Monday, June 9, 2014

On Bowe Bergdahl



It takes something fairly significant for me to feel ire for veterans, especially people I know personally and those that I served with.  The outrage over the United States cutting a deal to free a soldier who had been in Taliban custody for five years is exactly the kind of situation to set me off.  I realize that this story is over a week old, which means it was last fucking century to the online community, but it stuck with me so I'm discussing it.

For the person who has no idea what I'm talking about, let me recap as briefly as possible.  Five years ago an American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, wandered off in Afghanistan and was taken prisoner by the Taliban.  A deal was struck with the Taliban to swap Bergdahl for five prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility.  The Taliban threatened to kill Bergdahl if details of the swap were leaked before the swap occurred.  President Obama ordered the deal done, bypassing Congress (who he was under obligation to inform of any transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners), and Bergdahl was brought home.

Most of us either didn't know Bergdahl was a prisoner or we'd long forgotten about him.

Now normally this would be the end of the story, but President Obama is deeply hated by some Americans and so the show must go on.  The outrage that followed this swap was amazing and often misguided, uninformed, and downright insipid.  Claims were made that Bergdahl left to willingly surrender to the Taliban, that the President had broken the law (again) to free him, that this would embolden the enemy to capture more American citizens in order to effect the release of more Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and that the United States was now negotiating with terrorists.  I have a hard time knowing where to begin.


The President is a tough guy to like, generally speaking. He campaigned on a bunch of promises that he didn't deliver on, he's a Democrat, he might be a Muslim from Kenya and not even an American Citizen, also he is definitely black.  White people, I know how hard it is to articulate why you don't like the President when that reason is "he's black."  You are smart and you know that it is not cool to say such a thing in our modern society, so you have to come up with other reasons (see the Kenyan Muslim thing) or just say "well, I just don't like him."*  Since the race thing is a conversational third rail, we have to avoid it and that leads us to start creating issues where none exist (Kenyan Muslim) and blowing other shit way the fuck out of proportion (Benghazi).  If President Obama scores a victory it has to be attacked, even if it's for the good of the people (debt ceiling, government shutdown, rescuing a POW).  Also, president Obama is dealing with a congress made up not of politicians working for the good of the people, but obstructionists working for the impairment of him and nothing more (except for the big money lobbies, but everyone works for them, even the President).  Generally speaking, freeing a POW of five years is cause for relief, but this time it's cause for outrage.

It's hard for me to imagine a group of people as worthless as our current legislative branch.  At every turn they surprise me by exceeding their own level of uselessness.  They have blocked or attempted to block any law that the President has voiced support for, they have forced the government into a shutdown that benefited no one, they block any of the Presidents nominees for any office no matter how insignificant, and then they hold hearing after hearing, give countless press conferences, and spend millions of our tax dollars attempting to fabricate controversies and scandals where none exist.  For the most part they are successful in swaying the minds of people who don't care to read the news from more than one source (or at all).  Which is why a freed POW is seen (to the Reds) as a bad thing.

Now pretend that this congress had been informed prior to the deal, as they say they should have been, and the thirty days had been waited out.  Is it really so hard to believe that the same grandstanding obstructionists who shut down the government on a lark might, maybe, have leaked the deal in order to block it?  Is it that far fetched to believe that the same person wouldn't appear on Fox News with a grin on their face while talking about how they heroically stopped the President from freeing his fellow Muslim terrorist and shucks we hate it that Bergdahl got shot, but he was probably a traitor anyway and plus the outcome justifies the deed?  I think, given our reality, that this is a likely scenario.  This congress has a mission statement to stop the President from doing anything to the point that the entire tea party platform could be summed up with "fuck that guy."  Given these facts, I'd say the President was spot on to bypass the legislative branch, in fact he should probably do that as often as possible.



Now all of this is just part and parcel for politics and not something that's surprising (though it is frustrating), what bugs me is the veterans who have latched on to the "he's a traitor" mantra along with the "we don't negotiate with terrorists" drivel.  To the "he's a traitor" people I say "So?"  Would you have left him there because of this?  Maybe he is a deserter and maybe he is a traitor, but he's our deserter and our traitor and we will deal with him our way.  The United States does not leave a man behind, that's drilled into us from day one and it goes for everyone, even the guys we don't like very much.  He'll be looked at, spoken to, debriefed, investigated, double checked, and debriefed again.  If Bergdahl is guilty of anything, he'll be dealt with and if need be he'll spend his days in a cell next to Bradley Manning, but it's our justice to mete out, not theirs. We leave no man behind, end of story.

As for the negotiating with terrorists thing, well it's simply not true.  The Taliban have not been labeled as a terrorist group partly because we cannot achieve a peace in Afghanistan without them at the table and partly for deals such as this. Whether we like it or not, they are a political group and not a terrorist group.  The distinction is only a label, but it is not our label to give, we have people for that and they made their call.

The last point that has really stuck with people is the fact that we traded five Guantanamo Bay prisoners for Bergdahl. This is a two point sticker that's gotten people worked up with dumbass conclusions.  The first is that the five guys will now return to the head offices of the Taliban, call up Al Quaeda and take command again, killing scores of people.  The people who believe this theory also believe the Taliban and Al Quaeda to be the most loyal and trusting groups in the world, the kinds of guys who welcome back men who have been imprisoned for years and trust that they stayed loyal the entire time.  So the opposite of us, I guess.  Of course these groups are actually very paranoid and not at all trusting, just like us, and these newly released guys aren't going back to the game, they are going to the bench at best.  It's not something the Pentagon is worried about.

That just leaves the "more Americans will be captured to free Guantanamo Bay prisoners" claim.  This one is simple, if we are worried that our indefinite imprisonment of these people is a risk to US citizens then maybe we need to bring cases against them or let them go.  It really is that simple.  The true fear behind that claim is the fear that Guantanamo Bay policy is endangering our citizens, not that making deals endangers our citizens (hell, that at least showed that sometimes we might act rationally), so obviously the policy needs to change.  I think we'd all be better for it.



If this deal had occurred under President Bush, we wouldn't be having this conversation, but here we are. No one wants to hear any of this, no one wants to admit the dark little parts of their brains that are driving this bit of nastiness, but it's all there and it's bigger than we've given it credit for.  For me though, it's as simple as I was taught as a Screaming Eagle and a Rakkasan - we don't leave people behind, any of them, and my fellow veterans should know better than to espouse otherwise.



* - This is the best answer one of my southern white Republican coworkers can give me on the subject, bless her heart.

1 comment:

  1. Well, kick me for not having checked your blog again until this morning, but thank you for the well-reasoned reality-check that is seldom offered by the fourth estate. Bravo, and yes, 'bless her heart' to the coworker.

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