Deserter Bowe Bergdahl: Continued Pentagon Cover Up

Nearly five months after the release of Taliban prisoner Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl (Calling him Sgt is an insult to ALL who have EARN the rank...OM), the military has yet to release a report on Bergdahl leaving deserting his Afghanistan post in 2009 that also makes recommendations on whether he should be punished. (If he isn't punished, that would mean ANY member of the military who decides to desert his post would / should go unpunished, an extremely bad precedent will be set or has that precedent already been set some 20+ years ago with the case of Robert Russell Garwood, another case that it my opinion had political overtones considering we had a Draft Dodging Commander in Chief in the White house...OM)

The Pentagon says it is not holding up the decision, though the review by Army Gen. Kenneth Dahl was finished in early October. (Waiting for Boo Boo's intervention? ...OM)

Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, recently acknowledged the report has been completed and said it is under review.

“As you know, in this building that can sometimes take a while, especially for major investigations like this," he said. (Considering that the Pentagon has become more about politics then about defense. ...OM)

Desertion in the military is technically punishable by death. But given the circumstances of Bergdahl's case, such a sentence is essentially out of the realm of possibility. (Why?...OM)

Editor's Note:

ARTICLE 85. DESERTION

Did Bergdahl

(a) Any member of the armed forces who–

(1) without authority goes or remains absent from his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to remain away there from permanently; YES.

(2) quits his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service; or - YES

(3) without being regularly separated from one of the armed forces enlists or accepts an appointment in the same or another on of the armed forces without fully disclosing the fact that he has not been regularly separated, or enters any foreign armed service except when authorized by the United States; is guilty of desertion.

(b) Any commissioned officer of the armed forces who, after tender of his resignation and before notice of its acceptance, quits his post or proper duties without leave and with intent to remain away therefrom permanently is guilty of desertion.

(c) Any person found guilty of desertion or attempt to desert shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct, (WAS AMERICA AT WAR...YES! DID BERGDAHL LEAVE HIS POST WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION?...YES! Whats the problem?) but if the desertion or attempt to desert occurs at any other time, by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct.

Bergdahl, the only American prisoner in the war deserter in Afghanistan, could face a lesser administrative punishment including forfeiture of back pay or even jail time. But Army officials are acutely aware of the potential political backlash that could follow severely punishing a prisoner of war  deserter. (Since when does "political backlash" have any influence on the Military Justice system?...OM)

Meanwhile, Bergdahl is still serving as a sergeant(Be interesting to hear him giving a lower rank instructions / orders...OM) at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. He has a desk job with the Army after being held captive for roughly five years, much of that time spent in a metal box (Where's the proof? Considering there are photos of him holding a weapon and playing soccer. Isn't the first duty of an American POW as explained by Article 3 of the Code of Conduct:

Article III

a. If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy. ...OM)

Bergdahl’s May 2014 release, which was secured by exchanging five high-value Taliban detainees from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, has sparked widespread controversy.

Soon after President Obama announced the exchange, many of Bergdahl’s former unit members spoke out, calling him a deserter, saying he put fellow soldiers’ lives at risk. (Accessory before and after the fact?...OM)

At least some Republican lawmakers think it was a bad deal. (So do a lot of the American people....OM)

Sen. John McCain referred to the prisoners as “the Taliban dream team.”

"These are the worst of the worst, the hardest of the hardest,” the Arizona Republican (And former REAL POW...OM) told Fox News. “I can't tell you how dangerous these people are."

Now, California GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, a former Marine (HEY FoxNews, There is NO SUCH THING as a FORMER MARINE...OM), wants to know whether the swap included a ransom and if the United States was swindled. (And the American people and the Critters will never know, just like Benghazi, Fast and Furious, IRS targeting scandal and the list goes on and on ad nauseam...OM)

"It has been brought to my attention that a payment was made to an Afghan intermediary who ‘disappeared’ with the money and failed to facilitate Bergdahl's release in return," Hunter wrote Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a Nov. 4 letter.

The alleged payment, Hunter says, was made in February through the Joint Special Operations Command and might have exceeded $1 million.

“Number one, you can't pay ransoms,” Hunter told Fox News. “Number two, if there is an exceptional case when you can get an American back, then there ought to be some oversight and there has to be some congressional purview over this -- and there hasn't been. I mean the (Defense Department) can't break the law and have no repercussions whatsoever.”

The Pentagon told Hunter on Friday that no money was exchanged and that paying ransom is indeed against the law.

“There was no ransom paid,” Kirby told reporters. “Nor was there an attempt to do so that failed.”

Hunter’s office still alleges that FBI operatives and members of the Army’s elite Delta Force orchestrated a botched cash exchange and says the congressman will request a formal investigation of the matter by the Defense Department’s inspector general.

The deal purportedly involved Delta members giving the money to an informant who disappeared instead of giving Bergdahl to FBI agents at a predetermined spot inside Afghanistan, on the border with North Waziristan.

Concerns about the circumstances of the prisoner swap have increased in the wake of the Islamic State executing five Americans in the past four months.

The president has ordered a review of how American hostages are handled by the U.S. government. (In other words, Boo Boo wants America to START negotiating with terrorists...OM)

Families of the beheaded Americans have issued complaints about how their sons’ cases were handled. However, the White House says it has no plans to allowing ransom to be paid for hostages. (YEA RIGHT,,,OM)

Semper Fi!

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/26/public-awaits-military-completed-bergdahl-report-that-includes-recommendations/?intcmp=latestnews

Politically Correct DoD Renames “unlawful combatants” in Detainee Manual

In fact, captured terrorists went out of style a long time ago, so that’s not the actual change. Until recently — like, say, two weeks ago — the Department of Defense used the term unlawful combatant as the label for terrorists captured by American military and intelligence forces as a way to distinguish them from uniformed soldiers of a recognized state authority in a straight-up fight. Their new manual dispenses with that term, the Federation of American Scientists noticed today (November 26, 2011) (via Steven Aftergood and Olivier Knox):

When it comes to Department of Defense doctrine on military treatment of detained persons, “unlawful enemy combatants” are a thing of the past. That term has been retired and replaced by “unprivileged enemy belligerents” in a new revision of Joint Publication 3-13 on Detainee Operations, dated November 13, 2014.

The manual even has this helpful chart for readers:

The only actual mention of the previous term comes in the Summary of Changes on page iii, which notes that the revision “[r]evises terminology, taxonomy, and definitions for unlawful enemy combatant, unprivileged belligerent, detainee, and detainee operations.” There is no particular explanation for why unlawful combatant no longer suffices, or why “unprivileged” makes for a clearer understanding between the categories of legitimate POW and everyone else.

So what’s going on here? Political correctness run amok, like saying there’s no such thing as an unlawful person? A way to reinforce the idea of “privilege”? No, not really — or at least not on the DoD’s behalf. If anyone’s to blame for the blandification of nomenclature … it’s Congress. The new revision to the DoD manual brings the terminology in line with 10 U.S. Code § 948a, which provides definitions for detainee policies rewritten by Congress to refine the military-commission process. It provides a very precise definition of the two classes of belligerents (Don't they mean ENEMIES...OM):

(6) Privileged belligerent.— The term “privileged belligerent” means an individual belonging to one of the eight categories enumerated in Article 4 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

(7) Unprivileged enemy belligerent.— The term “unprivileged enemy belligerent” means an individual (other than a privileged belligerent) who—

    (A) has engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners;
    (B) has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or            its coalition partners; or
    (C) was a part of al Qaeda at the time of the alleged offense under this chapter.

This section goes back to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, sponsored by Mitch McConnell, but the new terms were introduced in the 111th Congress in the NDAA for 2009. It passed in October 2009 and was signed a few days later by President Obama. The only contemporaneous discussion of this change I could find in a quick search was by Joanne Mariner at Findlaw, who dismissed it as “cosmetic.” Another change was somewhat more substantial:

The new law begins by tweaking the definition of individuals eligible for trial before military commissions — most obviously by scrapping the phrase “unlawful enemy combatant,” and replacing it with “unprivileged enemy belligerent.” This is a cosmetic change, not a real improvement, which mirrors the administration’s decision to drop the enemy combatant formula in habeas litigation at Guantanamo Bay.

In addition, the new definition sets out three separate grounds on which a person might be deemed an “unprivileged enemy belligerent,” which vary somewhat from the grounds for eligibility included in the previous definition. The third ground, now separate from the previous two, is membership in Al Qaeda, whether or not the member has engaged in or supported hostilities against the US. (Under the previous definition, membership in “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces” was relevant to the determination of whether a person had engaged in or supported hostilities, but was not itself a distinct ground for eligibility.)

Notably, the Taliban is no longer specifically named in the new definition. This suggests, perhaps, that the administration is acknowledging a meaningful difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and wants to leave open, at least for the future, the possibility that the Taliban is not the enemy (Then why doesn't Boo Boo invite the Taliban to the WH for a coffee summit?...OM).

That might seem a little more notable in the wake of the Bowe Bergdahl swap (Where is the media, FOWNEWS in particular, following up on what the Army did with this deserter?,,,OM). It’s possible that this could provide the White House a way to press for the release of more Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay (So that they can go back & join ISIS/ISSL or whatever they want to call it. I call them enemies...OM), but it would be a tendentious and silly argument. Publicly, the administration (The same administration that said if you like your doctor or your health insurance you can keep them?....OM) has argued that the risk from their release has disappeared by now, which is their main and most effective argument, even if experience has clearly proven it to be untrue — which we’ve known for years.

At any rate, the new nomenclature seems pretty silly, and the need to change from unlawful combatant non-existent. Don’t blame the Department of Defense for it, although we can certainly wonder why it took them five years to catch up to the changes (and what may have prompted the recent action). That silliness comes from one of America’s great resources of silliness and meaningless redefinitions of perfectly suitable language — from your elected officials on Capitol Hill. On the plus side, we can now ask terrorists to check their unprivilege as they enter the detention system, or something.

Let us know what you think.

Semper Fi!

A thank you to the Riceman for the tip!

Source: http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/26/dod-renames-unlawful-combatants-in-detainee-manual-to/