The GOP need to sit their hateful asses down somewhere on this issue of Bowe Bergdahl and stop looking for a scandal by which to nullify the Presidency of Barack Obama.
Though I tried to ignore it, I have sat for days now and watched some of the lowest, most amoral and juvenile behavior coming from Right wing pundits, elected Republican hypocrites and know-nothing GOP sympathizers on social media concerning the issue of Bowe Bergdahl being released from Taliban custody.
Some of these wicked sons-a-bi+ches have even claimed that Bergdahl should have been left to rot with his "terrorist" captors. They have also attacked Bergdahl's father as a Taliban-sympathizer and lambasted him for looking like a Muslim.
Looking like a Muslim?? What the fck does a Muslim look like and why is that inherently terroristic or something to be looked at with unfounded suspicion?
When the fck did we turn into a country where we let the Taliban try, convict and execute American citizens… for ANY reason?! When the fck did we turn into a country that blasts American citizens for not hating somebody else based on their religion (real or imagined)?? I mean, really?!
To be frank, it doesn't matter why Bergdahl ended up in the hands of the Taliban. We don't leave American citizens in the goddamn hands of the Taliban for any reason.
If Bergdahl was a deserter, a terrorist-sympathizer, a bed-wetter, a butt-scratcher, whateva, it should NOT be left to the Taliban to punish him for crimes (real or imagined) with which he has yet to be charged or convicted.
But the most appalling behavior came courtesy of those on the Right who are apparently too blinded by Obama's brown skin to side with their own government. There. I said it.
It's fine for those bastards to reasonably disagree with Obama from sun up to sun down on a number of issues. But when it comes to the issue of whether or not to leave military men and women in the hands of "terrorists", there shouldn't be any question.
Seeing the Right-wing openly siding with the Taliban by hoping they would have killed an American service member is HEINOUS. It cannot be tolerated!
Bergdahl was released in exchange for 5 Taliban prisoners — prisoners who would have had to be released at the end of the year anyway. But Republicans' heads are exploding over this prisoner exchange and formerly reasonable people are questioning if the U.S. got a raw deal. (Looking at you, Chris Matthews)
To that point, radio talk show host Joe Madison took a figurative two-by-four to the knees of this GOP argument.
Madison appeared on Politics Nation (June 5 2014) and said:
"Do you think that we'd have ever, any of us would have ever…seen the day when we would actually hear that a red-blooded American young man is worth less than 5 Taliban? Because that's what they're really saying. I never thought I would live to see that day happen and yet here is exactly what we have."
Hell yes, I wholeheartedly agree. To question what America gained by releasing 5 Taliban soldiers in exchange for an American life is to state that Taliban fighters — and their indefinite imprisonment — are worth more than the freedom of an American soldier captured during war.
I wonder how POW John McCain would have reacted to an American government who left him in captivity because it had a better hand than the people they were fighting? I mean, really?! There's some $hit that you just don't do, and leaving an American POW in the hands of the Taliban is one of them.
== Read Congressional Veterans Letter to Roger Ailes of Fox News ==
Come hell or high water, I hope these people suffer the consequences of talking out of their asses about Bergdahl's health, his family and his motivations for doing whatever it is he allegedly did.
I don't know what the fck happened. And if you're reading this post, neither do you. But I do know it shouldn't be left to some group in Afghanistan — terrorists or not — to determine whether to kill or save the life of an American service member who was held captive during a war.
So what would make these people believe it was okay to commit political suicide over the issue of Bergdahl's release?
Joe Conason (The National Memo) appearing on The Reid Report today (June 5 2014) characterized the Right's response to Bergdahl's release as vicious.
He said:
"…Now it's just pure, I think, pure viciousness directed at the President a lot of times. There's nothing funny about it… We're seeing the wholesale abandonment of some really basic principals here."
Conason also expressed scathing criticism of the 28% or so of the American people who simply don't care about anything other than hating/stopping/fighting Obama saying:
"You can't get to them because they are programmed to — and they hate the President, I will say. And its quite irrational."
He continued:
"… The President was re-elected just like Bill Clinton. He kicked the butt of their candidate and they don't like that, along with a host of other things they don't like about him… That's the real problem here and they can't let it go."
Conason's most stinging comments came at the end of the segment though:
"Its an outrage, okay, that the Republican party in a coordinated way has cooked up a lynch mob against an American soldier.
I don't care what he did. Its up to the Pentagon to discover what he did in a judicial proceeding that they will oversee. Not Reince Priebus. Not any of his minions or stooges. Its an outrage that they're doing that to a soldier. "
Later that same day, Conason was on Politics Nation and was even more blunt about what is really going on with the entrenched Republican resistance to anything with the name Obama attached to it.
Conason told Al Sharpton:
"It will never stop. The reason is [Obama] won reelection. He defeated them… They don't like to lose. They don't like to lose, I will say, to an African American Democrat, especially…
There's a whole range of reasons why they cannot accept him. And when I say 'they' I'm talking about a minority of Americans obviously, but very loud. They have Fox News. They have a whole host of — a huge media machine.
They will never stop with this. 'Muslim' is the convenient slur to use against him."
Republicans have jumped the shark repeatedly on everything from Benghazi and the IRS to "welfare cowboy" Cliven Bundy. But this is the last goddamn straw!
Since a divided house cannot stand, at this point I'm completely suspicious of Right-wing members of the GOP who have blasted the decision to bring an American troop back home.
If they would do this over Bergdahl's release, who's to say they wouldn't side with an enemy attacking President Obama? Maybe they'll claim he did something to deserve it?
If they would do this over Bergdahl, who's to say they wouldn't side with enemies of the United States in order to make Obama look like a failed President? Maybe the enemy of their enemy is a friend??
If they would do this over Bergdahl, who's to say they wouldn't politicize the murder of our Ambassadors in foreign countries and… oh, yeah. They've already done that last one: #Benghazi
It's not an option to outsource American military punishment to the Taliban. It's not an option to leave American military service men and women in captivity after a war if there is a reasonable way to free them. It's not an option to set the lives of Taliban fighters over the life of an American serving in the military.
And those three things stand IRRESPECTIVE of how black Obama's skin is, or whether you think he's a "secret Muslim", or whether you think he's a Socialist, Communist, Nazi Dictator who's powerless, indecisive and feckless.
I would suggest that these people should be ashamed of themselves. But you'd have to have a conscience in order to feel shame.
@whisperdispatch
// Extra //
http://www.correntewire.com/congressional_veterans_write_roger_ailes_re_peters_call_pows_murder