Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We still have time to mess this up!

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Their freedom requires your slavery.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / This Is How the System is Supposed to Work

This Is How the System is Supposed to Work

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Sgt. Bergdahl is going to face two court-martial charges– desertion and something something with the enemy, as just reported by NBC News.

As I have stated repeatedly (and Sooner has as well), this is how the system is supposed to work. You bring American soldiers home any time you can. You don’t decide “ehh, fuck em” and leave them behind for the enemy. If they have done something that violates UCMJ, you bring them home and let military justice take its course.

I will note that the timing of the announcement seems to be planned (hastily, probably) to undercut any sympathy that his “Serial” appearances might create, but I have no evidence whatsoever to support that and think so only because I am a cynical bastard older than the age of two. So, of course, that’s evidence enough to blog, amirite?

Reader Interactions

73Comments

  3. 3.

    Ken

    And it must be remembered that “bring them home” was the talking point on the right, until he was brought home. Then by Cleek’s Law, suddenly we’re supposed to “leave them there”.

  5. 5.

    Bill

    I have not served, so I recognize that my opinion may carry less weight than some other’s. But I thought the military took “leave no one behind” seriously. Doesn’t that imply not leaving behind those we may have to court martial upon their return?

  9. 9.

    Peale

    @Davebo:

    Serial is a podcast exploring a nonfiction story over multiple episodes. First released in October 2014, it is a spinoff of the radio program This American Life. Episodes vary in length and are available weekly. It ranked number one on iTunes even before its debut and remained there for several weeks.[1] Serial won a Peabody Award, the first of its kind, in April 2015.
    Sarah Koenig hosts the series, which was co-created and is co-produced by Koenig and Julie Snyder, both producers of This American Life.

    I didn’t know either. I guess I’m not hip to all the latest NPR spin-offs.

  11. 11.

    Jon Marcus

    They shouldn’t have had to scramble to respond to Serial, the podcasts can’t have come as a surprise. If they are scrambling, it’s because someone f-ed up…which does sound completely plausible, actually.

  12. 12.

    Trabb's Boy

    I can absolutely see why the military wants to counteract the influence of the show. It’s pretty irresponsible to be turning it into a story for ratings before the justice system has had a chance to work. That said, the first episode was fascinating and I can’t wait for the rest of it.

  13. 13.

    GoBlue72

    @Origuy: Sarah Keonig’s Serial was talk of the left-leaning middlebrow cognoscenti for several months in late 2014. It’s the first podcast to win a Peabody Award. The first season was about the murder of a high school student in the late 1990s by her ex-boyfriend, which eventually led, after Season One concluded, to the case being re-opened.

    If I recall, it reached to the level of general awareness in the cultural zeitgeist to merit a spoof skit on SNL.

  14. 14.

    Sasha

    I wonder how often the convening authority ignores the recommendation of the preliminary hearing officer? According to Bergdahl’s attorney, he recommended a special court martial, not a general. I cannot help but wonder if this was a political decision aimed at hurting the President.

  15. 15.

    ? Martin

    @Origuy:

    but does Serial have that kind of clout?

    Yes, it does. It won a Peabody and with 68 million downloads for the first season, it has a larger reach than the New York Times. And unlike the NYT, Serial is delivering a single story in great detail. Serial is huge.

  17. 17.

    ? Martin

    @GoBlue72:

    Sarah Keonig’s Serial was talk of the left-leaning middlebrow cognoscenti for several months in late 2014.

    I think it was a bit broader than just that. My son turned me on to it and he said a number of his classmates were listening, so I think it’s also hit the high-school/college crowd who generally don’t watch TV.

  19. 19.

    Myiq2xu

    @Ken: “Bring them home” applies to POW’s, not deserters and traitors. Trading five terrorists for a deserter is not something the right has ever advocated.

  20. 20.

    goblue72

    @? Martin: Interesting. The college student thing doesn’t surprise me – I considered them part of the “left-leaning middlebrow cognoscenti” included within my snark. The high school thing on the other hand is a bit surprising.

    But I’m young enough to have been around when the World Wide Web was invented and I am old enough to have been around when the World Wide Web was invented. So while perfectly comfortable with technology, its also not jacked into my brain in the same organic way it is for school kids these days. I forget that “on the Internet” is the same thing for young people as “on TV” is for my middle-aged cohort, or “in the paper” or “on the radio” is for seniors.

  22. 22.

    Punchy

    Unabashedly stickin’ it to the Negros, Part 794….

    Missouri trying desperately to take the lead in the Shittiest State in the Nation Race. Indiana’s lead decreasing by the day.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Myiq2x0:

    Funny, you guys didn’t start whining about him being a “deserter” until it was announced that a deal had been made to bring him home. Right up until that exact moment, you were screeching about how Obama had cruelly left one of “our boys” behind to be tortured by evil Islamists. Now, suddenly, we shouldn’t have brought him home at all.

    When that happens, do you guys get a mass email, or does it get posted on a Facebook group telling you what the new talking points should be?

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    To the actual story, I think I remember SG linking to some reports that Bergdahl had a bit of a history of going AWOL while he was still stationed stateside. It sounded like that could be part of the defense against the desertion charge, since AWOL and desertion are not considered the same thing? Hoping someone will help me out here.

  30. 30.

    Gavin

    Bergdahl sounds disconnected from reality. His “motivation”, as he states it on Serial, is simply not a thing.

    Why would anyone support Bergdahl regarding anything?

    I just don’t understand what the issues are with getting him back – or charging him with desertion. He needs long-term mental health counseling at the VA.. not publicity..

    Republicans called for him to be brought home.. and now are shocked [SHOCKED!] that he simply isn’t the person they were told he was.

    The prosecution isn’t political in any way – the dude isn’t [and probably never was] all there.

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    @Bill:
    Only semi connected to this story but there was a sailor blown overboard off aircraft carrier while on flight ops. I was stationed on a DDG on plane guard duty. We searched for hours, along with helicopters and other ships. His helmet and lifejacket were all that were found and the search was called off after several hours. But we looked until it was hopeless as it was extremely unlikely that he could have survived a fall of over 75 feet and stayed afloat that long with no lifejacket. And he was blown overboard by the blast of jet that he was specifically told not to walk behind.
    You don’t leave a man behind. You look until there is no more looking to be done. If for no other reason, the military needs obedience and willingness to do very dangerous duty. If everyone knows that you are just going to shrug off their situation and cross off another number when you are in deep shit, obedience and duty become just words.

  37. 37.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): AWOL (Absent Without Leave) is not being present when you’re supposed to be, as opposed to AWL (Absent With Leave). Desertion is intending never to return once you’ve gone AWOL, and also too being AWOL for over thirty days.

  39. 39.

    Jay C

    @Myiq2fu:

    Also, isn’t the fact of Bergdahl being a “deserter” the basic issue a court-martial is designed to decide upon?

    Of course, this presupposes that the US Army knows its own principles and procedures of military justice better than, say, a bunch of random bloggers and blog-commenters; obviously, YMMV

  41. 41.

    Ruckus

    @goblue72:
    Refuse to believe that anyone is that dumb?
    Come on now. Haven’t you ever heard the phrases “Hold my beer” or “Watch this”?
    What should boggle the mind is that there are actually people smart enough to move far away when someone says that.

  42. 42.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Myiq2xu: He wasn’t considered to be “a deserter” until that damn ni*CLANG* arranged to bring him home. Dogshit on the right (like yourself) were screaming that Obama had to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE (and impossible) to bring him home, until he was brought home. Then he was a deserter.

    People like you make me stabby, shouty, and shooty.

  43. 43.

    Bill

    @Ruckus: Thanks for this story. Are you saying that “nobody’s left behind” is important because it keeps troops motivated in dangerous situations? If so, that makes complete sense, and is not a way I’d ever thought of it. I always just looked at it form the “it’s the right thing to do” perspective.

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    A sack of hammers can be put to good use. Not on their own of course, which is why it’s a meaningful saying, any human dumber than that is only useful as a hat rack.

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @schrodinger’s cat: That fucker Obama, he somehow managed to persuade the deserting coward and the Dark Lord to invade and fuck up Iraq to set the stage for the rise of Daesh.

    He’s both shiftless and endlessly cunning and industrious. He’s like a floor wax AND a dessert topping.

  46. 46.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Sasha: Probably not. The level of court martial has to do with who the convening authority is. In this case, the commander of Forces Command, who is a general officer.

  47. 47.

    Ruckus

    @Bill:
    It is the right thing to do.
    My point is that there are other reasons as well. Most of the people on the flight deck that I got to talk to later wondered why they bothered to look for such a dufus. A simple answer is that it could have been anyone of them, blown overboard after doing nothing wrong. You’d still want them to look.

  48. 48.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Villago Delenda Est: Apparently the Sunni insurgency was vanquished because of the surge. The troop withdrawal made Maliki go power mad, he got rid of the Sunnis in the government on trumped up charges. Sunnis felt threatened, lo and behold we had ISIS.

    Now the admin is not doing enough to help the Iraqi government get rid of ISIS.

  49. 49.

    raven

    @Ruckus: Remember in the HBO “The Pacific” as they approached Iow Jima in a huge convoy. A bunch of the jar heads were yukking it up until they realized the convoy was not going to stop.

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ruckus: What, you don’t think some people are tools? Look at the Tea party folks, not only do they protest, write letters, and go to town halls to push for the Koch Brothers agenda, they even send the KB money to defray the cost of the newsletters telling them what to believe.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    I’ll remind any resident wingnuts of their demands that Obama personally “bring back” the moron, gun-running ex-Marine who got his ass arrested in Mexico. With guns and ammo. Which he was not issued by the U.S. government and was forbidden to have in Mexico.

    Y’all are perpetually confused.

  53. 53.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Gavin: All the more reason to push back against the notion that he’s an evil deserter consorting with the enemy who needs to do hard time in Leavenworth?

  55. 55.

    Another Holocene Human

    @trollhattan: I especially enjoyed the part where he left Mexico, got weapons out of his car parked on the US side, and returned. Hmmm why would he do that hmmmm.

    Also like Bitter Party Of One, my coworker, who angrily snarled that anyone could easily end up on a one way road to the Mexican border. From, you know, San Diego. (Bitter grew up in Texas, so #expertadvice.)

  56. 56.

    Ruckus

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I’m agreeing with you. Dumber than a bag of hammers is exactly right. I’m saying that people that dumb are only useful as a hat rack.

    They may be shitty hat racks as well.

  58. 58.

    Jon Marcus

    @Myiq2xu: I suppose Senator Inhofe (R-OK) isn’t of “The Right”? Because he said this (before Obama actually accomplished what Infore was grandstanding about):

    Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier, was taken prisoner by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network while deployed to Afghanistan in June 2009. Sen. Inhofe supported this amendment that raises awareness of SGT Bergdahl’s capture to continue to maximize efforts to return him and reminds the Senate of one of the basic pillars of the Army’s Warrior Ethos: ‘I will never leave a fallen comrade.’

    Inhofe added, “The mission to bring our missing Soldiers home is one that will never end. It’s important that we make every effort to bring this captured Soldier home to his family.”

    http://www.inhofe.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/inhofe-completes-successful-markup-of-national-defense-authorization-act

  59. 59.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Gavin:

    From some of the initial reports, it sounded like he may have had a screw loose well before he was sent to Afghanistan. But they needed warm bodies over there, so they sent him anyway.

    I do hope that any sentence he gets doesn’t deprive him of his VA health benefits. I’m pretty sure it would be tough to find a civilian counselor who could help him with his wartime issues.

  60. 60.

    Jay C

    @trollhattan:

    To be scrupulously honest, ex-Sgt Tahmooressi wasn’t actually accused of “gunrunning”, as he himself admitted that the seized weapons were his, and that he had just innocently forgotten about them when he found himself “trapped” going into Mexico (the “moron” part, IMO, is quite accurate).
    But probably because the sacred GUNZ!!! were involved, wingers made a BFD out of it….

  61. 61.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ruckus:

    I’m saying that people that dumb are only useful as a hat rack.

    Well, this where we don’t agree. The Koch brothers and crew have found these people to be very useful tools, look at 2010, 2014, remember the summer of angry town halls? The far right lurch of the GOP didn’t happen in a vacuum. We all point to the election of a certain black man in November 2008, but it is the reaction of these “hatracks” that has driven all the Republican gains in the House, Senate, and so many state govt’s.

    They aren’t smart enough to see how they are being used, but they are definitely useful.

  62. 62.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    Didn’t see that one.
    But I do remember the scene in Das Boot where they surfaced to sink a freighter that they had torpedoed earlier that wouldn’t sink. It looked deserted so the captain fired. As the torpedo hit they saw men running on deck and jumping in the water with fuel burning all around. The captain was absolutely flabbergasted that the men had been left behind. Worse, he had no way to take them on board and had to leave them to die. All of the men on deck were decimated, this was totally unexpected.

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ruckus: As I remember, the U-boat Cpt. had them machine gunned because if they got rescued they would report the U-Boat’s position and heading.(or some such reasoning) Great movie.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    I listened to the first Serial installment because he just interests me- not as far as military justice or whether he’s a deserter but more what he was thinking when he took off – how he thinks- how he believed this was ending well.

    I’m to the point where I think most sentences of any kind are way too long and harsh so my almost knee jerk sympathy is with nearly any defendant at this point. I know it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of being a majority position but I’d almost like to start over with the whole concept of incarceration at “zero” and add months (not years) from there for anything other than violent crime.

    You’d think he’d get “time served” for the period he was a prisoner. I know, probably not happening.

  68. 68.

    Jack

    @OzarkHillbilly: uh, no…the German captain DID NOT machine gun the survivors. He did back away from them, because there was no room for them on the U-Boat. WWII subs were very tight and claustrophobic, which I became when I made the mistake of watching the 6 hr version of Das Boot on HBO…

  69. 69.

    Mary Jane Leach

    So, should John McCain have been court martialed for disobeying orders (and losing a valuable aircraft while he was at it), when he was brought back to the US? Guess it pays to have an admiral for a father.

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    @Jack:
    I may have told this here before. Stationed in San Diego at school in 1970, I would spend time on a WWII sub that was still commissioned and had one crewmember, the captain, an E6. He of course let me give tours which was fun because the space that the ladder went into had had all the machinery, etc removed. 8-10 people could squeeze in fairly easily. Every time someone would comment on how much room there was. That’s when I’d take them into the boat and they’d freak out that people could live and work in that tight of space. From what I remember I’d bet that a U-Boat and one of our subs were about the same inside, space wise. An old surface ship seemed pretty roomy in comparison. And they weren’t spacious by any standard. I lived for two yrs on a DDG in a compartment 40×40 with 80 people, bunks, locker, aisles, ladders, missile magazines, an operating table and steam sterilizer.

    ETA It was still a whole lot nicer than a hutch or mud hole in Vietnam.

  73. 73.

    Procopius

    @Jon Marcus: I think there’s a certain tension here between PR needs and a sincere desire to adhere to the traditional military justice system. The first step after a soldier has been accused of something is to conduct what’s called an Article 32 investigation, because it’s required by Article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (USMJ hereafter). This usually should not take very long, because it’s supposed to serve the same function as a grand jury; just determine if there is plausible evidence that a (military) crime has been committed and that there’s reason to think the accused did it. The complete investigation is supposed to be the court martial, of which there are three levels. I don’t know why this investigation took so long. The system is subject to several types of corruption, the most common being “command influence.” The “convening authority,” the person authorized to convene a court martial, is a commanding officer in the accused’s chain of command. Changes have been made since the UCMJ was passed by Congress in 1949 to minimize command influence — like Obama, the commander in chief, commenting publicly that Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning was guilty of a crime. That could influence officers in the chain of command to arrange things to please their boss. In this case the boss might be some assistant deputy to an assistant Secretary of Defense who has to push military requests through Congress. If the UCMJ system is allowed to work the way it’s supposed to, it’s actually fairer than civilian justice. The accused is guaranteed a competent attorney, because the attorneys (officers in the Judge Advocate General branch) alternate between prosecuting and defending. This doesn’t always relieve them from pressure as we’ve seen in the fiasco at Guantanamo, where the defense attorneys have been told flat out, “No one can be acquitted.”

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