There was? With legal representation? With fingerprint analysis? With handwriting analysis?
On Fox.
Why would it be embarrassing? Maybe to Susan Rice, but to the President? Only for those who already dislike him. Like the General said, our obligation to this soldier doesn’t change based on the circumstances of his capture.
For starters, Article 32 of the UCMJ, section b:
Here’s the sad thing – it’s very possible Bergdahl committed a crime. No one is denying that. But what if he was mentally ill? What if he was under duress? What if there is some other explanation?
Terr and others are so politically invested in the idea that this guy is a worthless deserter that they won’t be able to back down even if solid evidence comes out to explain his behavior and exculpate him. Not only are they certain, but they have to be certain.
Sad, and uncharitable, because (remember Richard Jewel?) early reports are often the least reliable.
Have you read his mind? How do you know he was deserting?
That’s just daft. The man removed himself from US army jurisdiction. You can’t then claim that US army stripped him of the right to face his accusers. He stripped himself of that right - by leaving.
Might not be a deserter … rumor was that he was talking with the Afghanistan army people in the camp and that he may have left with two of them to meet the Taliban.
The conclusion from that rumor is that the Afghanistan army dudes may have set him up to get a reward and that is why he said he was on patrol caught lagging behind.
It is no rumor that the Taliban caught him taking a dump in the bushes however 
The guy you quoted (Ralph Peters) is a conservative pundit. For all intents and purposes it’s his job is to criticize President Obama and his decisions. I don’t suggest that he’s lying about his opinion, but holding him out as some kind of independent arbiter – a plain old retired officer who’s sharing his thoughts on the matter – is rather misleading.
Are the 10 or so Army guys that served with Bergdahl that came out so far speaking on the matter also conservative pundits whose job it is to criticize Obama?
No, I’m just weighing in on the way you presented the Ralph Peters article.
Another explanation that doesn’t even require speculation is that you shouldn’t be all that surprised when someone who is essentially (but not legally, of course) a kid does something incredibly stupid and naive after going from getting his GED, to a stint at a Buddhist monastery, to a few months in boot camp, then to being shipped off to a war zone.
When you purposefully “man” your army with young, malleable people who haven’t always fully matured yet, it’s on you to carefully evaluate which ones are ready to be stuck in very stressful situations in the middle of a messy war. Besides taking more care in who you recruit, and how well you train and evaluate them pre-deployment, once you plunk them down in a war zone it’s *still *on you to continue evaluating their performance and look out for obvious, glaring, repeated signs of potential problems.
But when the rather predictable and preventable problems arise with such a person, it’s always a lot easier to focus on *their *failings, rather then admit to the failings in the system that decided to put them there and keep them there in the first place.
You just did in this post precisely what I’ve been accusing you of. You stripped him of his protections under the UCMJ just based on the fact that he’s been accused of something. You don’t get to take away his rights and convict him just based on the accusation. There is a process for determining his guilt or innocence and you cannot just wish that process away because someone said something bad about him. That’s not how things work in this country.
He doesn’t have “protections under the UCMJ” if he removes himself from under UCMJ’s jurisdiction.
Terr, are you a military lawyer? Where does your certitude come from? Any proof for your claims?
You just did it again. You keep doing what I’m accusing you of again and again. When was he discharged from service? He is no longer a member of the armed forces? How was he ‘removed’ from the jurisdiction of the UCMJ while he is still a member of the military? Or are you saying that since he physically left the base, that he was out of the jurisdiction because his rights only applied on the base somehow? Do you also remove yourself from jurisdiction if you are on a mission off-base? Explain to me your logic here.
You don’t get it. He cannot get “protections” from UCMJ if the military doesn’t have access to him. Your claim that he is “stripped” of those protections when he removes himself from the possibility of getting those “protections” is absurd.
One more: Justin Gerleve, Bergdahl’s former squad leader.
Still waiting for even one of his mates to come out defending him.
No you don’t get it. He was being held prisoner. Are you saying that all POWs are not protected by the UCMJ because the military doesn’t have access to him? You are not making any sense right now and I’m going to echo Rick Kitchen and ask that you cite your claim that the fact that the military cannot physically get to a soldier automatically removes that soldier’s protections under the UCMJ. That is an extreme claim and you just keep asserting it without any backup whatsoever.
Also calling my argument absurd is itself absurd. You haven’t even answered any of my questions from the previous post. Do think acting incredulous and throwing around words like absurd somehow shields you from actually having to address peoples arguments?
It would be far more embarrassing to Obama if there weren’t.