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Sounds like there’s going to be a nice homecoming celebration in Sgt. Bergdahl’s home town:
… In churches on Sunday and among the steady stream of residents sharing information at Zaney’s River Street Coffee House, Sergeant Bergdahl’s release dominated all talk. The focus was both on what he had gone through and on what they all could expect in the future…
A main focus of attention was at Zaney’s, where people have gathered throughout the town’s continuing vigil to grab tidbits of information about Sergeant Bergdahl’s captivity and efforts to gain his release. “For nearly five years there has been a constant flow of people in here,” said Sue Martin, the owner of the cafe, where Sergeant Bergdahl once worked for about two years. “The first thing I felt was relief.”
Debbie ONeill and her daughter, Stefanie, have been leading much of the public vigil and are organizers of a second-annual event scheduled for June 28 that was to be called Bring Bowe Back 2014, intended to focus attention to the soldier’s plight. Carole King is scheduled to perform along with Travis Hardy.
Some 7,000 people were expected to attend, but interest began to skyrocket on Saturday, Ms. ONeill said.
“Now it’s going to be called Bowe Is Back, and it’s going to be a big party,” she said….
And the Daily Beast reports that certain GOP paranoids are already whining about fantastic possibilities:
… Republicans on Capitol Hill worry that the swap of these Taliban leaders for American hostage Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is a prelude to a bigger move—the emptying out of Guantanamo entirely.
In his 2014 State of the Union address, Obama promised to shutter the prison built on Cuban soil by the end of the year. Obama now has seven months to fulfill his latest promise to shut down Guantanamo—or come as close to it as he can. During that time, Congress will be unable to prevent the release of the 149 prisoners still there.
“This whole deal may have been a test to see how far the administration can actually push it, and if Congress doesn’t fight back they will feel more empowered to move forward with additional transfers,” said one senior GOP senate aide close to the issue. “They’ve lined up all the dominoes to be able to move a lot more detainees out of Guantanamo and this could be just the beginning.”…
***********
Apart from living in hope, what’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
Mustang Bobby
I would love it if the Republicans, including that alleged human John Bolton, would show up in Haley, Idaho, and explain exactly why Bowe should be rotting in some basement in Afghanistan. I’d chip in for the tar and feathers.
Oh, and where was their moral outrage when a certain administration traded arms for hostages?
Other than that, it’s the first Monday of the month, so I get to start on financial projections. Yip yah.
Patricia Kayden
So why do the GOP (and some Democrats) fear the transfer of inmates from Guantanamo? What is so magical about that particular prison site? I hope President Obama is able to transfer all of the prisoners out of there before the end of his presidency.
It was nice to see how happy Sgt Bergdahl’s parents looked knowing that their son will be returning to them soon.
Baud
Hmmm. So when Congress abdicates its responsibility for governing, the Executive rushes in to fill the void. Hoocoodanode? (Well, except the Framers, of course.)
thruppence
“I’m just an animal lookin’ for a home
and we share the same space for a minute or two”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFeforW2ycI
Gearing up to be a first time poll worker for Tuesday’s California primary…
Brendan in NC
@Patricia Kayden: Because it refutes their assertions that these are the baddest of the bad guys. And they get off on torture.
OzarkHillbilly
@Brendan in NC: I disagree. I think it’s because the shuttering of Gitmo would show the utter and complete failure of Bush era policies, that the rule of law can, and given a chance will work, and that the bogeyman terrorists are for the most part little more sheep in wolves clothing.
Either that or the GOP is just full of raging arseholes. It’s a toss up.
Schlemizel
@OzarkHillbilly:
To quote America’s greatest living philosopher, “Why not both?”
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemizel: That 3.
Schlemizel
It is interesting how hard they are working to make Sgt Bergdahl the bad guy in this. It’s amazing how they all know he actually deserted and of course he succomed to torture and turned into a propaganda tool for the Taliban.
No life is safe as long as these mental midgets are allowed a platform to attack from.
debbie
@Mustang Bobby:
Bolton: The new Fred Phillips.
FlipYrWhig
@Schlemizel: Especially considering that succumbing to torture and becoming a propaganda tool also qualifies you to be a Village favorite and Republican presidential candidate.
Mustang Bobby
@debbie: Yeah, but Fred Phelps could never grow the Mustache of Doom.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Fred Phelps?
Brendan in NC
@OzarkHillbilly: @Schlemizel: you put it much better than I…
Southern Beale
Apparently GOP is really all in on the “we should let an American POW rot in an Afghan prison” thing. I was arguing with a guy on Twitter last night about it. Apparently we can’t trust Qatar because Reasons even though we have been using that country as a base of operations for our Iraqi adventures for 20 years.
Republican really are horrible people. If Bergdahl died in that Afghani prison they’d complain Obama hadn’t done enough to save him. Obama really can’t win for losing with these racist fuckwads.
OzarkHillbilly
@Southern Beale: A real man would have sent Seal Team 6 in to get him…. Wait a minute, I don’t think that plays the way they want it to.
BC
Hmmm elections in November are just before Veterans Day. If the Democratic Party had any emotional messaging sense, they would use this against every GOPer who is against this trade. Put the Republican candidate in the position of having to defend wanting to leave our soldiers in captivity because of some legal technicality. Their position – “Obama didn’t give us 30 days as legally required” – really is that we should let a technicality be valued over a POW’s health. Our message – we really care about the soldiers and will do whatever we can to return them to US soil – should have the emotional edge over the legalistic whining of the conservatives. Bet not one Democratic candidate will do this.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yeah, sorry. He was already fading from memory.
Comrade Scrutinizer
CNN’s website lede this morning:
NotMax
@some above
He was not being held in an Afghan prison.
gelfling545
I think the President missed a chance here. He should have said “Only 5? Here, take ’em all.” Whether it’s 5 or 1 or any other number, he’s going to take a heap of abuse for actually doing something.
Chyron HR
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Fellow soldiers: “Bergdahl is the meanest, rottenest, most evil son of a bitch I’ve ever known in my life.”
(The ‘Reverse Manchurian’ is not as sexy as the name led me to believe.)
scav
Voting, recognized marriages and families, welfare in times of need, respect for military service, govt intervention when in difficulties abroad, medical insurance and even health care, living wages at home. . . All part of the American Dream, so long as you personally. have the hard-line GOP seal of approval. Other technical co-citizens need not apply.
sm*t cl*de
If the Taliban were willing to trade the dude for 5 Guantanamo detainees accused of being linked to the Taliban, we are led to the conclusion that no other detainees are linked to the Taliban. Because otherwise they would have negotiated for six, or seven.
Kay
@gelfling545:
He has to end that war. They’re all going to scream, but someone has to end it and the President is the only one who can. What was the alternative? Leave him there forever?
He also has to close the Cuban prison. I suppose he could hand it off to the next President, as the prior President handed it off to him when he rode off into the sunset, but that would be really irresponsible and completely politically motivated. They know there’s no “solution” to the Cuban prison. They’ve been passing it around the three branches for more than a decade. Obviously Congress doesn’t want it and courts don’t want it so that leaves one person.
Botsplainer
Is it just me, is is Bergdahl’s mom kind of hot in that “I’m a really good girl with a really naughty side” kind of way?
Southern Beale
@Kay:
Congress has made sure that will never happen. They cut off funding for Gitmo trials, they made sure no tax $ can be used to house detainees in U.S. prisons. They fearmongered about bringing the detainees to US, they howled in protest to prevent us from even relocating the damn Uighers, whom everyone admits were no threat. They mandated military detention for Al Qaeda detainees.
And then you have idiots on the right saying “Obama promised to close Gitmo and didn’t, broken promises, weak president, blah blah blah.” It’s fucking infuriating.
PurpleGirl
@Chyron HR:
(The ‘Reverse Manchurian’ is not as sexy as the name led me to believe.)
Maybe not but it’s still a good formulation. LOL
Southern Beale
@BC:
GOP already poisoning that well by portraying Bergdahl as a deserter, traitor, at best an incompetent who put troops at risk by abandoning his post, forcing US to expend resources and energy getting him back. Just heard Major Garrett on CBS say there will be no hero’s welcome for him.
Saving Jessica Lynch this is not.
Let the character assassination begin.
The Other Bob
If the GOP in Congress really has a problem with WHO the U.S. traded for Bergdahl, they could have vounteered to trade themselves. I am sure the Taliban would have love to detain a Congressman.
OzarkHillbilly
@Southern Beale:
What is really infuriating is the idiots on the left saying that.
Tommy
Welcome home solider!!!!!!!!!!
One of my earliest memories, I was like four. 1974. Dad teaching at the Army War College. Fort Leavenworth, KS. Dad took me to see John McCain speak. Maybe not what a four year old should hear. It was fucking horrifying. At the end of it, and it was in what was called “the great hall” I saw the longest and most loud standing ovation ever. He made it home.
Patrick
@OzarkHillbilly:
Which just goes to show that there are idiots on both sides of the isle. Hell, Bernie Sanders voted to block the closure of Gitmo.
scav
@Southern Beale: Going for the obvious response. Well fuck their “Heroes” and only certain need apply. This will be a family celebration of one of the kin being home. Fatted calf BBQ or not. They can go party with Bundy and his band of patriots drawing beads on govt officials and tear-up over star-spangled heroism with the line-up of five-star determent Joes they march to the tune of.
Kay
@Southern Beale:
I don’t really believe that. I get the legalities and I see your point, but the whole thing has been in many ways extralegal, so I’m not sure how he gets out of it with ordinary process. They know that. They’re just covering their own hides.
It’s a good argument for not setting up systems that are outside any of the rules, they’re impossible to unwind INSIDE the rules, but that’s the future.
The President, any President, who has to wind down these wars was never going to be a hero. It’s just a slog. He hasn’t gotten any credit for getting out of Iraq, nor will he. I sort of “get” the anguish because obviously ending it means there’s a reckoning on whether it was “worth it”, all that – a lot of this resistance is to me a proxy for a real debate on the war(s) but someone still has to end it.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Southern Beale: Until and unless some one comes up with actual evidence that Bergdahl deserted (a term which has a specific meaning), I think that Susan Rice’s statement that “he was an American prisoner of war captured on the battlefield” is all that needs to be said in response. The party in his hometown isn’t designed to recognize him as a hero, but rather to welcome him home. I don’t think the GOP has any idea how ugly their actions look to a rational observer.
TS
@Southern Beale:
If President Obama is for it – the GOP are against it – since inauguration day 2009.
Southern Beale
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
You got that right.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
I happen to know the guy. Can confirm he’s pissed at the GOP.
Tommy
@Kay: Outside the law is key. My state has a “Super Max” prison with nobody in it. We offered to take anybody from Gitmo. I mean we got the darn place built, it is just sitting there. Even far right people in Congress, from the area, were for it. Our Governor was for it. Heck everybody I know was for it. Of course, didn’t happen.
Anya
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Jack Tapper, Daily Beast and Politico are dutifully spreading the message about Bergdahl being a deserter who caused American lives.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Anya: I would ask them why, if he was a deserter did the army promote him to sergeant while he was a prisoner? He was a PFC when captured and is a sergeant now. Now, I know I served in the old army back when polished boots were the norm, but I doubt that it has changed so much that promoting deserters has become official policy.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): My father was over this weekend. This was noted. He is a military guy. He stood up and clapped. I could care less and pretty sure my father could care less if he deserted. There are so many things I don’t like about our military but the one thing I love is we bring home our own. In the video embedded above they told him, “we’ve been looking for you.” I don’t dough that for a second!
Patrick
@Tommy:
Which state are you from? One of the main news channels had a segment on a Supermax prison in Montana that was empty. The people in charge of the prison said they wanted to fill it with prisoners from gitmo. But then the news team interviewed locals who said they wanted nobody from Gitmo to come to their state. One 30-year old mother was almost in tears as she talked about how scared she was for her two-year child if Gitmo detainees was allowed to be in their prison (As if these detainees are some kind of supermen).
Kay
@Tommy:
No one pays any attention to people in prison. No one pays any attention when they actually try terrorists, either. We had this brief period where Republicans were screaming purely for political advantage but the actual trials are on like pg. 31 and then the convicted disappear into the prison system never to be heard from again.
It offends me because it’s so irresponsible. It’s just people who are dug-in and won’t budge because their worldview and egos are on the line. It was stupid to establish that prison with no way to try anyone and no way to close it down. It was moronic. They should just admit they were all puffed up and grandiose and they abandoned process and listened to radicals who don’t think past next week. The arrogance it takes to think one can abandon a process that’s been built up so laboriously over time and come up with a better one on the fly is just breathtaking.
Tommy
@Patrick: Illinois. I did a Google search to post a link, cause it was a thing and we really wanted them, but alas all the links were to super liberal sites. Not a major news organization.We thought it might work, cause well you know Obama is from freaking Illinois. Clearly it didn’t.
Patrick
@Tommy:
This is not a local poll, but still. Even 50% of Democrats were against moving Gitmo detainees to the Illinois prison. Obama would be an idiot if he did such an unpopular move. Obama is not the problem. It is an American public that think Al Queda is some kind of supermen who can easily break out of any man-made prison.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124727/americans-oppose-closing-gitmo-moving-prisoners.aspx
Tommy
@Kay: We’ve shown time and time again we can try and when guilty convict terrorist in this nation. It is a rant Glenn Greenwald goes on all the time. It is just something we can and have done. Successfully I might add.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Kay: They stuck themselves with the tribunals because the evidence they had against these folks was largely inadmissible in any actual courtroom in the country. And because they couldn’t conceive that the people they captured should be treated as prisoners of war because then rules would apply.
D58826
@Anya: Several semi-related points.
1. Just for the sake of the argument say he did desert, we still don’t leave American soldiers on the battlefield
2. There is something called due process, even in the military. Lets get his side of the story. If it doesn’t add up then hold a court marshal.
3. American soldiers have died trying to recover the bodies of fall comrades. We don’t leave American behind.
4. So Obama ‘broke’ the law. When he signed the legislation he attached a signing statement that questioned the constitutionality of that section of the bill. It wasn’t that long ago that Bush and his cronies argued that the unitary executive gave the commander-in-chief the power to ignore acts of congress and on his own authority declare them unconstitutional. I don’t remember the GOP objecting.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Tommy: Actually, there are a lot of people we can never try. Many of those currently in Gitmo, for example. Much of the evidence showing them to be terrorists was illegally obtained, of dubious value, or both. Torture, it’s a problem.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Right, so that was dumb and now we all have to pay up and rectify the mistake. They should have to pay with the political risk of release or transfer because the rest of us are already paying. Hagel said yesterday he wouldn’t have agreed to the terms if he thought the risk was too high. That’s an actual shouldering of responsibility.
I love how they palmed it off on the military after Bush punted and then courts kicked it back to Congress. Just cowards all the way down. They gave it to the people who can’t refuse it.
I don’t really mind that Obama has to do it. I knew no one else was going to do it. After a decade you get that they’re all scared :)
Paul in KY
@D58826: You can go AWOL, without being a deserter.
Sgt. Bergdahl sounds like the kind of guy who will admit to being AWOL, if that is the case. If so, he will receive some kind of punishment from his unit CO & then either move on with his career or be discharged.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
It was disgusting how conservative dogma informed everything. The language was always so careful in that period. They wouldn’t allow any words to be used that would take it out of their narrow theory. It’s so completely insane that Dick Cheney’s anger at the perceived loss of executive power after Nixon’s resignation (and subsequent events) was driving everything. It’s so incredibly selfish that we all have to deal with this one person’s decade’s long grudge.
D58826
@Paul in KY: thanks for the clarification. Either way he is afforded due process and allowed to tell his side of the story. There used to be a silly notion called innocent until proven guilty. I guess that went out with high buttoned shoes
PurpleGirl
@Patrick: So Gitmo wasn’t planned and built by humans… G-d whipped it up overnight by a mere thought? The whole situation makes the country look juvenile and immature to any ally who thinks about it for a minute.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Paul in KY: Also, simply wandering outside the perimeter fence does not necessarily equal being AWOL. Nor does getting lost on patrol.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Excellent point, sir.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Sgt. Berghdahl has the distinction of being the first American soldier to have the GOP turn its back on him before he came home and mustered out.
The GOPs claim that he’s a deserter, a claim that has absolutely no evidence to support it, doesn’t hold water for me. Who the fuck would desert in a country whose population is largely hostile towards you? It’s not like he’d blend in with the local people. This incident should serve to convince any remaining doubters that there isn’t a shred of decency left in the GOP.
Anya
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Excellent point. I wish someone mentions that when the traitorous assholes accuse the solder of being a deserter. To me, even if he was, doesn’t make him less worthy of rescue. America send a 20 year old to an unjust war and they expect him to endure his experience without any damage to his mental health. Fuck these callous assholes.
@D58826: Republicans hate for Obama is so overwhelming they even their usual jingoistic military worshiping ways fail them.
Jay C
@D58826:
Yes, today it’s been replaced by the Internet.
Bob In Portland
The war in Ukraine continues, thanks to US tax dollars. The Kiev forces are hitting civilian housing with mortars and rockets, and over the weekend jets have been bombing civilian areas.
Is this just an exercise until WIlly Wonka agrees to talk with the eastern Ukrainian rebels, or are we going for genocide here? Gin and Tonic should give us a hint.