Had to share this brilliant comment made by my great friend and fellow judge advocate, Jim Wolkensperg, regarding the Bergdahl POW release: I think the most important thing is that hes home. And if hes a deserter, he should be tried under the UCMJ, not the Taliban, and we should all be happy that we want the return of even our scumbags who are part of our military. I dont know if it was a good deal or not, but Israel has released thousands of terrorists in exchange for a few of their troops, so if we exchange a few Taliban who we have held with little due process and based on controversial legal authorities for over ten years, then it probably was a good deal, even though it feels like a bad deal. And I think it will probably always feel like a bad deal--which it probably should. Our natural sense of justice should be offended at the release of five people who have done plenty to earn our hatred of them and may be planning more of the same... especially for someone who has apparently done little to earn our respect since he enlisted. But it should also be deeply offensive to turn our back on anyone who swore to protect our country when they are being tortured by our enemies. POTUS has to make those tough decisions and the arm-chair quarterbacks on the internet are going to explain all the reasons he shouldnt, but thats part of his job. If we had justified turning our back on this one soldier for being a scumbag, where do we draw that line for the next one? The only line we should draw is the one that says we dont turn our backs on anyone who we sent in harms way and they end up being captured. Who knows, but maybe we did pay a kings ransom for a scumbag, but its not really about the scumbag, its about the principal. And if we arent willing to pay a kings ransom for our principals, then we might as well not have any. Im sure that Obama, whatever his faults, thought this was the best opportunity we were going to get to act on our principal and it may make me uncomfortable, but Im sure it made him uncomfortable, too, and I plan to focus on the fact that we stood by our principal and trust that our leaders secured the best outcome they could. I dont have as much information as they did, so I dont really know if Id do any different. Thats my rambling two-cents that I wasnt planning to share on FB, but I cant resist a good discussion with friends, especially when invited by name.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 23:27:04 +0000
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