In desperation, the GOP Lynch Mob, (Blog: Obama and the Lynch Mob), have all gone mad. Without any coherent strategy, policy or even Party, they are dashing about lurching in one purposeless direction or another, like the dying Giselle groping for life. They clutch at any straw and the latest one is the swop of five Taliban Guantanamo prisoners that had been incarcerated for 13 years for a US prisoner of war, Army Sergeant Bowe Berghdal. The latter had been in Taliban custody for the past five years. Before going into the merits and constitutionality of the swop let us look at what the megalomaniacal unelected leaders of the Republican Party, Fox News, base their decision that Obama should be impeached.
Also, it is as good a time as any to look at the hypocritical double standards that have now become the daily diet of the unelected as well as the elected leaders of the GOP.
FOX’S PSYCHIATRIC EXPERT’S OPINION AND QUALIFICATIONS.
Fox’s resident psychiatric expert, Keith Albow came to the following definitive conclusion following the Commander in Chief’s decision to make the swop, “Obama wants out of America”. Just like that! He did not even need one counseling session to do it. His professional opinion of course gave no reasons and explanations, just conclusions. “The Chief doesn’t affiliate with American patriotism”. To quote further “He does not have the will of the American people, Americanism in his soul”. This is why Obama could identify with the Bergdahl family. (Well what can you expect from a man born in Kenya).
Now as for the Bergdahls, he diagnoses, that the whole family, including Bowe, the POW, “May have a tendency to distance themselves from institutions to diminish the rule of law and to elevate the individual above all else”. Albow maintained that Bowe was narcissistic because he participated in ballet. How he came to these astounding analyses only he and Fox knows.
The man is an unmistakeable genius. Why else would Fox employ him?
On his web site Keith Albow maintains that it is his life’s work working out other peoples’ lives alongside with them. This, although most of his assessments are made, off the cuff, without the “other people” by his side. Here are some other gems: “Biden should be evaluated for dementia and alcoholism”, “Newt Gingrich’s three marriages make him more qualified to be President as three women chose him to be their life partner” and “Painting a child’s toenails pink affects his gender identity”. He has also coauthored a best seller with Glen Beck. He resigned from the American Psychiatric Association. Jay H Ell, who by the way, fancies himself as a bit of a psychiatrist, interprets that he did that before he was chucked out.
Fox, presumably, on the basis of these profound insights have declared that Bergdahl’s father looks like a member of the Taliban because he has a beard. That they heard Bergdahl thank Allah for his release. (Who else?). Before proceeding further let it be known that the Bergdahls are Christians and that Jay H. Ell’s psychiatric assessment of Duck Dynasty, even though they have longer beards than Mr. Bergdahl, is that they are not members of the Taliban and he is prepared to be quoted on that.
In Jay H. Ell’s final gratuitous psychiatric judgement, it is obvious that all Fox’s presenters use Keith Albow as their personal psychiatrist. The man obviously doesn’t believe in antipsychotic medicines.
As for the rest of the Republican Party, their volte face on the release of an American POW, is nauseating.
LET US ASSUME, FOR THE MOMENT, THAT OBAMA WAS WRONG WITH THE SWOP.
Now Fox and the Republicans are the last people on earth to maintain that Obama is perfect. Unlike Reagan and George Dubbaya, for example, who would never have dreamed of swopping prisoners or misleading the country because if they had then Fox would have called for their immediate impeachment. Now Reagan in the Iran/Contra scandal swopped prisoners for the sale of 2,000 missiles to Iran, yes to Iran, and used the money to back some thugs in Nicaragua. Of course in Reagan’s defense Albow may have said he was gagga at the time. So lets move on to Dubbaya who is now out of harms way painting in Texas. He blatantly mislead America into a war where 5,000 allies were killed and 32,000 were wounded. Then the selfsame George then gave 540 Guantanamo terrorists back for nothing, ziltch, nobody. (Incidentally, the current Commander in Chief, pulled our troops out of Iraq, so the thankless Iraqis could carry on killing each other without us getting caught in the crossfire). Bush also blew the Jessica Lynch story to monumental proportions to show his administration in a good light only to be contradicted by the good servicewoman herself.
So the precedent for impeaching Obama is pretty thin to say the least. Perhaps Fox could ask Oliver North their resident expert on prisoner swops to comment. After all he was involved in the Reagan Iran/Contra scandal and was actually convicted for a host of felonies in relation to the saga. These convictions were overturned on a technicality because the prosecutor used privileged testimony that North gave to Congress. So you see Fox only employs experts with experience!
So even if Obama was wrong there is hardly enough evidence to impeach him - at least by Fox’s usual standards.
WHY THE HULLABALOO?
Bowe Bergdahl is a Traitor
The American credo is that no one gets left behind. This is almost an obsession since Ross Perot made it a cause celebre. He believed that the government covered up the issue in Vietnam and spearheaded the drive to get the MIA’s/ POW’s home dead or alive. Bowe Bergdahl has been in the public consciousness for some time. Sarah Palin publicly prayed for his return as did everyone else. His Idaho town holds an annual vigil where all and sundry including Republican politicians gather in the hope that he will be released. (Obama has answered their prayers).
His strangeness and aloneness was known way back as well as the debate as to the circumstances of his capture. Did he desert or didn’t he? An article written by Michael Hastings, June 2012, in Rolling Stone, entitled “America’s last Prisoner of War” included e - mails from Bowe to his father indicating his disillusionment with the America that was involved in this war and the army itself. His father said his mood darkened after the death of his close friend Brian Bradshaw who was blown up by a roadside bomb.
According to a report in the Washington Post some village Afghanis, five years ago, saw Bergdahl walking in the night towards “danger”. They tried to warn him but he appeared to be in a haze and could not hear them. They offered him food and drink but he refused. The villagers thought he may have been drugged on hashish.
There is then the report that six soldiers died trying to rescue him that has been debunked by the New York Times.
So we are left with the fact that, at worst, Bergdahl will face a court martial for desertion or will be adjudicated to have had post traumatic stress syndrome. He certainly seems a candidate for the latter with his melancholy and secluded disposition. Whatever the answer is it is not the American way to let him rot in a POW camp for the rest of his life.
Why didn’t Obama try and rescue him rather than give 5 Al Qaeda terrorists freedom?
The Daily Beast’s Kimberly Dozier reported that the Taliban moved him around all the time. (Obviously they didn’t treat him as a defector). The Pentagon, as a result, rejected the idea as they would have to hit on at least 12 possible hideouts inside of Pakistan. Besides the number of guards assigned to Bergdahl was increased as he had tried to escape twice. Apparently on one occasion he got away and was handed back by villagers to the Taliban. (Again hardly evidence that he defected to the Taliban voluntarily).
In addition another Navy Seal operation in Pakistan was fraught with political land mines. Even Osama Bin Laden’s capture didn’t embarrass the Pakistanis it infuriated them. (Remember the gutsy decision Obama took to go for Osama and behead Al Qaeda of its coordinator and leader).
The whole solution of Guantanamo is bound up in this question of the swop. What is America supposed to do with Guantanamo? The Republicans don’t want those left tried by Federal Courts. The wars that they were captured in are over. The Military Tribunals that were suggested have been laughed off as a sham. Obama in his election pledges promised to shut it. Bush got rid of anyone and everyone he could. It stands against everything America supposedly epitomizes. So here Obama was able to send 5 geriatric detainees to Qatar and all hell breaks loose.
The one thing that always amazes Jay H. Ell is how self righteous and sanctimonious the McCains of this world are whatever side of the spectrum they are representing. When it suits them America mustn’t behave in a fashion that affronts every value that this country stands for. When it doesn’t they are all for violating every Geneva Convention principle and trampling over every provision of the American Constitution. Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post quoted McCain verbatim as he changed sides on the debate of whether to make a swop for Bergdahl, regardless of whether he deserted or not. McCain was for the swop before the swop and against the swop after the swop.
Obama broke the law by not giving Congress 30 days notice of the Prison Swop.
This criticism must rank up there with the biggest baloney imaginable. This is reaching the bottom of the barrel. According to Brett Logiurato of the Business Insider, the Senate were shown videos where Bergdahl appeared to be in deteriorating health. Also the intelligence received showed that if the swop was leaked Bergdahl would be killed.
It is apparently ok for George Bush to feed Congress drivel that results in nearly 5,000 Americans being killed but Obama to save one needs to give them 30 days notice.
At the End of the Day
Obama has said he offers no apologies. “When it comes to getting soldiers back from war, we don’t condition we make the effort to get them back’’. Sounds pretty patriotic to me but Fox and their psychiatrist say, “The Chief doesn’t affiliate with American patriotism”, and the leaderless Republicans bereft of any policies or principles jump into line.
The problem with the Republicans is if Obama says black they literally say white. This they will continue to do regardless of how this saga unfolds and till Obama leaves office.
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