Not To Speculate, But...

...maybe his entire leadership chain was full of psychopaths.

I mean, it could be true.

Or maybe it's that 4/25 is an Airborne brigade, and like all paratroopers they volunteered three times for positions of increasing danger -- once for the Army, once for the Infantry, and once for Airborne. Perhaps a group that has self-selected for the honor of a life of danger has a particularly strong disdain for someone who deserts his post.

No, it surely has to be the psychopath thing.

14 comments:

DL Sly said...

Well, it's about time you got on-board the "Right" train of thought.
0>:~}

Texan99 said...

"Are you all right, dear? You seem a little confused. No, the gas lights haven't been dimming."

So he deserted his post and went over to the enemy. Who are we to judge?

And those tweets from a White House aide? No, they're not on Twitter any more. And that desertion note--it's disappeared from Bergdahl's file, so don't be so quick to speculate, you partisan racist hacks.

Sheesh, I don't know why everyone's making such a big deal out of this. What difference, at this point, does it make?

E Hines said...

Well, you know, one symptom of psychopathy is a constant insistence on a particular set of appearances while just as constantly denying facts that refute (not merely contradict, although that's symptomatic, also) the insisted on claimed appearances.

Oh, wait....

Eric Hines

Anonymous said...

How come youse wingnuts invariably end up on the wrong side of trvth? 'Tis a mystery, 'tis.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/06/bowe-bergdahl-then-and-now

I think it's a great message to your troops - if you are captured, we will look at your personnel file before deciding whether to rescue you.

Good thing the real army doesn't follow your playbook.

-bc

Anonymous said...

From the manual for courts martial
885. ART. 85. DESERTION

(a) Any member of the armed forces who--

(1) without authority goes or remains absent from his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to remain away therefrom permanently;

(2) quits his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service; or

(3) without being regularly separated from one of the armed forces enlists or accepts an appointment in the same or another on of the armed forces without fully disclosing the fact that he has not been regularly separated, or enters any foreign armed service except when authorized by the United States; is guilty of desertion.

(b) Any commissioned officer of the armed forces who, after tender of his resignation and before notice of its acceptance, quits his post or proper duties without leave and with intent to remain away therefrom permanently is guilty of desertion.

(c) Any person found guilty of desertion or attempt to desert shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct, but if the desertion or attempt to desert occurs at any other time, by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct.


Sounds like desertion to me. And if he was on guard duty, a particularly loathsome and heinous betrayal. If he had a change of heart and did not like what he was doing, there were other ways to get out of the fight and still honor his commitment to his fellow soldiers.

It is the betrayal of the fidelity to your immediate comrades in arms to leave them, and not just leave them, but put them in additional danger through deciding to leave in the manner you did that is causing the explosive ire from his platoon mates. Sounds pretty rational to me.

But then I was one of those psychopathic triple volunteer dudes too.

All this discussion of my violent fundamentalist infantry past has got my blood pressure up. I'll go eat some chocolate now for my rehab. *smiles*

Ymar Sakar said...

So why is this trade better than stripping the citizenship from Democrat politicians and giving it to Mexican migrant workers?

You would get a lot better soldier quality from those Mexicans than this one.

Cass said...

I think it's a great message to your troops - if you are captured, we will look at your personnel file before deciding whether to rescue you.

Nice straw man. Who is arguing that? Not anyone I know.

Are you honestly so clueless that you can't distinguish between not thinking it made sense to trade 5 high value detainees for one low ranking POW about whom (at least according to the NYT, Washington Post, etc) a 2010 Dod investigation concluded there was "incontrovertible evidence" that he deserted (you *do* know that's a crime under the UCMJ passed by Congress, don't you?).

No one here is arguing he shouldn't have been looked for (and he was). They are arguing that he's not a hero and wasn't captured on the battlefield, as Susan Rice mendaciously stated.

A lot of democrats have problems with this deal too.

Drum's post is fairly reasonable, I think. These things should be investigated and the earlier investigation should be unsealed and reexamined. There were red flags all over the place here, and people are wondering why they were ignored?

That's not unreasonable at all. Nor is it partisan, unless your definition of partisan amounts to "anything my guy does is OK and how dare you question it?".

E Hines said...

Sounds like desertion to me.

The published reports support this thesis, too. I'm also spring-loaded to believe it.

However.

We only know what was in those published reports. What was the outcome of his court martial, where a much more complete subset of the associated data was considered?

Until then, this is a(n important) side issue. Obama was right to try to get him back, including for his intel value were he, in fact, a deserter and/or, as some reports would have it, a collaborator. The proximate beef is the ransom paid. I think that path was utterly, morally wrong.

And if we had enough hard data to conclude his health was truly deteriorating rapidly and we had to get him right d*n now, we also likely had enough specific data to locate him, and we should have just gone and got him.

Eric Hines

Eric Blair said...

Well, he hasn't been tried by a courts martial yet, but as I always say, deeds not words.

What did he do? He left post. Abandoned his comrades in arms. Broke his oath.



raven said...

I don't have any words to adequately and politely express my feelings, but I would like to borrow the halberd for bit, if Grim can spare it......

Ymar Sakar said...

There's a good place to get katanas for less than 100 US. Although the harder steel costs a few hundred more.

As Reid noted, defection/desertion, what difference does it make?

Texan99 said...

I'm finding it hard to believe anyone is whining about how this guy is being treated too harshly, and that other servicemen will be demoralized by it. It seems that the real impact on morale is that the White House is kissing up to a deserter while allowing political operatives to call his comrades psychopaths.

I mean, if you want to defend a deserter, go for it, but it's a little rich to claim that your motive is the anxiety it might create for others who could be considering the same conduct. Most soldiers probably already understood that if they deserted, they'd get a cold shoulder from the whole country, with isolated and regrettable exceptions.

Grim said...

Bc,

The comments policy here, which is nearly ten years old, forbids insulting other parties to our conversation. You can say what you want about their ideas, and you can insult public figures like politicians if you want, but no personal insults directed at other commenters. There are plenty of places on the internet for exchanging personal insults. I thought we'd do something different here.

In any event, the position you're advocating is actually the same as the position I've been advocating: bring back our soldier first, and then given him the law second. It's a mistake to make a political fight out of it, because that increases the chance that he'll walk on an 'unlawful command influence' claim. The military law has protections for him, and for our common interests as well.

Ymar Sakar said...

I suspect the LEft has infiltrated a sabotage team into Ft. Hood.

The dots are connecting in this fashion with the latest.


They are, of course, using the AP on it to demoralize US forces during the event days, but this is like Hitler fighting Stalin over Poland.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/fort-hood-sexual-assault-prevention-officer-ran-on-base-prostitution-ring-witness-article-1.1816048

If Berg can walk due to unlawful command influence, then that should be an easy ticket for the Regime to punch. They have already punched out several patriots in US military service so far, replacing them with... well, I'm sure people will figure that out in a few years.