Republicans demand hearings over soldier's release
 

Army Sergeant was released this weekend, swapped for five worthless pieces of shit that had no value to us. And now the Republicans are saying this was illegal?

They claim the President had to give Congress thirty day notice? Where is that a law, and why is that a law?

Seems this Army Sergeant might have just walked off post and more or less turned himself into the Taliban there...

Thoughts? Comments?

Oh... Here is the article I was mentioning really....

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0ED26X20140603

Well it's obvious there is nothing productive that Congress could be doing, so this seems to be the best usage of tax dollars. I really wonder how in-between endless bitching and moaning about Benghazi and Obamacare, that they can find the time to whine and Mcomplain about a US solder held prisoner for 5 years getting released.

It's not like they could be doing anything productive on the average $174 thousand they get paid each year.. Not to mention all the money we pay for their travels, food, living expenses and their countless staffers..

Nope this is obviously the best use of tax payer money..

Why shouldn't they? There is serious doubt that he was a POW, and didn't abandon post, before being caught. 6 troops died in trying locate and retrieve him after his possible desertion.

They traded 5 "high level" detainees from Gitmo in exchange of him.

The law was part of the 2013 defense law, which was signed by Obama. He also signed a signing statement (which he campaigned against using) to say he believes he has flexibility.

A hearing is absolutely legitimate here. Maybe they find everything checks out, maybe they don't. But more than enough reasons to initiate a hearing to find out.

He was an American soldier, end of story. You get him home then deal with any issues that pertain to his service agreement. John McComplain is just a pampas jerkoff whom has long ago over used his POW status.. He should just go retire and quit acting like a bag of dicks.

You desert the army in war, its not end of story. Not when it involves turning over 5 "high level" threat detainees.

You think its end of story. Doesn't make it so to all.

Do you read much or just the first half of a sentence?

If he was kidnapped or if he deserted his post doesn't matter. He was in fact in the US Army. If he was kidnapped he needed to be found. If he deserted his post and turned himself in, we would still need to find him and return him to the US and then try him.

But a "high level" detainee has zero value to us at this point. We've pumped all of the information we can pump them with.

Can you put up a link to this law and explain how it applies here? A few searches turned up nothing specific.

So you are saying that we don't need to find him? We don't need to bring him back? He shouldn't face charges? We shouldn't hang him?

Shouldn't we move heaven and earth just to find him from a security perspective - he might have information the Taliban want and even after five years, be it a kidnapping or a deseration, we should do everything to get him back.

This is something I don't understand... McCain was a POW. (They beat the shit out of him.) Wouldn't he want to everything in the world to recover a US service man from the enemy, no matter what the circumstances?

Certainly don't argue with this. Just in the means to getting it done. Or least I got pauses/concerns.


Agreed the info likely been extracted. But I'm not sure I like the ramifications of putting them back in the hands of the Taliban where they can rejoin the fight. Especially a 5 for 1 trade.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us...y-taliban.html

I lean 65-70% towards not liking the way they handled the transfer for him. Especially if he deserted his post during war. But a hearing should answer a lot of questions, and maybe at the end, I fall on the other side of supporting it.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/02/us/bow...html?hpt=hp_t2

Even CNN agrees the law was broken
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vi...e-law.cnn.html

But I don't expect anything to happen, this administration seems to only obey the law when it is in their interest to do so. ;)

anybody else getting a weird vibe about the circumstances of this whole thing?
http://www.boiseweekly.com/imager/b/...d-Showtime.jpg

It will end just like the rest of the repub bullshit since 2008 : a big flop of stupid shit.

Maybe next time we should trade John McCain. Then he can sit back and wait for congress to agree on how he should be returned..

Really 2008 seems to be the point that the Right went bat shit fucking crazy. They used to support all kinds of things that they now rage and complain about. Prior to 2008 most Republicans agreed that global climate change was a real thing..

It's like soon as 2008 hit they all went fucking mental. They were just war mongrels and dick heads prior, then they all went bat shit crazy.

Oh, never-mind I realize what it was.. 2008-09 was when the Tea Party started their rallies.. That's when crazy was unleashed.. It would be funny if it wasn't so fucking sad.

You can say that every administration has violated the law. And you might just be right.

I read some there that this has been in the works for months. If that is the case, was Congress aware of it?

Seems he deserted as a protest, but got caught by the Taliban.

What's the big deal? Reagan gave thousands of missiles to IRAN in exchange for a few boys - who poofed their butts over that?

:D

The hearing doesn't seem to be about if this guy deserted his post, the hearing seems to be if the President violated the law in releasing those prisoners. Early indications are that the president did in fact break the law.

At the same time the White House says:

And if any such law was broken, is this like a traffic ticket or will they take this to impeachment? Is this going to be the Republican party making a mountain out of molehill? You have to admit, the Monica crap was pure bullshit.

At the same time I was surprised the US "negotiated with terrorists". We don't do this, and I feel let down. Even more so knowing this might not have been kidnapped.

..but..but Reagan was a Jesus loving super hero and Obama.. well he's a black Democrat. Totally different and if you don't agree you are a commie loving fags.. Oh yea you dirty LIBERAL!!!

Oh I'd be shocked if they tried impeachment. Though after November if they control both the House and Senate, then all bets are off. But then again, chances are the President would start walking a straighter line if he had real threat of impeachment.

John McComplain probably wasn't invited to the committee, so he's trowing a temper tantrum.

its always been a grand fraud that the US does not negotiate with terrorists. Even bush, who coined the phrase, negotiated with sunni tribes (i mean terrorists) to establish awakening councils to root out the terrorists.

wasn't yasir arafat at the white house once?

:)

I wouldn't be surprised at all. The Republican party slogan seems to be "beat Obama at all costs".

I would not risk lives to try a deserter.

You're confusing the Iran Crisis with the Iran Contra, they were 5 years apart. I know, I was off the coast punching holes in the ocean during the Iran Crisis.

As far as the OP, it has been the long standing resolve of presidents past that

The US does not negotiate with terrorists!

Now it's Obama negotiates with Presidents.

This is not good, now they will think any prisoner they get is worth the absolute worse terrorist we have. I mean we gave them 5 for 1?

What does this say about all those school girls that just got kid napped, are we to pay them to get them back?

You're being an asshole for calling this a partisan thing.

So you are just willing to throw away a Soldier biased on hearsay and media reports rather than give him his day in court? The simple fact is he is an American Soldier until he is honorably or dishonorably discharged.

Of course..

Wait you say this..

Then you say this. Something seems ironic..but I'm sure you wont figure it out, because it's different when YOU do it.

Who are you referring to when you say "we"?

I'm sure Bowe Bergdahl is being thoroughly "debriefed", and will have to account for his actions.

:stoned

ADG

I do not recall saying that.

But you are missing a lot of steps here....

We don't know if he was a deserter, and if he was he need to be found to protect our internal security - imagine having a traitor with his knowledge working for the other side. Even if he was only an E5 or whatever, he still has a lot of knowledge of operational security, etc, how things are done. And if he was a deserter he is now a criminal and we should pursue him until he is caught.

Your logic is "he is a deserter, let's just let him go". It doesn't work that way. You don't just desert the Army in combat zone, go over the enemy, and the US military and the US government forgets about it.

No, you said . . .

. . . implying that because he WAS a deserter this needed to be done. I was only saying that if we knew 100% he was a deserter I would not risk lives on getting him back; security perspective or not. That's what cruise missiles are for.

I was not judging his guilt, I don't know enough to pass judgement. I do think this was a political ploy on Obama's part though.

Your logic here is "Someone disappears from guard duty on a military base in a combat zone" and our response is "not our problem". Thankfully this is not how our military works.

What you don't seem to understand is that no matter what happened, this man was a liability. He had inside knowledge of security details, information about troop deployments, upcoming operations, and details on past operations - And we needed to prevent him from giving out any details.

My god.... When a criminal shoots and kills someone one we don't say "We aren't going to risk any officers trying to find him".

The timing is just so odd. Why the sudden rush?

Actually, its been worked on for a number of years.

Repubs want Obama to step down which only means Biden will be president.

:1orglaugh