompson used to say..."Listen asshole, you bought the ticket, you take the ride."

[Oerets]

We have still not heard the rest of this story. Just tonight I heard he tried to escape at least twice.


Like I pointed out before, everyday criminals are released who reoffend some just because of overcrowding others in some kind of deal to get to another criminal. Here the released did do 13 years of hard time and until we give out life sentences for the crimes O wait they never were convicted IIRC! So I say either have trials and sentences or move on and let them go.

http://www.latimes.com/world/afghani...ry.html#page=1

Barney

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Zeke is so deep and complicated that I don't want to get into trouble by even suggesting that I'm saying the same thing as Zeke...so I'll frame this as a question. Reckon I might be saying something similar to what Zeke is saying, when I say...

So I waltz in here and vent my guts out and piss on cons and Republicans for trashing the country. And every couple of years I head over to the local public school and vote for the lesser of two evils, the vote whoring Democrats. And every four years I go out and do some canvassing for the Democrat vote whore for President, and then cast my vote for him (or maybe her next time). So that's what I do.

So when I say "we", I mean "we." If I were remarkably better than 5 below, dj, and whell, I suspect I would be doing considerably more than that. Not sure what that would be, since it would probably require immersing myself more actively in the political system...it gives me the runs just considering it.

Or I could go back to my old radical behavior, giving comfort, support, and an occasional half-pound of righteous weed...if not money and direct active involvement to bomb-making revolutionaries like Billy Ayers and Bernie Ornstein. But I'm old and my knees hurt, and Billy and Bernie are busy being educators and latter day celebrities.

Or I could continue to work one person at a time in the treatment room which I do once in a while, but it finally got to be too frustrating and I mostly retired from it. Or I could lend my time and money to other stuff like joining and supporting organizations that fight poverty and pollution and such...which I do.

But clearly what I do isn't ever gonna be enough to change very much, in any very meaningful ways (outside of one on one once in a while). So I consider myself "we". And I suppose, in my own analysis, I'm measurably better than the 5 below's, dj's and whell's of this problematic nation...but not measurably enough to matter very much.

Apparently you think you are DQ. Good for you. I'd like to feel that way too. But I don't.

I feel something different. I feel that unless the stars and planets all line up perfectly, I can beat my head on the brick wall of national policy until my brains run out my nose, and it won't make a particle of difference. Perhaps I should try, just on the off chance that I'll do it on the right day and the stars will be auspicious. In any case, I think my responsibility for the sins of America is 100%, multiplied by my chances of of making a difference, which is about .0000001, give or take a couple of zeros.

My level of involvement is similar to yours. Now you have me thinking about power and how to get it, but I probably won't get anywhere with it. The fact is, most people are ordinary, and I'm one of them.

[barbara]

You have to make a difference when and where you can.

I try to make a difference one person at a time. Doesn't change the world, but it might change that person's world.

🌍

[JJIII]

Originally Posted by barbara

You have to make a difference when and where you can.

I try to make a difference one person at a time. Doesn't change the world, but it might change that person's world.

🌍

That is all most of us can do.