Because It Is The Right Thing To Do...
by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth
Charles Krauthammer, a conservative and FOX News regular contributor getting it right with respect to the Bergdahl prisoner swap. Kudoa Mr. Krauthammer. Now if you can just get the multitude of conservatives that are on the wrong side on board.
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth
Charles Krauthammer, a conservative and FOX News regular contributor getting it right with respect to the Bergdahl prisoner swap. Kudoa Mr. Krauthammer. Now if you can just get the multitude of conservatives that are on the wrong side on board.
POLITICO - Charles Krauthammer says he supports President Barack Obama’s deal to bring Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl home. “Had the choice been mine I would have made the same choice,” Krauthammer told Fox News’ “Special Report” on Wednesday. “It’s a difficult decision, and I would not attack those who have done otherwise.” Krauthammer said those in the West “put a value on the individual human life the way that the ones at the other end of the table don’t,” specifically citing an example in which Israelis had to release 1,000 terrorists in exchange for one sergeant who had been taken captive. “These are dangerous militants, but we have long engaged in and all other countries in the West have engaged in hostage swaps where the West always comes out on the short end,” Krauthammer said. The conservative commentator also argued that claims about whether Bergdahl had deserted are making people more critical of Obama’s decision to release the five Guantánamo detainees and Krauthammer told Fox host Bret Baier to “assume that this had been somebody who had served honorably.”More BELOW THE FOLD.
He's always been one of those conservatives who gets it right once in a while.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
There was a time when a lot got it right. Some still do but the extreme tend to drown out the sensible ones these days.
ReplyDeletehttp://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/03/team-leader-bowe-bergdahl-wanted-to-talk-to-taliban/ - So, not only did he leave his post, it now appears that he was actually seeking the Taliban out (this, while a half dozen other soldiers died looking for him).
ReplyDeleteThis is a country where we do not hold Kangaroo Court via Internet, or Kangaroo Court via FaceBook, or Kangaroo Court via public opinion. We have a system of jurisprudence that presumes a person INNOCENT until proven guilty.
DeleteFrankly, I find the level of hypocrisy both astonishing and disturbing: John McCain, Sarah Palin and others hammered Obama over Bergdahl's captivity and now hammer Obama upon Bergdahl's release. NONE of the assertions cited in your link have been proven in a proper venue, and your comment stands as an insinuation of guilt and condemnation. This is not how things work in this country.
As a parent whose oldest daughter is serving in Afghanistan RIGHT NOW, TODAY, AT THIS MOMENT, I am offended. We do not leave soldiers behind, period, stop!
Unfortunately (O)CT(O)PUS it appears the Tea Party wishes to change American jurisprudence and rewrite history to boot.
DeleteWill, does one have to try hard not to understand the larger and very important principle here.
DeleteSure there are questions, legitimate ones, but there is a proper way to proceed. Obama chose the prudent and right choice Justice will be determined American style.
Side note, if Bergdahl is indeed a traitor now working with the Taliban why would anyone NOT want his a*s back in the states?
"...it...appears..." So the report is not definitive, it is speculation, correct? And what would the extremists on the right have had the CiC do? Abandon Bergdahl? Which would have been a violation of the military's tradition that goes back to this country's founding?
ReplyDeleteDavid Brooks and Charles Krauthammer, no fans of the Obama Administration both understand why Bergdahl had to be brought home, even if it meant a swap with the Taliban.
Brooks: "...the president's instincts were right. His sense of responsibility for a fellow countryman was correct. It's not about one person; it's about the principle all-for-one-and-one-for-all, which is the basis of citizenship."
The Administration's handling of the release was clumsy; the rightwing's all-out attack on Bergdahl, his parents, and the president was shameful and wrong.
There’s no way to investigate a possible deserter or defector until you have him stateside. The right cannot have it both ways: either he should be disciplined as a traitor or he should be left behind to the Taliban’s clutches. You have to choose – which, of course, the GOP never does.
I never said that we should have abandoned Bergdahl (and it isn't speculation but hard evidence that a young American was seeking out the Taliban - maybe he has a God complex, who knows), just that maybe this was too high a cost as apparently Gates, Panetta, Hillary, and Clapper also thought so in that this is what the Washington Post has reported.............And it isn't just the "right-wing" that has a problem with Bergdahl, Shaw. Try EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS PLATOON MATES who the fellow abandoned....Hey, maybe Bergdahl's insane and that's why he got out of Dodge but anything short of that it's really hard to have sympathy for him (THAT I'm saving for the families of the soldiers who died while looking for him and any future be-heading victims of these recently released murderers).
DeleteThat last part of my comment beginning with "There's no way..." should have been in quotes and attributed to Andrew Sullivan. My mistake.
ReplyDeleteI believe these types, mostly Tea Party, really believe you can eat your banana from both ends simultaneously.
ReplyDelete