• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

We Don’t Leave Our Men or Women in Uniform Behind

We Don’t Leave Our Men or Women in Uniform Behind

  • Total voters
    59
cpwill said:
Well then it's a good thing for him that he probably only signed up for 4 years of active duty. However, he signed up, willfully and intentionally and with eyes open. You don't get to betray your country and put your team mates in grave danger just because you later wished you hadn't.
Click to expand...

We don't know what motivated bergdahl, but I would rather give him a chance to speak and have his actions be judged at a court marshal, not by the gossip of his soldiers not speaking under oath.
 
Maenad said:
We were told years ago by the US government that if Americans traveled over seas we were on our own. I agree with that 100%. I have been abroad as much as any poor person, and I didn't expect anything. I don't think the fighting forces of the US should have to risk their lives to rescue John Q. Millionnnaire who decided to go to Cambodia by way of North Korea and ends up in the clink there.
Click to expand...

My post was strictly about the military since that was how I read the question the OP raised. But since you mentioned civilians I disagree. One of the legitimate functions of government is to protect it's citizens overseas, that's one of the prime responsibilities of embassies and consulates. The government can certainly say "if you go to X and get in trouble there isn't much we can do for you" but even then it has a responsibility to do what little it can.

Personally I wouldn't expect anything either. When I've travelled abroad I've always assumed that I was on my own. However, that doesn't relieve the government of it's responsibility to help it's citizens when overseas.
 
cpwill said:
Well then it's a good thing for him that he probably only signed up for 4 years of active duty. However, he signed up, willfully and intentionally and with eyes open. You don't get to betray your country and put your team mates in grave danger just because you later wished you hadn't.
Click to expand...

As much as I would love for this to turn into an successful intelligence operation . . . I am afraid you nailed it on the head. Unfortunate for us (guys and gals who actually served). As I said in another thread on this subject . . . I personally feel insulted. I've often stated that perception can be everything . . . in this case . . . it is.
 
MaggieD said:
It doesn't obviously refer to prisononers of war to me, though. To me, it applies to every soldier in trouble. Injured on the battlefield? We won't leave you, buddy. We're here. Helicopter shot down behind enemy lines? We won't leave you, buddy. We're coming.

In fact, as I think about it, it hardly applies to prisoners of war.
Click to expand...

I think history says otherwise, to a degree. In WWII we went out and capture German and Japanese civilians and traded them for prisoners. Few people know about it.

That said, I'm not sure I'd classify anyone in this a true POW. This is very different than the norm.
 
HogWash said:
Unless his cohorts in the military say he deserted. Which they did and have. Then there are those six fellow soldiers killed by the Taliban while searching for the deserting piece of ****. He was a GD turncoat who is responsible for SIX deaths. He deserves one thing, a firing squad.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but that's incorrect. He must be tried and convicted of desertion. Same as you must be tried and convicted of any crime in the civilian judicial system. Or would you be okay with being called a murderer just because some of your cohorts said you were on TV?

He deserves a firing squad if and when he's convicted and sentenced to one. Not one second before.
 
Beaudreaux said:
I don't know about your history or experience Pete, but I've been on actual missions where we went in and got a guy out of terrorist hands by force, and none of those missions required giving up terrorists. It has been released by the DOD that they had "eyes on" this soldier for weeks leading up to the trade. If they knew where he was, they could have sent guys in to get him. I want to know - why not? Maybe it's because an AWOL soldier wasn't worth putting special operator's lives in danger for Obama? Maybe it was because Obama planned on giving these guys up all along and this gave them a chance to get Bergdahl back at the same time? Who knows??? I sure don't, but I damn sure want to know.

We went in and got Noriega, after we sent SOF in to get a CIA operative out of his hands on the very first day of that conflict. We went in and got two of our guys in Somalia that were being held by Al Qaeda. We went in and got Jessica Lynch in Iraq. Hell, we even went into another sovereign nation (a military invasion by international law) that was supposedly an ally and got Bin Laden, without giving up anyone.

No, we don't leave anyone behind, if we can. There are guys that walked off their posts in Vietnam and are still there today. There are guys that walked off their post in many conflicts, and this guy wasn't the first. However, this is the first time this country traded high ranking terrorists for anyone... not just a soldier that went AWOL.

This action by the Obama Administration has put every US citizen abroad in danger of being grabbed to use as ransom for a trade to get more terrorists released.

For all US citizens that are overseas, the world just became a much, MUCH, more dangerous place. All US citizens, not just those in the military.

What about Robert Levinson in Iran? He's a CIA operative who has now reached the dubious distinction of being the longest held hostage in US history. Why have we left him behind, now that the government has admitted he was working for them? Why??? Because it doesn't work out that we can always get them back, that's why. You don't give up our sovereign security to get anyone back... never.

Saying we leave no man behind is great. And, when at all possible, it's true. But, it doesn't always work out that way.
Click to expand...

Those 5 Taliban leaders needed to be released anyway, because with the war in Afghanistan coming to a close with a announced end date, we had to release all captured prisioners of war. Or were we going to hold them in gauntamino without prosecution for the rest of their lives?
 
Boo Radley said:
Sure we do. See Reagan.
Click to expand...

Careful, Republicans and Conservatives in the closet still believe that Reagan scared them into submission. They don't realize the hostages came at the price of the US sending the Shah to his death, a few billion dollars and a man with alzheirmers as US president.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Those 5 Taliban leaders needed to be released anyway, because with the war in Afghanistan coming to a close with a announced end date, we had to release all captured prisioners of war. Or were we going to hold them in gauntamino without prosecution for the rest of their lives?
Click to expand...

Two questions: When did they become POW's and not terrorist detainees? If they are POW's, then why hasn't the Hague started a War Crimes Tribunal against Bush and Obama since they have not been treated or given the rights of a POW as accorded by both the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions?

You guys need to be VERY CAREFUL with throwing around these terms when referring to the guys in Gitmo.
 
Beaudreaux said:
Two questions: When did they become POW's and not terrorist detainees? If they are POW's, then why hasn't the Hague started a War Crimes Tribunal against Bush and Obama since they have not been treated or given the rights of a POW as accorded by both the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions?

You guys need to be VERY CAREFUL with throwing around these terms when referring to the guys in Gitmo.
Click to expand...

Then what is the classifacation of those 5 Taliban and why did no on one try to bring them to trial during their entire stay at gitmo?
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Then what is the classifacation of those 5 Taliban and why did no on one try to bring them to trial during their entire stay at gitmo?
Click to expand...

Good question. As to the first part of the question, I said that already - "Terrorist Detainees." As to the second, they don't get a trial until we've extracted all actionable intelligence, and besides, Holder and Obama have refused to let a Military Court do a trial, because they want to bring them to US CONUS soil and do a dog and pony show civilian trial giving them full civilian law status rather than the UCMJ which Congress will not allow them to do (thank God).
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
We don't know what motivated bergdahl, but I would rather give him a chance to speak and have his actions be judged at a court marshal, not by the gossip of his soldiers not speaking under oath.
Click to expand...

I would love for him to be given a Court Martial. What plausible counter-narrative could he possibly provide? He was sleepwalking? Went out for a jog?
 
cpwill said:
I would love for him to be given a Court Martial. What plausible counter-narrative could he possibly provide? He was sleepwalking? Went out for a jog?
Click to expand...

The one I've already heard was he was drunk.
 
Ockham said:
The one I've already heard was he was drunk.
Click to expand...

Which A) isn't plausible due to the preparation and B) just adds a violation, it doesn't subtract one.


The idea that he asked what he needed to leave behind, carefully organized that on his rack for his squad leader to find, then grabbed the materials that he thought he would need in order to hike across the border into India.... and then "accidentally" abandoned the FOB, found alcohol, drank it to excess, and wandered off in the wrong direction intending to return to the unit he had already illegally left is....

yeah, not terribly more plausible than the sleepwalking idea.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
that he intentionally left to get himself shot?
Click to expand...

:lol: Yeah I find that about as plausible. If he wanted to kill himself, he had an assault rifle and plenty of ammunition to get the task done.
 
PirateMk1 said:
No problem. Politics is the art of war with words, everyone has a different philosophy of how to fight. Bottom line its just business and if more people wrap their heads around it the better off we all are.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there is very little that bothers me in politics, for some reason that did. but all is well now. On to bigger and better things.
 
Beaudreaux said:
Good question. As to the first part of the question, I said that already - "Terrorist Detainees." As to the second, they don't get a trial until we've extracted all actionable intelligence, and besides, Holder and Obama have refused to let a Military Court do a trial, because they want to bring them to US CONUS soil and do a dog and pony show civilian trial giving them full civilian law status rather than the UCMJ which Congress will not allow them to do (thank God).
Click to expand...

then why did the previous administration fail to execute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed when the guy was willing to plead guilty back in 2008?

The five Guantánamo detainees charged with coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks told a military judge on Monday that they wanted to confess in full, a move that seemed to challenge the government to put them to death.

The request, which was the result of hours of private meetings among the detainees, appeared intended to undercut the government’s plan for a high-profile trial while drawing international attention to what some of the five men have said was a desire for martyrdom.

But the military judge, Col. Stephen R. Henley of the Army, said a number of legal questions about how the commissions are to deal with capital cases had to be resolved before guilty pleas could be accepted.
Click to expand...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/us/09gitmo.html?_r=0

the guy was willing to plead guilty! and yet nothing happened.
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
then why did the previous administration fail to execute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed when the guy was willing to plead guilty back in 2008?



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/us/09gitmo.html?_r=0

the guy was willing to plead guilty! and yet nothing happened.
Click to expand...

Another great question. Because it was KSM that finally gave up how to find out where OBL was hiding. If we had tried and then executed him back in 2008, we never would have gotten that info.

In other words, as I said before, we can get actionable intelligence from these guys. Even years later, as was done with KSM regarding OBL.

So, that's why.
 
Beaudreaux said:
Another great question. Because it was KSM that finally gave up how to find out where OBL was hiding. If we had tried and then executed him back in 2008, we never would have gotten that info.

In other words, as I said before, we can get actionable intelligence from these guys. Even years later, as was done with KSM regarding OBL.

So, that's why.
Click to expand...

aperently there was a legal problem

Among other fundamental issues, Judge Henley asked for analysis of whether the men could be sentenced to death if they pleaded guilty instead of being found guilty by a panel of military officers. Because this week’s proceedings were to consider legal motions to be decided by the judge, no panel was present.

Another potential hurdle to guilty pleas was a claim by lawyers for two of the detainees that they may not be mentally competent to represent themselves.

The judge ruled that those two detainees could not make decisions about their cases on Monday. The two are Mr. bin al-Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, charged as a Qaeda financial operative. In addition to Mr. Mohammed, the other detainees are Walid bin Attash, who is accused of selecting many of the hijackers, and Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Mr. Mohammed who is said to have been one of his key deputies in the Sept. 11 plot.
Click to expand...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/us/09gitmo.html?_r=0

besides i thought the point of capturing these terrorist criminals was to punish them?
 
Beaudreaux said:
Another great question. Because it was KSM that finally gave up how to find out where OBL was hiding. If we had tried and then executed him back in 2008, we never would have gotten that info.

In other words, as I said before, we can get actionable intelligence from these guys. Even years later, as was done with KSM regarding OBL.

So, that's why.
Click to expand...

then why is KSM STILL ALIVE???
 
Perotista said:
Yeah, there is very little that bothers me in politics, for some reason that did. but all is well now. On to bigger and better things.
Click to expand...
Such as Impeaching the President?
Chambliss would have blown the whistle on this deal, much as ISSA and gang have divulged confidential and secret info since 2011.

The senate elections have taken a bit of a turn eh ?
 
cpwill said:
Which A) isn't plausible due to the preparation and B) just adds a violation, it doesn't subtract one.


The idea that he asked what he needed to leave behind, carefully organized that on his rack for his squad leader to find, then grabbed the materials that he thought he would need in order to hike across the border into India.... and then "accidentally" abandoned the FOB, found alcohol, drank it to excess, and wandered off in the wrong direction intending to return to the unit he had already illegally left is....

yeah, not terribly more plausible than the sleepwalking idea.
Click to expand...

Again . . . we are not talking 40-years ago. It was 2009. Why does testimony from members of Bergdahl's company get dismissed so easily when it is so fresh? Does their recent perception of what they went through mean nothing? I know how I feel, I cannot imagine how guy's who lost friends feel. They may have died anyway . . . but on that day they were looking for Bowe . . . at least in their mind's eye. Unless folks think they are lying.

As I have said before; sometimes there aren't 2-sides to every story. This was one of the most staggering examples of government incompetence in my lifetime.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom