The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

[Tequila Cowboy]

GTO -

Dude, what the fuck? Take that shit somewhere else. Cole's a great guy and while we don't always agree, he's always respectful. He could definitely teach you something about civility and decency, among other things. Don't be an LJ.

Agreed. Totally uncalled for. I neither agree or disagree with CY on this but one thing I know for sure is that his opinion, considering he served our country, carries the weight of respect here.

[4sooner]

GTO -

Dude, what the fuck? Take that shit somewhere else. Cole's a great guy and while we don't always agree, he's always respectful. He could definitely teach you something about civility and decency, among other things. Don't be an LJ.

Agreed. Totally uncalled for. I neither agree or disagree with CY on this but one thing I know for sure is that his opinion, considering he served our country, carries the weight of respect here.

This.

[Lone Wolf1]

Ill just say that it's pretty clear to me that he's a traitor. How anyone can think otherwise I don't know. And he dang sure ain't a hero.

Oh yeah? You had some sort of camera trained on the guy at all times? From here it sounds like you're some whiny jackass who doesn't really know more than anybody else, but your so full of yourself you just can't help it. I know - why don't you go spend five years being held by violent conservative trash. That would make the world a better place for a little while anyway.

WTF is "violent conservative trash"? you, my dear wouldn't amount to a pimple on a Marine's ass

[John A Arkansawyer]

WTF is "violent conservative trash"?

He means the Taliban. No one here likes them, right? As Afghanistan goes, I think it'd be fair to call them conservative. I'd call them something else in this context to avoid confusion, but it's not inaccurate.

[LBRod]

The part of this that worries me is that now we will negotiate with terrorists.
I fear the consequences of this precedent.

[Flea]

The part of this that worries me is that now we will negotiate with terrorists.
I fear the consequences of this precedent.

Rhetorical question: do the civilian populations of Pakistan or Yemen consider us as terrorists when the drones take the skies? Or, if political jiu jitsu is more your style, wouldn't Raygun's actions during the Iran/Contra fiasco be considered as "negotiating with terrorists"?

[LBRod]

The part of this that worries me is that now we will negotiate with terrorists.
I fear the consequences of this precedent.

Rhetorical question: do the civilian populations of Pakistan or Yemen consider us as terrorists when the drones take the skies? Or, if political jiu jitsu is more your style, wouldn't Raygun's actions during the Iran/Contra fiasco be considered as "negotiating with terrorists"?

1- I assume they do, especially when we double tap the first responders or hit funerals.
2- Fair enough, and may well be one of the reasons we officially stopped doing it.

[Cole Younger]

I want to clarify something. When I said what I said about people not liking Marines I didn't mean anyone here had said anything like that. What I meant was, it's been my experience that people tend to fall into three categories where the Marine Corps is concerned. The first category are folks who really think its a good thing and are happy that America has a Marine Corps. The second is made of folks who view Marines as little more than savages and view the Corps as a problem as it is a culture they don't understand and one they see as the last vestige of a type of individual they would like to see go extinct. And the third group could be summed up thusly, "Now what do the Marines do? Are they part of the Army or something?"

This board like any group is a reflection of society. So Im pretty confident that all three types are represented here. With that in mind, I didn't want anything assumed about me by members of the second bunch that I mentioned. I wasn't trying to give you the brush off Zip I just didn't want the entire conversation to turn into this and this is one of the few things I can get kind of emotional about so I decided to cut it short for right then.

I appreciate y'all's support and your kind word in the face the one guy's tirade. I respect and like you guys a lot.

Wolf, Simper Fi brother.

GTO, it's been a known fact that Bergdahl deserted his unit in a hostile country. That really isn't news. It first came to light five years ago. He also is said to have left a letter to them detailing why he did so and it was his distaste for his country. I don't know if there is a better description for that than traitor but that word certainly fits the bill. No need for a camera. The information that he deserted his unit is known fact. If you're ok with his having done that that's something you have to live with and your problem isn't with me but something much bigger. I'm not agry with you. To say that I don't care about your opinion of me doesn't do it justice. Ill just say that you don't know what you are talking about when it comes to me or this situation. But that's cool.

[Cole Younger]

To use a phrase I learned here on 3dd, it really frosts my ass that the White House described this guy as having served with "honor and distinction". If that's serving with honor and distinction then DBT is a no talent bunch of Skynyrd wannabes. That's enough of that though.

TC I did mean to comment on what you posted earlier. I'm real sorry to hear about what your wife encountered. I don't know a whole lot about the state of Mississippi but I hope it doesn't sour you on the South. There's a lot good folks down here... And I know you've met some real fine people not no racist pieces of...

Not many things make me want to go upside somebody's head more than a man making a woman cry.

[Smitty]

GTO, it's been a known fact that Bergdahl deserted his unit in a hostile country. That really isn't news. It first came to light five years ago. He also is said to have left a letter to them detailing why he did so and it was his distaste for his country. I don't know if there is a better description for that than traitor but that word certainly fits the bill. No need for a camera. The information that he deserted his unit is known fact. If you're ok with his having done that that's something you have to live with and your problem isn't with me but something much bigger. I'm not agry with you. To say that I don't care about your opinion of me doesn't do it justice. Ill just say that you don't know what you are talking about when it comes to me or this situation. But that's cool.

I don't necessarily believe desertion equals treason, but that may be more a matter of semantics than anything else. I also concede that due to your service, you may have a better grasp on the implications of someone turning their back on their comrades. I sympathized with Bergdahl's letter about his doubt and conscientious objections towards our mission overseas and why we were there, but then again that's something you should probably think about either before you join up or after you get out, not when you're in the thick of it and your behavior has such dire consequences for not just yourself, but also those around you.
With that said, I still believe we should never leave a soldier behind regardless, and if it's proven he did act wrongfully he should be court martialed but he's still entitled to his due process. If the only chance of bringing him home alive was trading him for five terrorists, well I'd hate to make that call, but I believe bringing him back alive should be the number one priority.

[Zip City]

I think the word treason is thrown around a little too loosely, not so much here, but in national discourse in general

[John A Arkansawyer]

Like I said, I'm not big on finks. If you're voluntarily involved in something, unless it has become so odious to you that you just can't live with it, the principle of loyalty to those you're involved in it with is pretty damned important to me. It's never that simple, of course, and it's never the only thing. I was just refreshing my memory about someone who faced that sort of decision and who made a lot of people mad at him for what they understood as disloyalty, but he and his crew did what was right.

In the process, I learned something I didn't know, or knew but had forgotten: Of the three members of Congress who paid attention to this scandal when it occurred, two were Republicans.

[Smitty]

Like I said, I'm not big on finks. If you're voluntarily involved in something, unless it has become so odious to you that you just can't live with it, the principle of loyalty to those you're involved in it with is pretty damned important to me. It's never that simple, of course, and it's never the only thing. I was just refreshing my memory about someone who faced that sort of decision and who made a lot of people mad at him for what they understood as disloyalty, but he and his crew did what was right.

In the process, I learned something I didn't know, or knew but had forgotten: Of the three members of Congress who paid attention to this scandal when it occurred, two were Republicans.

If the RS article was correct, I think the tipping point for Bowe Bergdahl was seeing an Afghan child being ran over and then others joking about it. If that's true, then... well I don't know how I would've acted either, were I in that situation.

[John A Arkansawyer]

If the RS article was correct, I think the tipping point for Bowe Bergdahl was seeing an Afghan child being ran over and then others joking about it. If that's true, then... well I don't know how I would've acted either, were I in that situation.

That's a terrible thing, but I oppose war because it is inherently terrible. Seeing that would break a lot of us. The understanding that comes from knowing from direct experience that particular terrible thing to be one of the accepted costs of war might break others. We never know what will until it happens.

Like I say, I get why people* are mad at Bergdahl. I sympathize with it. From one point of view, it looks like he finked out on his buddies. From another point of view, it looks like he couldn't bear what he was doing any more and walked. I sympathize with that, too.

I have a lot of sympathy. I don't have the truth. To my way of thinking, facts and direct experience trump most everything else. I wasn't there. I don't have the direct experience and I don't have all the facts. I'm sticking with the sympathy for now.

*Actual human beings, not politicians. I'm trying to review a book on the equal marriage fight. It's one of those books about the power people on all sides. Having it rubbed in my face what calculated liars the powerful are--I thought I knew this--makes it hard to take those fuckers seriously as human beings.

[dogstar]

I tend to view the Bergdahl thing rather simply

1. If he was your son/daughter would you want a deal done to release him/her?
2. If he appears to have broken the rules then you deal with that once they've been released

[Smitty]

I tend to view the Bergdahl thing rather simply

1. If he was your son/daughter would you want a deal done to release him/her?
2. If he appears to have broken the rules then you deal with that once they've been released

If it was my child, I'd bring bin Laden back to life to get him back. That's why someone that close shouldn't be involved in the negotiations regarding the release and why we shouldn't be so quick to judge the father.

[Lone Wolf1]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06 ... ents-show/

[Flea]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/05/exclusive-bergdahl-declared-jihad-in-2010-secret-documents-show/

Please don't make the mistake I did and read the comments on that article. I now need cerebral Drano,.

[John A Arkansawyer]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/05/exclusive-bergdahl-declared-jihad-in-2010-secret-documents-show/

Please don't make the mistake I did and read the comments on that article. I now need cerebral Drano,.

I knew better than to do that, but I did read the article. Even after allowing for Dewey Clarridge being a shitbag of massive proportions, I don't know what to think of it. On the one hand, you've got the claim in the headline. On the other hand, you've got Bergdahl making repeated escape attempts, including one where he made it away for five days. And on the gripping hand, you've got repeated claims that he was in very ill health. It sounds like this report is a lightly edited collection of raw intelligence reports which, like all intelligence reports in sufficiently complex situations, contradict each other.

In other words, you can find evidence in it for whatever you want to believe. Fox tells us what they believe, or want us to believe, or want us to believe they believe, with the headline. I figure those commenters are doing the same. I still don't know what happened. I doubt I ever will.

My question: WWALD?

[Lone Wolf1]

http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/th ... l-exchange

[John A Arkansawyer]

http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/this-is-the-biggest-question-not-being-asked-about-the-bergdahl-exchange

An even bigger question is whether it was paid in bitcoin, gold, or Latinium. Inquiring minds want to know.

[Zip City]

I have no interest whatsoever to read what any two bit blog/"news" site has to say about this.

[Smitty]

I have no interest whatsoever to read what any two bit blog/"news" site has to say about this.

Or anything remotely related to The Blaze Network.

[lotusamerica]

These are not news sites.

[Zip City]

These are not news sites.

But it has the word "news" right in the site name!

[Lone Wolf1]

http://blogs.militarytimes.com/battle-r ... -bergdahl/

[Zip City]

http://blogs.militarytimes.com/battle-rattle/2014/06/09/conway-deserters-bowe-bergdahl/

That's nice and all, but it's the Republicans who have been begging to reduce the guy for the last five years, only to reverse course as soon as their hated enemy Obama actually did it

[Lone Wolf1]

http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/06/09/did ... s-release/

[Smitty]

If it is even remotely related to Glenn Beck, I wouldn't give it the time of day.

[Zip City]

All LoneWolf need to do is post some links from Drudge Report and Free Republic and we'll be all set