I know as a closeted socialist Obama is a big believer in false equalities, fanciful equivalencies drawn out by rhetoric but not supported by reality or even simple common sense and therefore is like to be confused by a military ethos that is all about performance and exceptionalism, it's not about being given something in order to attain some phony equality, and that's because without a focus on performance people die, your platoon mates die - you start rewarding mediocrity and half assed effort and a failure to honor one's duty in the military and people die, missions fail - still you'd think it wouldn't need saying that you start rewarding deserters and people who sympathize with the enemy and you might as well just close up shop as a superpower - but apparently the saying of it was absolutely necessary in Obama's case because his understanding of the military and the mindset that fuels it seems so thin or maybe thinned by disdain that thoughts on how trying to score PR points by treating a deserter who may have collaborated with enemy as a 'hero' could end up pissing a lot of military people off didn't occur to him or his people - nor did they seem to get that then going on to scold those pissed off soldiers who live and died by the creed of 'no man left behind' that they just didn't grasp the implied socialist intentions of that creed was really gonna piss a whole lot of people off.
In order to cover up the egregiously lopsided and quite possibly illegal nature of the swap and give Obama the PR boost he was looking for they needed Bergdahl to be seen as a hero and therefore I don't see how this was just an oversight or miscalculation - this fuck up has to be a manifestation of a complete lack of understanding of military culture and history or an overt disdain thereof by Obama and the people he listens to - or they just didn't know about the significant question marks hanging over Bergdahl's actions which to me seems pretty god damn improbable.
That the president of the United States could be that detached from or disdainful of all that makes the US military powerful is a pretty disturbing thought.
So the question remains: what were they thinking? Well, apart from the distracting PR boost they were assuming and relying on, my guess would be they needed to get Bergdahl out in order to officially bring the war to a close but they knew congress was never going to agree to the swap - according to Feinstein, that was made clear to Obama two years ago - the Levin amendments to the law forbidding the president from unilaterally dumping Gitmo prisoners gave Obama some constitutional loopholes to exploit - the pretext came up to do just that and never shy about going all imperial with the presidency Obama jumped on it without anyone apparently thinking about the consequences or maybe with Obama just ignoring objections - and there ya go. Again, other than the Taliban agreeing to a peace deal in exchange for its five lost leaders [a deal which I don't think would hold much water, but whatever], the only way you could possibly sell this trade is if Bergdahl is seen as a 'hero' and thus his return celebrated - why no one in Obama's inner circle seemed to grasp how that was not gonna happen is the mystery - or maybe not so mysterious given the demonstrated ideological predilections of Obama and people like Jarrett and Rice - they have much more in common with Bergdahl's idiot Allah praising father than with the average patriotic American.
[this fuck up could also be consequence of one of the damaging and dangerous effects of media bias I predicted cropping up awhile back - not only does media bias essentially subvert free speech and work to delegitimize your democracy, but it can also worryingly encourage, enable bad decisions because a leader protected by this bias will be led to believe they can't make mistakes since no matter what happens the media will spin it to your specifications - in essence, consequences of bad leadership are muted which of course enables bad leadership - this Bergdahl fuck up could be perfect manifestation of that dynamic]
In order to cover up the egregiously lopsided and quite possibly illegal nature of the swap and give Obama the PR boost he was looking for they needed Bergdahl to be seen as a hero and therefore I don't see how this was just an oversight or miscalculation - this fuck up has to be a manifestation of a complete lack of understanding of military culture and history or an overt disdain thereof by Obama and the people he listens to - or they just didn't know about the significant question marks hanging over Bergdahl's actions which to me seems pretty god damn improbable.
That the president of the United States could be that detached from or disdainful of all that makes the US military powerful is a pretty disturbing thought.
So the question remains: what were they thinking? Well, apart from the distracting PR boost they were assuming and relying on, my guess would be they needed to get Bergdahl out in order to officially bring the war to a close but they knew congress was never going to agree to the swap - according to Feinstein, that was made clear to Obama two years ago - the Levin amendments to the law forbidding the president from unilaterally dumping Gitmo prisoners gave Obama some constitutional loopholes to exploit - the pretext came up to do just that and never shy about going all imperial with the presidency Obama jumped on it without anyone apparently thinking about the consequences or maybe with Obama just ignoring objections - and there ya go. Again, other than the Taliban agreeing to a peace deal in exchange for its five lost leaders [a deal which I don't think would hold much water, but whatever], the only way you could possibly sell this trade is if Bergdahl is seen as a 'hero' and thus his return celebrated - why no one in Obama's inner circle seemed to grasp how that was not gonna happen is the mystery - or maybe not so mysterious given the demonstrated ideological predilections of Obama and people like Jarrett and Rice - they have much more in common with Bergdahl's idiot Allah praising father than with the average patriotic American.
[this fuck up could also be consequence of one of the damaging and dangerous effects of media bias I predicted cropping up awhile back - not only does media bias essentially subvert free speech and work to delegitimize your democracy, but it can also worryingly encourage, enable bad decisions because a leader protected by this bias will be led to believe they can't make mistakes since no matter what happens the media will spin it to your specifications - in essence, consequences of bad leadership are muted which of course enables bad leadership - this Bergdahl fuck up could be perfect manifestation of that dynamic]
