Forum: Should Bowe Bergdahl Be Tried For Desertion? Will He Be?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:Should Bowe Bergdahl Be Tried For Desertion? Will He Be?

Robert Avrech, Seraphic Secret: Bode Bergdahl should have a fair trial — and then he should face a firing squad. Will this happen? Nope. Obama will make sure this ghastly excuse for an American will never have to answer for his treason.

 GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD: Absolutely. Maybe even other charges too.

Yet for now - right now - we don’t know that he was a deserter yet. We only know that he was AWOL.

An earlier Pentagon report says he had a habit of wandering off base in CONUS and the Stan.

Now this may indeed mean he's a goob or a doofus yet it doesn’t prove he was a deserter.

Which is hopefully what serious charges will prove or unprove.

A trial may ferret out the diff betwixt desertion and defection.

The distinction is important. If he’s a defector — joined the enemy to fight against his country — then he deserves deserves killing, the way we kill other enemies in the field, the way we killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American who had openly joined al-Qaeda.

 The Noisy Room: Yes, Bergdahl should be tried not only for desertion, but treason. He defected to the enemy, trained them and knowingly aided and abetted them. That warrants the death penalty for treason. Will he be? Nope. Not in this political climate and not as long as the Progressive Marxists wield control and power in the United States.

I wholeheartedly agree with Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch at PJ Media. There are five solid indications that Bergdahl is a traitor:

1. His conversion to Islam and self-description as a "Mujahid."

In 2010, the Taliban claimed that Bergdahl converted to Islam. It was also reported that he was training Jihadists to make bombs and use them against American troops. Fox News, last week, released secret documents showing just that. Why do you think he lived among them for five years unmolested and kept his head intact? He was handed over as a brother and his captors expressed regret at not getting to say goodbye. These documents and information were buried by those in the know. I believe that the Obama Administration and the military knew from the beginning that Bergdahl was a defector and a traitor.

His fellow soldiers have just been released from gag orders/non-disclosure agreements where they were threatened with prosecution if they brought details to light of Bergdahl's circumstances. They would have violated them any way, because honor dictates that the truth be told, damn the consequences. Do the math. It could very well be Obama and company did not want Bergdahl's conversion publicized after high profile events such as the Fort Hood massacre. Now that he is released, investigation and prosecution would further 'embarrass' team Obama. It will be stonewalled and buried -- trust me. Both sides of the aisle, in fact, will fight to make it go away and fade from memory.

Robert Spencer nailed it:

To investigate, much less to try Bowe Bergdahl, despite the fact that evidence of his misconduct continues to mount, would require an honest president, a robust opposition party, and a media determined to uncover the truth. Strike one, strike two, strike three.

2. The note Bergdahl left behind is damning.

In said note, Bergdahl stated he was disillusioned with the Army and America in general. He stated he was renouncing his American citizenship and wanted to go find the Taliban. He proceeded to do so. He should be considered an enemy combatant.

3. His email to his father.

In a treasonously worded screed, Bergdahl wrote to his father in heartfelt terms: “I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid.” He declared: “I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools. I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”

Right back at you asshat. We find you disgusting and worse. For his father's part, he lovingly told his son: “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!” I believe his whole family has converted to Islam and Obama's smile at the utterance of an Islamic prayer during a news conference at the White House by the father is very, very revealing. Nothing new to me as I have suspected Obama's allegiances from the beginning, but it is telling to mainstream America.

4. Panic at the Defense Department.

Enough panic to cause a full investigation to be launched. Fox News reported Monday that Bergdahl — “both in his final stretch of active duty in Afghanistan and then, too, during his time when he lived among the Taliban — has been thoroughly investigated by the U.S. intelligence community and is the subject of ‘a major classified file.’ In conveying as much, the Defense Department source confirmed to Fox News that many within the intelligence community harbor serious outstanding concerns not only that Bergdahl may have been a deserter but that he may have been an active collaborator with the enemy.”

5. The accuracy of attacks using IEDs.

From Former Army Sgt. Evan Buetow:

“Bergdahl is a deserter, and he’s not a hero. He needs to answer for what he did.” Even worse, Buetow recounted that days after Bergdahl vanished from the U.S. base, there were reports that he was in a nearby village looking for someone who spoke English, so that he could establish communications with the Taliban. Soon afterward, Buetow recalled, “IEDs started going off directly under the trucks. They were getting perfect hits every time. Their ambushes were very calculated, very methodical.”

Bergdahl told the Taliban where the trucks would be and when. He showed them how to build the bombs and kill troops. Treason n'est-ce pas?

We traded the Gitmo 5 for a defector that according to Colonel David Hunt, “called his unit the day after he deserted to tell his unit he deserted.” Nathan Bradley Bethea, a former infantry officer who served with Bowe Bergdahl pointed out not only that Bergdahl was a deserter, but that men died looking for him. Army intelligence knew where Bergdahl was being kept several times, but Special Forces negated rescue each time because he was deemed a deserter. Why rescue him now? Political cover for Obama and to distract from multiple scandals, specifically the VA scandal. Obama also wants the war in Afghanistan to cease and wants to empty Gitmo, regardless of the repercussions. The Pentagon also came to the same conclusion in 2010 on Bergdahl: “Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl walked away from his unit, and after an initial flurry of searching the military decided not to exert extraordinary efforts to rescue him, according to a former senior defense official who was involved in the matter.” An official said that the evidence that Bergdahl had deserted was “incontrovertible.”

When fellow soldiers decried the 'hero's welcome' afforded Bergdahl, the Administration called them psychopaths and accused them of "swift-boating" Bergdahl. Alinsky is alive and well within Obama's government. Discredit and marginalize those who resist right on cue.

Bergdahl should be dragged into a military court and he should be forced to testify and stand for his sins of desertion, defection and treason. Then he should be summarily executed. Will it happen? Not a chance in hell.

The Independent Sentinel: Bowe Bergdahl should most definitely be tried for desertion. He left without permission twice and the second time he left, he said he was going to find the Taliban. He contacted his base the next day and verified. He hid from his brothers as they searched for him. He abandoned them. He might also be a traitor.

I support the military who served with him who have said to a man so far that he deserted.

I doubt he will be tried. He might be tried for being AWOL.

There is a cover up underway in my opinion.

Outside of the NY Times articles, we have no idea what is going on with Bergdahl now except what Mr. Obama and his compliant media want us to know. We do know his father and the government hand picked the doctors working with him. The administration and the media are setting us up for a PTSD defense.

 JoshuaPundit: The worst Bergdahl can be tried for is desertion, and that seems self evident. A Pentagon investigation in 2010 stated conclusively that he did in fact desert. He can't be tried for treason, because we are not and have never been in a legal,  constitutionally  declared war against either Afghanistan back when the Taliban ruled it or against the Taliban themselves.And that's something we can blame Bush for.A proper declaration of war against al-Qaeda and nations aiding and abetting them would have changed the whole ballgame. But the powers that be deliberately wanted things kept fuzzy for reasons I'm sure are obvious to most thinking people by now.

I doubt he will be tried. This was never about Bowe Bergdahl, but about President Obama's mania about closing down Club Gitmo and freeing the inhabitants no matter what. As such ,anything that reflects badly on Bergdahl reflects badly on the Prevaricator-in-Chief's judgment, and we can't have that.

Bergdahl's defense if he is tried will be that he suffered a mental breakdown, and he is undoubtedly being groomed and told what to say and what not to say by lawyers and advisers sent by the Justice Department. They've already started by releasing the fact that poor Bowe is refusing to meet with his parents..he's simply too stressed out from all that torture and stuff, which we have no way of verifying...it will simply be Bowe's word against those heartless Republicans and those 'swiftboating soldiers', as the White House is already referring to Bowe's fellow soldiers who have broken their silence about what a de facto traitor and foul ball he actually was. That will be the media line,  heart rending accounts on the cruel captivity he suffered under the Taliban, and no doubt the New York Times and MSNBC will lead the charge shilling for him not to be punished.

If by chance he is tried, he'll simply be given a medical/psychiatric discharge and sent somewhere quiet to work with his ghost writer on the multi-million dollar book deal that will undoubtedly be forthcoming.

I hate with a passion to be so cynical, but that's how I see it going down. If I'm right (and I hope I'm not) the reaction this will generate from our military and from young men and women thinking of enlisting is obvious.

Ask Marion: Unless there are some mitigating factors, like Bode Bergdahl was some kind of a deep CIA operative (and I find that possibility about as remote as me winning 1-million dollars tomorrow), I absolutely believe that Bergdahl should be tried for desertion. And because of the White House's bungled handling of this entire swap and the uproar it has caused, thank goodness, I believe that they will at least begin the process of a Court Martial.

But I fear that Bergdahl's defense will go down the insanity route, using some type of the Stockholm Syndrome or PTSD argument. So even with all the prior information about his studying the Taliban's language, his odd behavior in general, his note left behind and his Dad's equally odd behavior, just for starters, Bergdahl will probably be ruled too incompetent to stand trial. But I hope and pray that I am wrong, that the worm has turned, and that Congress, the American people at large and the military will insist and demand more.

Bookworm Room: Yes, he should be tried. Will he be tried? Bill Otis has a more likely answer: presidential pardon.


The Glittering Eye: A 2010 Pentagon investigation found that then-Pvt. Bergdahl had just walked away from his unit, describing the evidence of that as "incontrovertible". Unless now-Sgt. Bergdahl can produce convincing testimony that's not the case, he should be tried for desertion. I'm confident that if a new investigation does not find very good reason to doubt the findings of the 2010 investigation, he will be tried.

 The Razor: I don’t care much about Bergdahl. At the very least he was a screwed up young man whose actions resulted in the deaths of his fellow soldiers, and who was likely brainwashed while imprisoned by the Taliban. I don’t see his future ending well, and I’ve not familiar enough with the UCMJ to speak on such matters. I’d leave it to his fellow soldiers to decide his fate.

Honestly I’m more concerned about the sanity of our president and this administration. They seem completely detached from reality. Their statements are bizarre and their behavior erratic. I am very worried that this country will stumble into a military disaster while under the management of these crazies that will result in great loss of life. I’m also afraid that this group will seriously damage the very fabric of the Republic with their unconstitutional actions that could undermine the very freedoms we take for granted. The use of the Department of Justice and the IRS as political weapons have done more damage to this Republic than Watergate, yet because Obama is not a Republican (and Nixon wasn’t a Democrat) it will take the passage of Time to play the role of Bernstein and Woodward.

  Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

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Loyalty And Love - D-Day, 70 Years Later

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, which began the process of freeing Europe from Fascism. Given the times we live in, it has particular relevance today, as the members of the WWII generation fade into the sunset.

My uncle was one of the brave men who landed on Omaha beach that day. He never spoke about it much. I can only imagine what it was like to see the gates on that LST drop and have to run through the choppy waves to the beach, straight into the face of enemy fire every inch of the way.

 

About fifteen or so years ago, a few days after another June 6th, I ran into a grizzled but still erect old man and his friend at the bar of a local country club, where I was waiting for a lunch companion to show up. We got to chatting, the way people do in bars, and I found out from his friend that he had been one of the army rangers who performed a feat that seems superhuman to me every time I think of it..scaling the sheer cliffs of the Pointe Du Hoc, under intense enemy fire and taking out the artillery, machine guns and pill boxes at the top of the cliffs. These incredibly brave men performed this task..at a cost of a casualty rate of about 60%.

Fortunately, my lunch date was late, so I had time to hear a first hand account from him of what that had been like. I've never forgotten it...or the matter-of-fact way in which he related it.

In 1984, President Reagan traveled to Point Du Hoc, which is now a military cemetery dedicated to those who fell at Normandy. He spoke to a group of veterans and others who had traveled to be there on the 40th anniversary of the battle, and he had a few things to say to them:

".... This place, Pointe du Hoc, in itself was moving and majestic. I stood there on that windswept point with the ocean behind me. Before me were the boys who forty years before had fought their way up from the ocean. Some rested under the white crosses and Stars of David that stretched out across the landscape. Others sat right in front of me. They looked like elderly businessmen, yet these were the kids who climbed the cliffs.

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor." {...}

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: "Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do." Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies. {...}

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. {...}

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We're bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we're with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all."


To me, it was one of President Reagan's finest speeches, and his words are as true today as they were in 1984.

We have another president now, one who speaks the language of appeasement and nuance, who pointedly refuses to confront evil when it approaches. Not only has he divided the country by attacking America's core values, but he has deliberately done exactly the opposite he promised to do during his campaign, alienating our allies in Europe and elsewhere and emboldening our enemies. He knows little history and has forgotten the grim price of appeasement, if he ever thought about it at all.  In spite of the cloying  rhetoric delivered via his stereo teleprompters, he is a man who's values are ultimately opposed to the heroism and values symbolized by the men of Pont Du Hoc. He is  an unfortunate accident of history that will cost America dearly.

There is this, however. When I look at the faces of the men in our military today, I see the same qualities I noticed in the faces in the photographs from 60 years ago, the faces of the men who saved us from Hitler. I see the same determination, the same courage and faith, and the same loyalty and love.

It is living proof etched in their faces that, deep down at the core, we are the same country we were then.

If you look at our country's history, you see that we have never failed to find leadership in the darkest of times, or to prevail. We have done so in the past and we will do so again in the future.

And knowing that, I am more convinced than ever that the West will indeed stand, and freedom will triumph, just as it did 70 years ago.

(republished by request)

The Council Has Spoken!! This Weeks' Watcher's Council Results

 

Alea iacta est...the Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and we have the results  for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

"Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason" - Sir John Harrington

"Nemo umquam sapiens proditori credendum putavit" ("No man of wisdom has ever believed a traitor should be trusted") - Cicero

"If He play, being young and unskilful, for shekels of silver and gold, Take His money, my son, praising Allah.The fool was meant to be sold, - Hafez, circa 14th century

 

The big story this week concerned the sudden swap of five senior and very dangerous Taliban commanders for on Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S, soldier whom as it turns out, had some peculiar views about his country, at the very least deserted and very possibly did more than that. This week's winner, Joshuapundit-'The Horror That Is America' - Ransoming Bowe Bergdahl is my take on this transaction and how the Obama Administration attempted to sell it to the American people - and even more what it says about our commander-in-chief and his team. Here's a slice:



President Obama staged a convenient photo-op in the Rose garden with the parents of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier captured by the Taliban under suspicious circumstances and released in exchange for five senior Taliban commanders held in Club Gitmo. The event was stilted and strange for a number of reasons.

It was absolutely astounding to hear this president say that 'we leave no man behind' in view of what happened in Benghazi...and of course, with the revelation of the VA 'death lists', I'd say those wounded vets were definitely left behind.

Then there was the lingering fallout from the fact that once again, this president blatantly broke the law, which called for the president to inform Congress 30 days before any pending transfer of jihadis from Gitmo. Even Obama loyalists like the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin and California Democrat Dianne Feinstein were shocked and critical over this. And members of the president's own team who voiced any opposition to the way this deal was being conducted were simply told to shut up and salute.

But the president's behavior aside, Robert Bergdahl, Bowe Bergdahl's father was absolutely bizarre.

After the usual remarks, Bergdahl said his son had supposedly lost the ability to speak English and recited"“Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim.” That phrase, from the Qu'ran translates as “In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate.”

Either Bergdahl has converted to Islam or is simply unknowing, but uttering that phrase is a profession of belief in the Muslim faith. Was that supposed to be a message to his son, who mentioned in Taliban propaganda films that he was 'exploring Islam?'

Since the words are Arabic, not Pashto, the language his son's Taliban captors would have been speaking, it somehow doesn't gel with the idea of a father trying to communicate with a son who has supposedly lost the ability to speak his native language in a mere 5 years.

Bergdahl senior apparently also has some interesting views on America, not that he isn't entitled. Here's a tweet he tried to delete:

 

Why would anyone be working to free the sort of murderers held at in Club Gitmo if they had, shall we say, a positive view of America? And since he obviously doesn't hold the Taliban or other jihadis responsible for 'the death of every Afghan child' because he wants them all freed, it's obvious he blames America for their deaths....and is calling for Allah to take revenge.

Bowe Bergdahl himself apparently has some interesting views on his service and his country.

Shortly before the Taliban got their hands on him, he said in an e-mail to his father:

“I am sorry for everything here,” he wrote. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid.”
Bergdahl also complained about fellow soldiers. The battalion commander was a “conceited old fool,” he said, and the only “decent” sergeants, planning to leave the platoon “as soon as they can,” told the privates — Bergdahl then among them — “to do the same.”

“I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools,” he concluded. “I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”

His father's reply? “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!”

OK...it's a soldier's prerogative to gripe from time to time. But 'I'm ashamed to be an American' and 'The horror that is America is disgusting'? Obviously we have someone who was raised with certain views and given his father's outbursts, the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

Three days after that e-mail exchange, Bowe Bergdahl left camp on his own without authorization accompanied by two Afghans whom he had befriended, according to the original report. The Taliban said Bergdahl was intoxicated when they captured him,something the Army denied although since they weren't present at the scene, one wonders how they would know.

What Bergdahl did is commonly known as desertion, and a number of his fellow soldiers see it exactly that way.

My own take is that Bergdahl was likely a career flake who probably never intended to desert, but merely intended to go AWOL. He went off with some Afghans he trusted with the idea of scoring drugs and/or sex. Instead, they apparently sold him to the Taliban while he was 'relaxing', which would square with the Taliban's account that he was intoxicated when they picked him up (note the word I'm using, 'intoxicated' as opposed to 'drunk'. Booze is difficult to find in Muslim rural Afghanistan except in areas like military bases or Kabul where westerners hang out,while dope is easy to score).

At the every least, he was obviously AWOL, and his tale about being captured while 'lagging behind on patrol' was exploded as sheer BS early on.

Aside from that, apparently there were casualties that were incurred searching for him. Men died because Bowe Bergdahl decided to bug out.

It seems pretty obvious Bowe Bergdahl did not 'serve with honor and distinction' nor was he 'captured on the battlefield' as President Obama's National Security Adviser Susan 'It Was The Video, The Video' Rice insisted to the talking heads at ABC. Although perhaps that's how the team in the White House considers it, given what appears to be their conception of 'honor and distinction'. Especially since Bergdahl's being cut loose got some Gitmo jihadis freed and knocked the VA scandal out of the headlines for awhile.

Six soldiers whom did not desert lost their lives searching for him. 'Honor and distinction?'

What he did not only led to American casualties but the freeing of five dangerous men, and it put a price on the head of every American in Afghanistan now that the Taliban has seen that kidnapping is such a successful tactic.

Much, much more at the link.


In our non-Council category, the winner was Andrew McCarthy/The Corner – The Taliban Swap and “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey. As always McCarthy gets to the heart of the matter..all the constitution arguments aside, what we have here is a commander-in-chief who released five top level enemy commanders in exchange for one questionable soldier while hostilities are ongoing and American lives are at risk.Do read it.


Here are this week’s full results. Only Rhymes With Right was unable to vote this week, and only Rhymes With Right was affected by the 2/3 vote penalty:

Council Winners

• *First place with 5 votes! – Joshuapundit-'The Horror That Is America' - Ransoming Bowe Bergdahl


• Second place with 1 2/3 votes –The Noisy Room – War Is Peace, Citizens Are The Enemy


• Third place with 1 1/3 vote –The Right Planet – The Strange Case Of Bowe Bergdahl


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –The Razor – Guess I'm a Racist Too


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –The Independent Sentinel – Destroying the US to Slow the Rise of the Oceans and Heal the Planet.


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –Liberty's Spirit – Trigger Warnings, Honest Realities and Stupid Celebrity Tricks


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Jütland


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Nice Deb – Video: Obama Receives Only Tepid Applause at West Point


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Simply Jews – IRS TAG BOLO-es Z Street


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Colossus of Rhodey – Child-like comicbook creators just can't decide


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Glittering Eye -Schedules Without Milestones

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 1/3 votes! – Andrew McCarthy/The Corner – The Taliban Swap and “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey


• Second place with 2 votes –Melanie Phillips/Commentary – 'Jesus Was a Palestinian': The Return of Christian Anti-Semitism submitted by Joshuapundit


• Third place *t* with 1 2/3 votes -Sultan Knish–Twilight Of The Family submitted by The Independent Sentinel


• Third place *t* with 1 2/3 votes -American Thinker – The Greatest Murder Machine in History submitted by The Right Planet


• Fourth place with 1 1/3 votes -Stephen Hayes/ The Weekly Standard – Hillary's Failed Benghazi Spin submitted by Liberty's Spirit


• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote-Capitalist Preservation – If Voting Once is Nice, Voting Twice is...? submitted by Simply Jews


• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote- Josh Rogin/The Daily Beast – Bergdahl Deal Could Be First Step to Emptying Gitmo submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Paul Bedard/Washington Examiner–Dinesh D'Souza's 'America' warns Hillary Clinton will 'finish off' the country submitted by The Noisy Room


• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Sense Of Events – The Constitutional problems with the Bergdahl-Taliban swap submitted by The Glittering Eye


• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Truth Revolt – Feinstein: Obama Violated Law In Gitmo Deal submitted by VA Right!


• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote - Victor Davis Hanson – The New Regressives submitted by The Watcher


• Seventh place with 1/3 vote -I Own The World-The Smilesubmitted by Bookworm Room

See you next week! Don't forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week's Watcher's Forum, as the Council and their invited guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day and weigh in...don't you dare miss it. And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

Senator Michelle Obama!!!?!!

That's the speculation by the talking heads at NBC.

NBC Quoting Reuters:

She would quickly become the most recognizable face in the Senate. Her fame and fundraising ability would command deference in a body that normally operates on seniority. Whether the recent elevation of her profile suggests a plan to run is unclear, but she will be well positioned should she jump in.

According to outdated polls cited by NBC from Democrat pollster PPP in 2012, she leads Republican Senator Mark Kirk by about ten points. Never mind that the polls are two years old and that Kirk's seat doesn't come up until 2016, with two years being an eternity in politics.Or that the FLOTUS has never evidenced any interest in running for office anyway.

This is what passes for a news story these days.

But one thing the story could have looked at - if we're looking at something thought provoking - is the why someone with no accomplishments whatsoever except spending an inordinate amount of taxpayer dollars on luxury vacations and travel for herself and her entourage and friends would be thought of seriously as a worthy candidate for senator.

Mrs. Obama lacks any experience that would qualify her for the senate. Even her law license from the State of Illinois was revoked, or 'voluntarily surrendered' as the jargon goes in 1993.She's never run anything, or even held a job for very long that actually required her to do any work. Her only real 'qualification' is her last name and the fact that the Obama fundraising machine would be behind her. And oh yes, that as the Democratic candidate she could count on the usual voter fraud from Cook County.

That's it.

That's what we've come to...an entitled ruling class with no achievements or accomplishments whatsoever being touted as a candidate for high office.

There's a graphic I was going to include to express my feelings about this , but I'll let you use your imaginations.

Senator Mooch-elle.....

Obama Is Aiding And Abetting Jihad Against The West - In Syria

 

In his commencement address at West Point, President Obama has announced that the U.S.is 'weighing military aid' for Syrian rebels. Separately, administration officials spoke off the record to reporters from the Associated Press and said that Obama and his team are planning to send U.S. military advisers to Jordan to train and equip certain moderate Syrian rebels.

Actually, the president has been covertly indulging his desire to intervene in Syria on the side of Islamist rebels without congressional oversight for quite some time, and its pernicious effect is starting to be felt. Just like the president's illegal intervention in Libya, our intervention in Syria has been like a rock dropped into a lake, sending ripples far beyond the original point of impact.

The training has mostly been done in Qatar and conducted by the CIA,although training of jihadis has also occurred in Jordan, where we already have almost 2,000 U.S. troops stationed and in camps along Syria's border with Turkey.

The president predictably lied about this when he was asked, but a documentary made by PBS ( hardly a right wing, anti-Obama platform) entitled " Syria: Arming the Rebels" actually shows jihadis training, holding up U.S. weapons and supplies and describe their journey from the Syrian battlefield to meet with their American handlers in Turkey and then being shipped to Qatar. Once there, they're instructed in sophisticated combat techniques, including one course on “how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.”

As PBS notes "it appears the Obama administration is allowing select groups of rebels to receive US-made anti-tank missiles."

The United States has already spent $287 million so far in what's described as nonlethal aid for the rebels, with whom knows how much for military aid and training since the Obama Administration and the president still deny that took place. I mean, who are you going to believe? Barack Obama or your lying eyes?

In any event this new emphasis means that a lot more money and arms are headed to Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry is talking in the neighborhood of $5 billion. He also claims we have the ability to vet who the aid goes to, which is ridiculous given the facts on the ground unless we really are going to send boots on the ground to Syria to get involved and see who lines up next to us.

How have our efforts in Syria been turning out so far?

Well, first of all, as was apparent from the PBS documentary and other sources, we haven't really had all that much control of where the arms, money and supplies go, or really, even who gets trained.
It's a similar situation to what happened in Afghanistan back in the late 1970's when President Carter began arming the Afghan muhadejin to fight the Soviets. We sent the stuff to Pakistan and it was our dear friends the Pakistanis who decided who got what, not us. Any wonder the Taliban took over once the Soviets skedaddled?

What Syria is becoming is jihadi summer camp, with foreign fighters flocking there, picking up valuable experience and skills like how to make an IED that won't result in a work accident, gaining combat experience in Syria and Iraq and then ultimately heading back to their home countries to teach others. Al Nusrah and ISIS already run their own training facilities in Syria and in the parts of Iraq ISIS now controls.

The resurgence of al-Qaeda in Iraq, where ISIS now controls 3 of Iraq's 18 provinces can be directly linked to President Obama's covert decision to support and arm the Syrian rebels, and, as we will eventually find out when the truth about Benghazi surfaces, to his intervention in Libya. We have only estimates of how many jihadis with Western citizenship have been trained and indoctrinated there, and no one in the Administration is paying any attention to how many have received U.S. arms, money and training.

 In late October 2013, Mike Rogers, chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee, warned that al Qaeda allies in Syria were now "talking about conducting external operations, which is exactly what happened in Afghanistan, which led to 9/11."

 

'External operations'...that's pretty much what's going on in Iraq right now.And it isn't just Iraq.

Hundreds of EU citizens have ended up in the ranks of ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), Al Nusrah and al-Qaeda, and a number of them who have returned are actively involved in terrorism on the home front.

In Belgium, for instance, Mehdi Nemmouche, the jihadi accused of killing four people in an attack on the Jewish museum in Brussels is a French national who spent time fighting in Syria and had a flag from ISIS in his possession as well as a Kalishnikov, a handgun, and jihad videos. None of this was news to the French Authorities that picked him up in Marseilles, since they had been attempting to track hi since they knew he had been fighting with ISIS in Syria.

Bomb threats were made against the Belgian Royal family after Belgian police arrested Ismail Abdelatif al Lal, a major al-Qaeda financier who was funding the recruitment and transport of Spanish and Moroccan Muslims to Syria. And the Belgian government ended up finally cancelling the government welfare benefits of 30 Belgian jihadis who were having the checks forwarded to banks in Turkey while they were fighting in Syria!

France's French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve estimated that almost 400 jihadis who hold French passports are currently fighting in Syria. Back in March, former Interior Minister Manuel Valls "estimated that 700 French nationals or residents of France were more or less involved in the Syrian conflict, that 250 were currently in Syria, 99 were in transit to get there, 150 had showed interest in going there, 76 had already returned, and that 21 had died on Syrian soil."

Those whom have returned will bring interesting skills back home with them, and a number apparently already have.

There are instances of this happening all over Europe.

And the U.S.? The estimates of battle trained Syrian jihadis who've returned here range from 70 to fifty.

If we can't even vet our own citizens returning from Syria or stop them from going in the first place, how does the Obama team imagine it's going to vet who gets U.S. military aid and training?

And is it a major leap to conclude that these arms and more importantly the training will be turned against us someday?

If you look at President Obama and his team and their actions in Syria,in Libya, in Egypt, in Iraq and our funding of the new Hamas-Fatah government, you'd have to conclude that not only is our current regime tolerant and favorably disposed towards Islamists, they're now actually aiding and abetting them.

And as we've seen, such things have a history of backfiring....horrendously.

New Bill Demands Explicit Written or Verbal Consent For Sex On College Campuses

Where else but in California?

SB 967, written by state Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) demands that a couple stop in the middle of the festivities to obtain "an affirmative, unambiguous, and conscious decision by each participant to engage in mutually agreed-upon sexual activity."

According to the language of the bill, "consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual encounter, and can be revoked at any time. The existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent."

So........according to this new law, a couple needs to engage in a detailed discussion before lovemaking each and every time, married or not. Talk about a mood killer! Also, since 'verbal consent' is a matter of he said, she said in a court of law and people have been known to lie, any male (and of course, that's who this bill is directly aimed at) including husbands with a decent amount of brain cells to rub together is going to get that consent in writing, just in case. Smart men will come equipped not only with condoms, but with pre-printed forms, perhaps with a checklist. Or perhaps with small video recorders or digital cameras to record consent.

Of course, even a consent form or a video isn't sufficient really, according to the bill. If consent
"can be revoked at any time" and a past relationship between a couple is not deemed to signify consent, a woman can always claim she revoked consent after she signed the form or said 'yes' on camera..say, a week or so later after the guy dumps her for a hot cheerleader. And yes, there are plenty of examples of exactly this sort of thing happening, especially now that colleges have abandoned the legal standard of a burden of proof and use the far more subjective and flexible standard of the 'preponderance of evidence' in these matters.

In fact, the bill actually places the burden of proof on the accused in a sexual assault case demonstrate they obtained at least verbal ‘affirmative consent’ before engaging in any sexual activity.Men apparently no longer have the right to be presumed innocent until found guilty when it comes to these proceedings.

This also significantly changes the legal definition of rape from being a violent act clearly against someone's will to merely being a non-violent act someone may not have explicitly consented to (returning caresses and kisses or 'yes, oh yes!' apparently doesn't count) verbally or in writing beforehand.

Of course, these non-verbal exchanges are exactly how a lot of romantic encounters occur. Foreplay? Better get that written consent form signed first.

Of course, this bill violates privacy rights as well as rights of due process and common sense, but that apparently is not a consideration for proponents of this bill. But it will never pass, right?

Wrong.

SB 967 passed the Democrat dominated California state senate by a vote of 27-9 and is now on its way to state assembly. Even more ominously, the entire University of California system has adopted a new iron clad policy that doesn't just mirror SB967 but requires affirmative consent not just for sex, but to every form of “physical sexual activity” engaged in! In other words, if you come back to your domicile at the end of the day and give your significant other a hug and a kiss, you'd better have that consent form at the ready.

Read or watch the film version of "1984" some time and pay attention to what happens to Winston Smith and Julia. We're just about there.

"The progressive Left is like an acid that distorts and ruins everything it touches." - Rush Limbaugh, saying something I once thought was fairly exaggerated.

Watcher's Council Nominations - Trading For Private Weasel Edition

(hat tip to Mad Magazine and Dave Schuler of The Glittering Eye for the graphic)


Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News

The Council In Action

*Elise Ronan of Liberty's Spirit has a fine new piece up at The Times Of Israel entitled Rethinking the Definition of Autism and Aspergers

*Dave Huber, or Hube as we like to call him of The Colossus of Rhodey has a hard hitting op-ed up at The College Fix, Hey Lefties - Look In The Mirror Regarding The UCSB Murder Spree


This week, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion , The Pirate's Cove, The Mellow Jihadi and Seraphic Secret earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor; by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out Wednesday morning.

Simple, no?

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, without further ado, let's see what we have for you....

Council Submissions

• Liberty's Spirit – Trigger Warnings, Honest Realities and Stupid Celebrity Tricks


• The Noisy Room – War Is Peace, Citizens Are The Enemy


• The Independent Sentinel – Destroying the US to Slow the Rise of the Oceans and Heal the Planet.


• Joshuapundit-'The Horror That Is America' - Ransoming Bowe Bergdahl


• Simply Jews – IRS TAG BOLO-es Z Street


• The Right Planet – The Strange Case Of Bowe Bergdahl


• Ask Marion – It Does Make A Difference To Hillary Now


• The Colossus of Rhodey – Child-like comicbook creators just can't decide


• Bookworm Room – Yet another murderously dangerous DemProg is on the loose *UPDATED*


• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Jütland


• Nice Deb – Video: Obama Receives Only Tepid Applause at West Point


• The Glittering Eye -Schedules Without Milestones


• The Razor – Guess I'm a Racist Too


• VA Right! - Virginia Right! Endorses Shak Hill for US Senate! 2007 Scandal Renders Ed Gillespie Unelectable


• Rhymes With Right – Patrick Byrne On Economic Warfare And Transnational Organized Crime

Honorable Mentions

• David Gerstman/Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - How Anxious is Obama to Make a Deal with Iran?


• The Mellow Jihadi - Gwyneth Paltrow’s military mind


• The Pirate's Cove - Obama’s Climate Policy Thought: “Are we ready for battle?”


• Seraphic Secret - Obama’s Constant Traitors

Non-Council Submissions

• Stephen Hayes/ The Weekly Standard – Hillary's Failed Benghazi Spin submitted by Liberty's Spirit


• Paul Bedard/Washington Examiner–Dinesh D'Souza's 'America' warns Hillary Clinton will 'finish off' the country submitted by The Noisy Room


• Sultan Knish–Twilight Of The Family submitted by The Independent Sentinel


• Melanie Phillips/Commentary – 'Jesus Was a Palestinian': The Return of Christian Anti-Semitism submitted by Joshuapundit


• Capitalist Preservation – If Voting Once is Nice, Voting Twice is...? submitted by Simply Jews


• American Thinker – The Greatest Murder Machine in History submitted by The Right Planet


• Freedom Outpost -TEN Terrorists for One Traitor: The Prisoner Release You Didn’t Hear About submitted by Ask Marion


• Andrew McCarthy/The Corner – The Taliban Swap and “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey


• I Own The World-The Smilesubmitted by Bookworm Room


• Josh Rogin/The Daily Beast – Bergdahl Deal Could Be First Step to Emptying Gitmo submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• Washington Free Beacon -The Worst Of Jay Carney submitted by Nice Deb


• Sense Of Events – The Constitutional problems with the Bergdahl-Taliban swap submitted by The Glittering Eye


• Reason –Why Did Nicholas Kristof Believe Somaly Mam's Lies? submitted by The Razor


• Truth Revolt – Feinstein: Obama Violated Law In Gitmo Deal submitted by VA Right!


• Victor Davis Hanson – The New Regressives submitted by The Watcher


• Der Spiegel – Marine Le Pen: 'I Don't Want this European Soviet' submitted by The Watcher

Enjoy! And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

See For Yourself How Progress Works With Seattle's $15/Hour Minimum Wage!!

 

Seattle! Socialists on the city council led by Kshama Sawant led the successful charge to push through new legislation that will mandate a $15/hour minimum wage, highest in the country for an American city.

Believe it or not, this bill was a compromise. Sawant and her allies led a failed minority effort to strip the new law of all allowances for training wages, tip credits and health care. She also tried but failed to make the effective date Jan. 1. The council pushed the date back three months to allow businesses to prepare for the higher wages.

Still, she's not at all disappointed.  “Fifteen in Seattle is just a beginning,” Sawant said. “We have an entire world to win with solidarity.”

Fast food franchises were particularly irked because they were considered 'big business' under the new bill, rather than independently owned businesses. They plan to sue.

But meanwhile let's look at the amazing changes this wonderful Progressive victory will bring!



There are an estimated 1,700 franchise locations in Seattle employing about 19,000 workers. Many of these greedy, bloodsucking capitalists will be forced to close, thus freeing their employees from soul killing, repetitive labor so that they can enjoy new careers as poets, artists, mimes  and unpaid interns working for worthy social justice causes.

Other restaurants will adapt, and have the same beneficial effect of freeing up labor:



I wonder if this burger maker works on wind or solar power? And did the company president donate to the right campaigns???


And finally, the ultimate Progressive victory:



Look son, you had a hamburger six weeks ago. You know what meat costs now? Whaddya think I am, made of money? Eat that Michelle Obama Celery Dee-lite and be glad you got it.




Let them eat sprouts...it's good for the planet!

Racism 101 "Vote Black...Not For Whitey Or Them Asians!"

Songhai “Sunny” Armstead is running as a candidate for judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court. And her pitch? Pretty much what's expressed in the title, as evidenced here in a video of her speaking at an all black church in Gardena on April 27th her supporters got scrubbed from YouTube, but can be seen in full here thanks to Pat Patterico, one of our former Watcher's Council alumni.

After telling the congregation she's "the only African American running", she says:

You heard about realignment. You heard about the injustice that happens in our court system already. And you guys have seen who — I’m sure we all know who’s in our jails and who comes before our judges in court, right? It’s people who look a lot like the people in this room. People who look a lot like me.[...]

And part of the problem is that our judges don’t have the same life experiences that we have. They don’t have the same empathy. They don’t have the same understanding. They cannot relate. They have very narrow experiences.[...]

I am the only African American running. There’s only one Chicana running. Can you guess who else is running? Are there people who care about the people in this room? Probably not. I can’t speak before them, but probably not.

And then she tells them, "I'm a judge for you." Not for everyone in Los Angeles Couty, not for justice..but strictly based on race. This woman currently works as a prosecutor for the County, someone who gets paid by everyone's tax dollars, regardless of race. Can you imagine how this woman's racism has affected her performance as a prosecutor, in deciding which cases the DA's office goes after and which it doesn't, in what kind of plea bargains are made and who gets them, in what kind of sentencing to go after? Here's hoping the defense attorneys she's faced make a stink and cause her entire record to come up for review.

Imagine if she was campaigning in the nicer parts of the San Fernando Valley or the South Bay telling people to vote for her because she was going to be 'a judge for white people?' Or imagine if one of her competitors was telling people to vote against Songhai “Sunny” Armstead because she was black, as one local editorial (not the L.A. Times, of course) suggested?

The mainstrem media, of course, is totally ignoring this disgusting bigot.

But there is one thing. While I don't know how they'll behave in the voting booth, when you look at the video, you'll see at the end that the audience gives her polite applause,but that's about it. Hopefully, as Christians they have truly embraced the message of Jesus that all men are equal in G-d's sight and mostly rejected this attempt to manipulate them.

We'll see...

'The Horror That Is America' - Ransoming Bowe Bergdahl

President Obama staged a convenient photo-op in the Rose garden with the parents of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier captured by the Taliban under suspicious circumstances and released in exchange for five senior Taliban commanders held in Club Gitmo. The event was stilted and strange for a number of reasons.

It was absolutely astounding to hear this president say that 'we leave no man behind' in view of what happened in Benghazi...and of course, with the revelation of the VA 'death lists', I'd say those wounded vets were definitely left behind.

Then there was the lingering fallout from the fact that once again, this president blatantly broke the law, which called for the president to inform Congress 30 days before any pending transfer of jihadis from Gitmo. Even Obama loyalists like the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin and California Democrat Dianne Feinstein were shocked and critical over this. And members of the president's own team who voiced any opposition to the way this deal was being conducted were simply told to shut up and salute.

But the president's behavior aside, Robert Bergdahl, Bowe Bergdahl's father was absolutely bizarre.

After the usual remarks, Bergdahl said his son had supposedly lost the ability to speak English and recited"“Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim.” That phrase, from the Qu'ran translates as “In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate.”

Either Bergdahl has converted to Islam or is simply unknowing, but uttering that phrase is a profession of belief in the Muslim faith. Was that supposed to be a message to his son, who mentioned in Taliban propaganda films that he was 'exploring Islam?'

Since the words are Arabic, not Pashto, the language his son's Taliban captors would have been speaking, it somehow doesn't gel with the idea of a father trying to communicate with a son who has supposedly lost the ability to speak his native language in a mere 5 years.

Bergdahl senior apparently also has some interesting views on America, not that he isn't entitled. Here's a tweet he tried to delete:

 

Why would anyone be working to free the sort of murderers held at in Club Gitmo if they had, shall we say, a positive view of America? And since he obviously doesn't hold the Taliban or other jihadis responsible for 'the death of every Afghan child' because he wants them all freed, it's obvious he blames America for their deaths....and is calling for Allah to take revenge.

Bowe Bergdahl himself apparently has some interesting views on his service and his country.

Shortly before the Taliban got their hands on him, he said in an e-mail to his father:

“I am sorry for everything here,” he wrote. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid.”
Bergdahl also complained about fellow soldiers. The battalion commander was a “conceited old fool,” he said, and the only “decent” sergeants, planning to leave the platoon “as soon as they can,” told the privates — Bergdahl then among them — “to do the same.”

“I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools,” he concluded. “I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”

His father's reply? “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!”

OK...it's a soldier's prerogative to gripe from time to time. But 'I'm ashamed to be an American' and 'The horror that is America is disgusting'? Obviously we have someone who was raised with certain views and given his father's outbursts, the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

Three days after that e-mail exchange, Bowe Bergdahl left camp on his own without authorization accompanied by two Afghans whom he had befriended, according to the original report. The Taliban said Bergdahl was intoxicated when they captured him,something the Army denied although since they weren't present at the scene, one wonders how they would know.

What Bergdahl did is commonly known as desertion, and a number of his fellow soldiers see it exactly that way.

My own take is that Bergdahl was likely a career flake who probably never intended to desert, but merely intended to go AWOL. He went off with some Afghans he trusted with the idea of scoring drugs and/or sex. Instead, they apparently sold him to the Taliban while he was 'relaxing', which would square with the Taliban's account that he was intoxicated when they picked him up (note the word I'm using, 'intoxicated' as opposed to 'drunk'. Booze is difficult to find in Muslim rural Afghanistan except in areas like military bases or Kabul where westerners hang out,while dope is easy to score).

At the every least, he was obviously AWOL, and his tale about being captured while 'lagging behind on patrol' was exploded as sheer BS early on.

Aside from that, apparently there were casualties that were incurred searching for him. Men died because Bowe Bergdahl decided to bug out.

It seems pretty obvious Bowe Bergdahl did not 'serve with honor and distinction' nor was he 'captured on the battlefield' as President Obama's National Security Adviser Susan 'It Was The Video, The Video' Rice insisted to the talking heads at ABC. Although perhaps that's how the team in the White House considers it, given what appears to be their conception of 'honor and distinction'. Especially since Bergdahl's being cut loose got some Gitmo jihadis freed and knocked the VA scandal out of the headlines for awhile.

Six soldiers whom did not desert lost their lives searching for him. 'Honor and distinction?'

What he did not only led to American casualties but the freeing of five dangerous men, and it put a price on the head of every American in Afghanistan now that the Taliban has seen that kidnapping is such a successful tactic.

According to the USMJ, at the very least,Bowe Bergdahl ought to face charges by a military tribunal for deserting his post. Given our current commander-in-chief, the odds are he won't.

I'm glad Bowe Bergdahl made it home, even if he despises the country that paid such a high price to free him. The Taliban are some of the most brutal people on the planet,and no one deserves to be held by them.

But Bowe Bergdahl is no hero. And the attempts by the president and his people to paint him as one to suit their own political agenda are beneath contempt. There can be no clearer indication of the disdain this president and his team have for our military...and in view of their speech and actions in the last five and a half years, that is saying something.

UPDATE: The president's little diversion to put Benghazi and the VA scandal has exploded in his face aa more facts have come out about this and public opinion has rapidly shifted.

It turns out that the Pentagon had investigated Bergdahl's disappearance and as long ago as 2010 had investigated and concluded he had deserted.Among other things, he left a letter stating that he was deserting and that he was renouncing his citizenship.

And that leads to a number of questions for the Pentagon. Bergdahl was never officially classified as a POW for obvious reasons, yet he was automatically promoted to sergeant while in captivity, and the Army swooped in with investigators who forced many of the soldiers in Bergdahl's unit to sign unprecedented non-disclosure agreements.In fact, a number of those soldiers simply defied those agreements and spoke out when they were treated to the sickening spectacle of their commander-in-chief trying to make a hero out of Bergdahl in the Rose Garden.

Who ordered the Army to keep Bergdahl on the promotion list and to try make sure no one in his unit spoke out about what had happened? And why?

And what about reports that Bowe Bergdahl had converted to Islam and was giving the Taliban intel on U.S. tactics and training in bomb making?

There's even actually some credible evidence that Bergdahl had tried to contact the Taliban and may actually have left his unit with the idea of joining them.

Meanwhile, the top level Taliban commanders we gave up for a deserter were greeted like heroes in Qatar and will have full freedom of movement while they're there...which may actually include travel out of the country.

These men are responsible for literally thousands of deaths and will undoubtedly be responsible for many more in the future. None of that mattered next to President Obama's personal political requirements or his agenda to shove detainees out of Gitmo,no matter how dangerous.

Will the Army actually investigate this? Will 'Sergeant' Bergdahl actually be tried for desertion? Don't bet on it.

But no matter what happens, this question remains. There comes a point when cowardice, lawlessness, incompetence and arrogance get to the point where they can no longer be tolerated, because they've become dangerous. How much longer are the American people going to put up with this? How much are they prepared to take?

How much more contempt will you swallow, my countrymen, before too much becomes enough? How much?

Forum: What's The Secret Of A Happy Life?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: What's The Secret Of A Happy Life?

Simply Jews : I have asked SWMBO, and her answer was unequivocal: you (meaning I) are happy, and you better remember this. So I do.

Eternal compliance is the solid base of happiness, it seems.


GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD : Using every trick in the book to keep the boys chasing after that Laffy Taffy?

Enhancement drugs like botox, phentermine and aleve. Copious amounts of vodka spiked with Diet Ginger Ale (Canada Dry only please) along with a brisk 30 minute walk EVERY day - rain or shine.

Pursuit of the latest fashions and haute couture, communication devices.

Of course, all that stuff tends to fade away if the ancients are to be believed (jury is still out on that - heck, from a personal perspective - they've always seemed to be wrong about everything else).

Methinks accepting X as your personal Lord and Saviour and striving to lead an Xian life is key. Xians are not perfect LOL - yet we are forgiven.

Virginia Right!: For me, I am fortunate to be a happy person in general. Things don't get me down, or if they do, not for long. I know a lot of people that have to work a lot harder than me to be happy.

I suppose you have to first start with being happy with who you are. Change the things that are obstacles to happiness if you can, but leave some imperfections to add color to your soul. And to keep you humble. Be happy in your imperfections, they add character.

If you think you would like to do something, jump in. Be brave. Dance like no one is watching often. Laugh a lot.

But I think more that anything, you need a close companion, spouse and best friend all in one. I have had that for 31 years and counting. And with that in my arsenal, everything else can fall apart and I am still going to be happy.

And have a hobby. Or several. You MUST have the diversion to balance the load. For me, it is playing and writing music. But you don't need talent, just a desire to do something you love as often as possible.

Liberty's Spirit : So what is the secret to a happy life? Live your life. Simply live it. Enjoy it. Revel in your children's successes. Figure out how to help them through their failures. Support those that you love. Find ways to grab at every minute of everyday. Don't put off the important things. Stand up for what you believe in. Do what is right and honest. Don't be afraid to alienate anyone who isn't a positive influence in your life. Have patience. Have self-respect. Be kind. And above all BE BRAVE.

Ask Marion : The secret(s) of a happy life are:

Finding your purpose (hopefully something bigger than yourself); we all have one… or a few
Following your heart and doing what you truly love or have a passion for (one and two usually end up being the same thing or related)

Enjoying the journey, which includes finding the good in the people, what you have and where you are each day, no matter the circumstance(s)

Saying what is on your mind and the truth and doing what needs to be done, no matter what and definitely regardless of whether it is popular

Ignoring the naysayers and negativity

Listening to what God is telling you

Learning to let go and forgive (yourself and others)… the toughest one for me
Liking yourself

Did (or do) I do all these things, or even do the ones I did well or consistently enough? Hell NO!


Do I wish I could have a do over? Hell YES!

I look back at the saddest and happiest moments and events of my life, and other than the deaths of family members that I had no control over, both the happiest and saddest times of my life were when I did the best or worst job of following my credo.

If I could give a young person some advice, the younger the better, I would tell them:

Find your connection with God (a higher power)

Listen to everyone’s input, the more information the better, but in the end follow your heart… the little voice inside.

Do something that scares you every day; fight your daemons
Make a bucket list of 100 things when you graduate from high school, and a second one if you graduate from college, and keep them and work through them throughout your life.

Follow your heart; the people who are happiest and often do best in life… including financially are those who followed their dreams, not their parent’s dreams, not their counselors direction, nor chose the a career based on the money they could make.

Speak-up for yourself and others; never believe that anyone else will fight for you or your dreams and definitely they won’t fight as hard as you would.
Take some me time everyday, even if just 15-minutes, to breath, to reflect, to clear your mind of the negative, to pray, to be grateful, to be happy!

Surround yourself and fill your life with things you love and that inspire you… photos, trophies, books, favorite movies, flowers, music, pets, a garden to work in, people you love and that inspire you, volunteer, and own at least one extravagance that makes you happy… a car, a piece of jewelry, a painting, a crazy expensive pair of shoes, a rare edition, an antique, a boat, gold, a revolutionary war rifle or document, a collector doll, whatever does it for you.

And on a side note, I believe that we often make our own lives more difficult or dimmer than they need to be. Outlook and attitude are half the battle. My husband, daughter and I were part of the volunteer cast of the Glory of Easter and Glory of Christmas at the Chrystal Cathedral for 14-years, a great source of happiness and joy. One year several volunteers with an array of special needs from a local independent living facility joined us as part of the cast. At dinner, provided by other volunteers between shows, the subject came up about what they all did for a living. One gal told me she rolled the silverware into a napkin for the trays and then put them into bins at a buffet-style restaurant. Most of us would complain about boredom or the repetitiveness. She said she loved her job because everyone needed silverware and by rolling them in the napkins, she saved them time and was helping to give good service. Each of them had jobs, and jobs that might cause many of us to complain, but each of them were grateful and actually loved what they did.

My father died far too young at age 63 after a pretty tough life, and he was much better at doing the things above than I have been. One of the last things he said to me, just days before he died of colon cancer, was: “It wasn’t enough!” It is a statement that haunts me daily and more so the older I get, for I’m sure I will feel the same way. I’m driven as it is, a type A driver personality, and part of me feels that I need to accomplish more for the time my dad missed. But I’m working on enjoying the journey, forgiving myself for the things I didn’t do and at letting go. Yet although I think I understand the basic formula for a happy life… getting there is harder than it seems.

 Bookworm Room :When I was growing up, my parents were not happy people. I always thought "small wonder." Daddy went from Berlin ghetto; to orphanage; to aliyah to Palestine (which to him, was exile from his beloved German homeland); to five years with the RAF in the Mediterranean theater during WWII; to the Israeli War of Independence; to immigration to a strange land he never fully understood and in which he never really made a living.

My mother went from a childhood of ridiculous wealth in Europe; to near-poverty in Tel Aviv, where her unhappily married parents had a rancorous divorce; to 3 1/2 years in a Japanese concentration camp; to the Israeli War of Independence; to immigration to a strange land she never fully understood, all the while married to a man who couldn't support her in the style to which she'd become accustomed as a 10 year old -- or indeed, to any style that was greater than a scrabbling working class economic existence, even as my parents aspired to a rarefied, upper-class European lifestyle.

In our house, happiness wasn't what was on the table. Instead, we dined on depression, despair, and economic envy.

For all that, I still had a pretty happy childhood. I was loved, fed, and sheltered. Those are the basics. I quickly came to terms with the fact that I would always march to the beat of my own drummer, so I found happiness in eccentric pursuits such as books, antiques, and anglophilia. I always had a "best" (and sometimes "only") friend, and that was quite good enough.

I've had very happy intervals in my life. I loved living in England (Margaret Thatcher's England), where I discovered that the acid-tongued bookworm was actually a party animal who loved to dance all night and, when not dancing, to spend the night talking with friends. My friends drank, and I got a contact high, no alcohol required.

I was happy at law school. I never fully understood what the heck I was doing with the whole legal thing (and indeed, didn't for years after graduation), but I loved my fellow classmates. Just being around them made me happy . . . and sometimes they'd go dancing with me.

Adult life came along: work, single nights out with groups of friends or uncomfortable dates, more work, more uncomfortable dates. The occasional unrequited love. (Sigh.)

Eventually I met the man I determined to marry, and my life took a turn I had never imagined. Suddenly, I found myself living in the quintessential suburban home with one husband, two children, two dogs, and with responsibility for an increasingly difficult mother. This was not how it was supposed to me. I somehow imagined myself dancing through life, not folding laundry, driving carpools, cooking inedible dinners, nagging children, cleaning the house, etc.

I should be unhappy, right? And indeed, there are days when I am feed up to here and beyond. But I've decided that being unhappy with the lack of pleasures in my life is cruel not only to my family, but to me. So I work hard, really hard, at defining myself as a happy person.

First, I routinely count my blessings (what some people call gratitude). Maybe I'm not dancing and going to parties and dating the charming men who seem to live only in romance novels, but I've got it pretty darn good.

I live in a beautiful part of the world, in one of the nicest neighborhoods imaginable, in a lovely, comfortable house. I have two children who, while they can be excessively teenager-y, are also loving, moral, decent human beings, with whom I have a great relationship about 90% of the time (which, as I see it, is pretty darn good odds for a parent/teenager relationship).

My mother may be increasingly unhinged, but she always remembers that she loves me. And I have two of the best dogs in the whole world. They don't do tricks, but they live by my rules and think that I am the sun, the moon, and the stars combined. What an abundance of blessings.

But counting ones blessings isn't enough. That's just a balancing act: for every bad thing (or irritating or frustrating) thing, I've got two good things.

My newest goal is to turn just about everything in my life into a blessing or, at least, a positive. I stumbled across this idea when I was talking to my mother back last week when she was still compos mentis. (She seems to have slipped a few cogs in the past few days.)

She was, as always, complaining. She complained about the high quality home in which she lives, she complained about the nurses who work hard to keep her healthy, she complained about the aides who wash her and dress her, she complained about the other residents who still manage to like her, she complained about the weather, she complained about her pain, she complained about being old, she complained about imminent death, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I was exhausted just listening to her. I finally said, "Look, Mom. You cannot change your circumstances. You're no longer able to live on your own, you won't get younger, and you'll suffer joint pain. Those are givens. What you have to do is change your attitude."

Wow! Did I just say something that profound? Yes, yes I did! If you cannot change your circumstances (and assuming your circumstances aren't a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, Siberia, or North Korea), you have to change your attitude.

Changing ones attitude doesn't mean bouncing around giggling, "Oooh, there are dead rats in my basement. Isn't that just wonderful?" No. It means thinking deeply about the lessons you are learning or the benefits you are getting from things that you'd normally find less than thrilling.

Traffic tickets? Expensive and humiliating, but also, perhaps, the universe sending you a reminder that you're tootling around in a two-ton death machine and really ought to be more careful. Taking that lesson the right way may mean that I don't kill or maim someone in the coming weeks or years.

Irritating teenagers? Well, I may be middle aged, but patience and forbearance are still virtues, and I apparently still need to work on them. My children are my classroom, not my prison wardens.

Dirty laundry? Perhaps I can find a way to make things less boring and more fun. And indeed I did. After years of trying to make my shirts look like the ones on the shelf at the GAP, I have found a new way, one that somehow satisfies me at a visceral level. It seems that, while I'd been folding them the right way for the GAP all those years, I'd been folding them the wrong way for me.

That dishwasher? I challenge myself daily to see how fast I can go. It turns out I like the same "beat the clock" game that toddlers do. (Except for my toddlers. My kids never wanted to play beat the clock. They wanted to play "there's no way in Hell you can make me do that task, ever." I hated their game, but I'm enjoying mine.)

So, what's the secret of a happy life? Telling yourself you're going to be happy. Looking at the world through rose colored glasses. Counting your blessings. Trying new approaches to old chores. Reminding yourself that no one else but you can make you happy.


   Well, there you have it.

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Five Dangerous Taliban Commanders Freed Illegally From Gitmo

Over the weekend, the Obama Administration freed five extremely dangerous Taliban commanders it had been holding at Club Gitmo in exchange for captured U.S. soldier Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

 

While it's good that Bergdahl is headed home, the price was fairly high.All five of the Taliban commanders were labeled 'high risk' by the Pentagon.

Khair Ulla Said Wali Khairkhwa was interior minister during the Taliban's rule and Taliban governor of Herat province. He was directly linked to both Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's now-deceased head in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, as well as being described as one of the "major opium drug lords in western Afghanistan"

Mullah Mohammad Fazl was a major military commander for the Taliban back when they were fighting the U.S. backed Northern Alliance, and was the military 'chief of staff' for the Taliban regime. He was also charged by the UN with the massacre of thousands of Afghan Shiites under Taliban rule And was also linked to several Islamist groups, including al Qaeda. Our military considered Fazl to have what's described as 'high intelligence value'.

Mullah Norullah Noori was another Taliban governor, likewise considered to have high intelligence value.

Abdul Haq Wasiq was the second in command of the Taliban's intelligence service. His cousin was head of the service. There's some evidence that Wasiq also shared intel with al Qaeda and other Islamist groups, which is fairly likely considering that al-Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan then.

Mohammad Nabi Omari was a Taliban official in Khost province who has been linked with al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups.He was also the Taliban's chief of communications and helped al Qaeda members escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

There's no question that we will see these men in action against us again.And there will likely be other consequences.

“Trading five senior Taliban leaders from detention in Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl’s release may have consequences for the rest of our forces and all Americans. Our terrorist adversaries now have a strong incentive to capture Americans. That incentive will put our forces in Afghanistan and around the world at even greater risk,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. McKeon (R-Calif.) and the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, James M. Inhofe (Okla.), said in a joint statement.

They're certainly correct about that.

There's also the little matter of the Obama Administration once again breaking the law, which requires that the Secretary of Defense notify the relevant congressional committees at least 30 days before making any transfers of prisoners, to explain the reason for the transfer and to provide assurances that the prisoners released are not going to return to terrorist activities against the United States. At this point, the majority of them have, and these five certainly will.

The Obama Administration is claiming they acted quickly to save Bergdahl's life and there simply was no time to notify Congress. I'd like accept that there was some kind of sudden urgency, but the fact he had already been in captivity for almost five years makes that unlikely...and so does the Obama Administration's constant activity to close down Club Gitmo by any means necessary and dump the 'guests' wherever possible. After all it certainly wouldn't be the first time the Regime has lied to Congress!

 


Bergdahl's case was always a fairly strange one anyway. Apparently he went AWOL, left his post (his story about 'lagging behind on patrol' is a pretty obvious fabrication) and was captured without either weapons or body armor:

The actual story might be hinted by the report of him walking off the base with some Afghans.No telling who they were, but if this is true they were likely interpreters or base workers who spoke some English, and they may have promised Bergdahl something - sex or drugs or both seem to be the most likely lures.

If he went with them willingly, they were people he knew and trusted. They likely sold him to the Taliban en route or more likely, after they had given him what they promised him and he was relaxing - which could also account for the Taliban account of him being intoxicated when they got their hands on him.

 

At any rate, the deal is done and so is the damage, and Bergdahl is headed back home.