Bergdahl Prisoner Swap:Obama Obeys ONLY the Laws He Wants To.

If he did walk away, he was no longer a soldier in a war zone, he was a deserter and a traitor. All accounts I have read so far have pointed out that he walked away, left his rifle and vest, took his compass and left. Reports have said that all the equipment he left behind was "stacked neatly".

Just like any other soldier that disrespects their commander in chief? Or are you one of those that cheers the soldiers that do that?

" you always say I am wrong" is not an answer to the question " are you wrong about this". It is avoidance of the question.

No he would be a traitor to his fellow soldiers. Who cares about the Commander in Chief at this point. He left his battle buddies! He walked off and other soldiers died trying to find him. If he did indeed do this, he is a piece of ****.

For me it isn't about the CIC. It's sad that that is your concern. Think about the people who deployed with him. Those are the people you should be concerned with, not Obama.

"Moslem"? I've never heard of that language, is it akin to Christian?

So far all we have is conjecture. If there is enough truth to those allegations, then he will have to be tried for those crimes in a military court. In the meantime, he is considered a POW. He has sat in prison for five years and his health has reached an urgent point. Moreover, there was not negotiations with terrorist, we did not have talks with AQ, but talks with the leaders of Qatar who are going to keep the prisoners for a year in their custody.

You mean, Qatar is holding American prisoners of war?

Apart from attempts to slander those who disagree with you, there appears to be no substance at all to your responses to even the most thoughtful and serious issues addressed to you.
1. Obama once again exceeded his authority in doing this and made no as yet detectable attempt to coordinate with the Congress in doing so.
2. The individual soldier involved has been in the custody of his abductors for some time, and apart from the political theatrics of the moment, there appears to have been no reason to act now and with such haste.
3. There are reasons to suspect the soldier involved may have colluded in his continued in his captivity, either to avoid duty or for some other purpose. Not a reason to abandon him, but certainly a good reason to question the highly unusual step of acceding to the threats of terrorists to get his release. President Reagan was raked over the coals by Democrats for selling weapons that could never have been used effectively against us, and at inflated prices to Iranians in part to secure the release of a senior CIA operative who was known to have been tortured. There seems to be a serious forgetfulness of the principles involved in that event by Democrats today.
4. Even a sympathetic interpretation of the above facts should leave e a reasonable observer with a few questions about the motives and truthfulness of our President.
5. If you like your health plan you can keep it. If you like your doctor you can keep him. Period !

I beg to differ. There is plenty of evidence to convincingly suggest he did, including a Pentagon investigation that concluded he did. If you want to wait until someone develops a machine that can read his mind, that's fine, but it is hardly wild, mean-spirited speculation that he deserted.

What the impact of his desertion was or should have been on his captivity is a matter of opinion. The Pentagon, though, determined that it meant that extra-ordinary efforts to rescue him would not be employed. I've already stated my opinion that his desertion didn't mean that he should have died in captivity, but that it should have been taken into consideration when the decision to exchange him for five high risk Taliban detainees was made.

In addition, if al Jazeera is to be believed he wasn't treated like the protagonist in the series Homeland during his captivity. He enjoyed playing badminton, and helping with the cooking. The Taliban didn't force him to convert and developed a taste for the local tea. I suspect you trust al Jazeera as a news source more than do I, so I put virtually no stock in their reporting. He cannot have enjoyed his five years of captivity, to say the least.

It's unlikely that he will be brought up on charges when he returns to the US as the Administration has too much invested in him, but based on what is known about his situation he should be. Whether or not his five years in captivity would be considered "time served" if he was convicted is also a matter of opinion. I tend towards thinking it should.

If he walked away and either intentionally or unintentionally came to be taken by the Taliban, it's difficult for me to consider him an American POW and deserving of recognition in that regard; whatever the technical definition of the term might be.

I'm not sure where you are finding "complete disregard for him." I certainly haven't seen any of it in the comments made by Republican lawmakers, but maybe you have and can provide a quote or link. Maybe coldjoint's comments reflect a complete disregard for him, but if so, that's where you should point your objection and not fling it around like a blanket.

Are you seriously holding onto this reed thin argument that there were no negotiations with the Taliban (I assume you meant them and not al Qaeda who were not holding Bergdahl)?

The Taliban held Bergdahl. The Taliban released Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban detainees. Qatar may have been the go-between but the negotiations were with the Taliban.

And equally outrageous is the notion that somehow Qatar keeping the released detainees within its borders (not in a prison) for one year effectively mitigates the damage they can and almost certainly will do.

People died in Afghanistan. Killed by an IED doesn't mean they were looking for someone. The stories are all over the place from they stopped looking for him in 2009 to people died looking for him in 2010.

Perhaps you should think about the people deployed with him. They are of all political stripes and have their own motivations for making claims.

1. There is no evidence that Obama exceeded his authority. Presidents throughout time have negotiated the return of POWs or traded captives for US captives. I have read where the law claimed to require him to coordinate with Congress was done away with last December. There is a lot of speculation and those that claim he exceeded his authority are doing most of that speculation.
2. We don't know. There are stories that his health was bad. There is the fact the the US is pulling it's troops out soon. Both reasons to act now.
3. There were reasons to suspect that many of those held by the Japanese in WW2 colluded. Those held in Vietnam, like McCain, colluded. Your argument seems to be we should just leave them there if we have any suspicion. Congratulations on your desire to **** US soldiers simply because you suspect something without any proof.
4. If the above were true, that might be the case. Wishing the 3 claims to be true doesn't make them true. It only raises questions about your motives and why you want to leave US soldiers as POWs.
5. I see you don't have a real argument so you throw out RW crap to try to make one. Congratulations. Go **** yourself you heartless bastard.

No, Qatar will have custody of the five Afghans which were traded for the American prisoner of war.

The last gasp of a dummy who has run out of fallacies and rationalizations.

The word "custody" is used very loosely. Qatar has pledged that it will not allow the men to leave its borders for a period of one year, and it will "put in place measures to protect our national security."

Since the five Taliban will not be imprisoned in Qatar how can Qatar possibly make good on its assurances, and even if it keeps them buried in a hole in the desert for a year, after that time, the five men will be free to leave. Wherever they go, it would stretch credulity beyond the breaking point to believe they will have foresworn all violence and any animosity they may have for America.

Perhaps the Emir guaranteed the president that within a year or shortly thereafter they will all suffer unfortunate fatal accidents. Anything less makes the notion that these men will no longer present a danger to America or Americans utterly absurd.

Even if we accept that it was worth releasing these very dangerous and very violent men to rescue an American soldier being held by the Taliban, it is typical of the Obama Administration to lay on the BS and attempt to suggest that the deal doesn't carry with it a considerable risk. Can they even once shoot straight with the American people?

You noticed that too?

Not only did Susan Rice insist that the Administration complied with the law by providing prior notice of the negotiations (a claim that is disputed by more than one congressman) she went on to assert that Bergdahl served his country in Afghanistan with "honor and distinction."

Apparently she never bothers to check the veracity of the scripts she is handed in advance of her appearances on Sunday News Shows, or she is perfectly willing to say anything in support of this president.

Even if she discounted or didn't yet learn of the accounts being provided by other soldiers in Bergdahl's unit, the Pentagon concluded in its 2010 investigation of the matter that it was incontrovertible that Bergdahl had “walked away” from his unit, (That sure sounds like desertion to me), and the investigative report would have certainly have been available to her if she but asked for it. I can’t imagine even the most rabid of Obama apologists believes desertion constitutes serving with honor and distinction, and even if Rice was giving Bergdahl the most expansive benefit of the doubt possible, common sense, let alone political acumen, would dictate she not try to cast him in the role of a hero.

So why did she? What the heck is going on?

More of the same, that’s what.

Obama has suffered a series of setbacks, including the most damaging, the VA disaster and it was time to try and put a new shine on his image (particularly as respects veterans). Therefore a narrative was written of Obama honoring that most sacred of warrior oaths to never leave a man behind. Such a narrative, it must have been thought, would go a long way in restoring his image as a president who cares for our nation’s fighting men and women. There may have been negotiations going on over the past several months but the final deal got cooked up and agreed to just when it was needed, and since it was needed right then, the price of five top Taliban leaders was agreed to.The Emir of Qatar was Obama's guest at his West Point speech.

So the deal was done, a Rose Garden ceremony with the rescued soldier’s parent was staged, and Rice went on the Sunday shows to denounce Republicans who, motivated by petty partisanship, sought to tarnish this wonderful expression of commitment to our military; the safe return of an imprisoned war hero, a man who served with “honor and distinction.”

Either they were all too arrogant to even bother to make certain the narrative didn’t have any holes or they thought no one would care that it might and buy into the claim that any objection was mean-spirited and even un-patriotic. I’m sure they were meetings during which they chortled that they would choke dissenting Republicans with the very flag they love to wave.

I’ve read opinions that Bergdahl’s supposed crisis of conscious and shame in being American was either right up Obama’s alley or nothing that would give him pause, but I dismiss them. While I certainly don’t think his blood boils when he hears someone say they are ashamed to be an American (it doesn’t seem to have boiled when his wife stated she wasn’t proud of her country until her husband was elected) I think charges that he is somehow a traitor are absurd, and I’m convinced that he loves this country…almost as much as he loves himself. What I do think though is that he wasn’t even aware of the circumstances of Bergdahl’s desertion. He was too enthralled with the narrative to bother asking if it could stand up to any scrutiny, and if he didn’t know about the VA travesty or the IRS scandal or any of the other failures of his Administration until he read of them in the paper, why would we expect him to be more curious about the details around a single soldier’s plight in Afghanistan? Whether anyone in the Administration knew of the circumstances and why they might not tell him about them is anyone’s guess, but it boggles the mind that Chuck Hagel didn’t know and didn’t inform his boss.

There is a perhaps cynical or at least distrustful theory going around now that the deal was so desirable to Obama because it actually served two purposes: The narrative previously described and addressing a political failure that must be festering in his craw for six years now: His inability to make good on the action he promised to take his first day in office; ridding the US of the most blatant symbol of the an uncivilized America that his election promised to change - Closing Gitmo. On more than one occasion, Obama has asserted that Gitmo makes us less, not more, secure. So how much more secure we must now be with the five of the worst detainees released, and if they can be released for a good purpose why can’t others? Before his term is up, the theory goes, all the detainees will have been released and Gitmo will be closed. I would not be surprised in the least if this is the case.

Sense when have you given a crap about any foreign person? I used too think you were a descent person but your just another CJ.

That right there tells you that you never new what a "decent" person was. Your source is defective.

Somehow or other I can remember being 22 years old and thinking that Dick Nixon was the worst president there could ever possibly be.....

Isn't that quaint? I mean, how would you describe that??