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| Drones. We have them. Ask Al Queda. |
It's a bedrock American principal.
We do not leave a man behind.
No matter what.
End of story.
I remember in Vietnam the wearing of the POW/MIA bracelets. It was a rallying cry, particularly to the right, but really for all Americans. For years and years people advocated that we there might be those left behind and that we needed to find them.
We did not ask how they got lost, or how they went missing. It was enough that they were ours, American soldiers that needed to be returned. Whole movies were made. Rambo and Chuck Norris among others, going back to bring our boys home.
Even if the captured soldiers were used in propaganda tapes, saying Anti-American things, we still moved heaven and Earth to get them back. John McCain is grateful for that....I AM grateful for that.
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may or may not be guilty of desertion, or other things. BUT IT IS NOT UP TO THE PRESS TO TRY HIM. That should be determined by a investigation and a potential court martial process. And for that to happen, he has to be HOME. WE DO NOT LEAVE AMERICANS IN THE HANDS OF THE TALIBAN JUSTICE OR AS A PUNISHMENT.
The Taliban released in exchange, as vile as you might think they are, had not been defined as terrorists, but as enemy combatants. Enemy combatants have been part of prisoner exchanges since the time mankind invented war. When wars end, prisoners get exchanged. That's the way of things. Unless you think the north should have held it's Southern rebels FOREVER. If there is ever to be hope of peace, resolution must occur.
I understand some confusion on this issue, particularly concerning whether these were the right detainees to release, or whether the process was perfectly done. But SWIFT-BOATING an American soldier and his family in order to gain political points against a politician you inexplicably revile? That is beyond the pale, and I will not stand idly by while those on the right do it. I will not watch quietly while the release of an American soldier, one that was advocated for by the right all the way up until the time that it was OBAMA that actually did it, and watch them hypocritically turn 180 degrees around, and condemn the very thing they advocated.
ENOUGH!
We bring them back home!
ALL OF THEM!!!
Updates:
I don't normally put in charts or memes I find on Facebook or the internets, but I just couldn't resist this once, because it explains so succinctly what I was trying to say. The thing that has most surprised me in the last week is the incredible level of Republican hypocrisy surrounding this issue. I am 100% convinced they would have attacked the President no matter how he handled this. And what's even sadder is that my conservative friends (no professional politicians, mind you, but everyday people) are so willing to let their thinking be led by Fox News and other right wing noise machines. I don't think many of them are aware of what a BIG contradiction it really is.
It was a strategical error for the President to allow himself to get so closely associated with this - he should have let the military and the Secretary of Defense be the face of it. Bringing the parents in for a statement and pictures could be considered a mistake. It's not that it was so wrong, it's that it gave distraction ammunition to those who want to make this into something it is not.
I have never seen a President so willing to work with the other side. But every time he thinks he's reaching out, the Republicans snatch the football away and laugh. It just doesn't stop. They're like Lucy in Peanuts, times ten. And the President never seems to learn. He keeps thinking he's the President of all of us, and that if he just appealed to the Republican's sense of reason, then things beneficial to the country could get one.
Tell you what, my conservative friends. Why don't for once you don't snatch the football away and let something that would help the country improve happen?
You might be pleasantly surprised.
At least until you turn on Fox News.
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