Saving Private Bergdahl

Bergdahl sh**storm in the forecast
hat tip duffelblog.com

An extremely angry guy from Maine called in to the Howie Carr Show last week. He had served in Afghanistan with Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier for whom President Obama had, last May, exchanged five hardened Taliban terrorists imprisoned at Gitmo. He was angry at Bergdahl for deserting his post and endangering his unit, but mostly because six of his fellow soldiers were killed after being sent out to look for him. His comments about President Obama, however, were worse. He didn’t swear or raise his voice or call him names, but his words were like ice.

Wish I had written them down but I was driving. He was appalled that, rather than be tried for treason as he should have been, Bergdahl got $300,000 in back pay, two promotions, was made to look like a hero, and given a desk job at an army base in Texas. He blamed the president for spitting in the face of American soldiers like himself who served their country honorably in far away wars. Never having been a soldier myself I couldn't know exactly how he felt, but there was no mistaking his outrage. Other callers, including a former Army Ranger, said Bergdahl should be executed.

Obama had been taking enormous heat last May over the VA Hospital scandal, and he hoped to push that story off the front page with a rather bizarre White House Rose Garden ceremony announcing a “prisoner swap” - Bergdahl for five Gitmo terrorists. Bergdahl’s father looked like he belonged to the Taliban himself with his scrufffy beard and ponytail. Then he spoke in Arabic and an English translation of what he said was: ”In the name of Allah the most gracious and most merciful…” with Obama looking on, smiling. Afterward, the president walked him and his wife back into the White House with his arms around both, satisfied that their performance would turn his press coverage around. Bergdahl’s home town was planning a parade in his honor.

It all went great for a few hours — right up until Bowe Bergdahl’s fellow platoon members claimed Bergdahl was a deserter, not a prisoner of war. Obama went out of the frying pan and into the fire. His spin machine went into high gear with anonymous quotes from White House aides suggesting the soldiers were lying. They were “Swiftboating” poor Private Bergdahl, said NBC’s Obama kiss-up Chuck Todd. Bergdahl’s home town believed them, however, and cancelled the parade.

"You cannot defeat an enemy you do not admit exists."

The Maine guy and other callers claimed the whole affair pointed up the growing split between our rank and file military and our commander-in-chief. Former senior officers claimed the president still lacks a strategy. Obama’s former Defense Intelligence Agency chief General Michael Flynn said last week: “You cannot defeat an enemy you do not admit exists.” Three Obama Secretaries of Defense have resigned. Democrats in the Senate are ready to defy Obama on Iran sanctions. One, Bob Menendez (D-NJ), said Obama’s talking points on Iran nuclear negotiations sound like they’re “straight out of Tehran.”

Retired Colonel Tony Shaffer said Bowe Bergdahl’s lawyers were given a “statement of charges,” the military equivalent of an indictment for desertion, before Pentagon spokesman Admiral Kirby denied it. Looks like still another scandal will be buried indefinitely by the Obama Administration — just like the IRS, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and all the rest with mainstream media cooperation. What happens to those who don’t cooperate? Ask former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, who says anyone who crosses Obama is treated like an “enemy of the state.” Consider how closely and relentlessly the mainstream media probed deflated Patriot footballs. If they gave half that scrutiny to just one Obama scandal, the president would be impeached. As Tom Brady put it: [This] “isn’t ISIS. No one’s dying.”

We’ve all seen “Saving Private Ryan,” and I can’t help thinking of it when hearing about the six guys who died looking for Bergdahl. I got choked up when Tom Hanks, playing Captain Miller, told Matt Damon’s Private Ryan: “Earn this.” I got choked up again when Ryan returned as an old man with his family to the graves of the men who saved him. Didn’t you? It was fiction, yes, but it was a very American thing. We know the guys in Bergdahl’s platoon were telling the truth when they said he was a deserter. Only diehard Obama robots have any doubt.

That makes Obama’s screw up extremely damaging and he knows it. The Pentagon wrapped up the Bergdahl investigation in October, so how long can the president keep the lid on? And there are all his other scandals. He’s still got almost two more years before he leaves office.

The guy from Maine isn’t the only American who has had enough of this commander-in-chief.