Why Team Obama Was Blindsided by the Bergdahl
Backlash
By Ralph Peters
June 3, 2014
Congratulations, Mr.
President! And identical congrats to your sorcerer’s apprentice, National
Security Adviser Susan Rice. By trying to sell him as an American hero, you’ve
turned a deserter already despised by soldiers in the know into quite possibly
the most-hated individual soldier in the history of our...
military.
I have never witnessed such outrage from our
troops.
Exhibit A: Ms. Rice. In one of the most tone-deaf statements in
White House history (we’re making a lot of history here), the national-security
advisor, on a Sunday talk show, described Bergdahl as having served “with honor
and distinction.” Those serving in uniform and those of us who served previously
were already stirred up, but that jaw-dropper drove us into jihad
mode.
But pity Ms. Rice. Like the president she serves, she’s a victim of
her class. Nobody in the inner circle of Team Obama has served in uniform. It
shows. That bit about serving with “honor and distinction” is the sort of
perfunctory catch-phrase politicians briefly don as electoral armor. (“At this
point in your speech, ma’am, devote one sentence to how much you honor the
troops.”)
I actually believe that Ms. Rice was kind of sincere, in her
spectacularly oblivious way. In the best Manchurian Candidate manner, she said
what she had been programmed to say by her political culture, then she was
blindsided by the firestorm she ignited by scratching two flinty words together.
At least she didn’t blame Bergdahl’s desertion on a video.
The president,
too, appears stunned. He has so little understanding of (or interest in) the
values and traditions of our troops that he and his advisers really believed
that those in uniform would erupt into public joy at the news of Bergdahl’s
release — as D.C. frat kids did when Osama bin Laden’s death was
trumpeted.
Both President Obama and Ms. Rice seem to think that the crime
of desertion in wartime is kind of like skipping class. They have no idea of how
great a sin desertion in the face of the enemy is to those in our military. The
only worse sin is to side actively with the enemy and kill your brothers in
arms. This is not sleeping in on Monday morning and ducking Gender Studies
101.
But compassion, please! The president and all the president’s men
and women are not alone. Our media elite — where it’s a rare bird who bothered
to serve in uniform — instantly became experts on military justice. Of earnest
mien and blithe assumption, one talking head after another announced that “we
always try to rescue our troops, even deserters.”
Uh, no. “Save the
deserter” is a recent battle cry of the politically indoctrinated brass. For
much of our history, we did make some efforts to track down deserters in
wartime. Then we shot or hanged them. Or, if we were in good spirits, we merely
used a branding iron to burn a large D into their cheeks or foreheads. Even as
we grew more enlightened, desertion brought serious time in a military prison.
At hard labor.
This is a fundamental culture clash. Team Obama and its
base cannot comprehend the values still cherished by those young Americans “so
dumb” they joined the Army instead of going to prep school and then to Harvard.
Values such as duty, honor, country, physical courage, and loyalty to your
brothers and sisters in arms have no place in Obama World. (Military people
don’t necessarily all like each other, but they know they can depend on each
other in battle — the sacred trust Bergdahl violated.)
President Obama
did this to himself (and to Bergdahl). This beautifully educated man, who never
tires of letting us know how much smarter he is than the rest of us, never
stopped to consider that our troops and their families might have been offended
by their commander-in-chief staging a love-fest at the White House to celebrate
trading five top terrorists for one deserter and featuring not the families of
those soldiers (at least six of them) who died in the efforts to find and free
Bergdahl, but, instead, giving a starring role on the international stage to Pa
Taliban, parent of a deserter and a creature of dubious sympathies (that beard
on pops ain’t a tribute to ZZ Top). How do you say “outrageous insult to our
vets” in Pashto?
Nor, during the recent VA scandal, had the president
troubled himself to host the families of survivors of those vets who died
awaiting care. No, the warmest attention our president has ever paid to a
“military family” was to Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl.
(I will refrain from
criticism of the bumptious attempts to cool the flames of this political
conflagration by Secretary Hagel: I never pick on the weak.)
What is to
be done? Behind the outrage triggered by Team Obama’s combination of cynicism
and obliviousness (Bergdahl was so ill we had to set those terrorists free
immediately, without notifying Congress, but now he’s chugging power shakes in a
military hospital . . . and all this just happened to come at the peak of the VA
scandal . . . ), military members don’t really want to lynch Bergdahl. But they
want justice.
Our military leaders need to rediscover their moral courage
and honor our traditions, our regulations, and the Uniform Code of Military
Justice. We need a fresh, unprejudiced 15-6 investigation (the military
equivalent of a grand jury). We already know, as the military has known since
the first 24 hours after Bergdahl abandoned his post, that sufficient evidence
exists for a court-martial, but it’s important to do this by the
numbers.
It’s hard to believe that the resulting court-martial would not
find Bergdahl guilty of desertion (although there will be heavy White House
pressure to reduce the charge to Absent Without Leave, or AWOL, status, a lesser
offense). If he is convicted, I for one do not want him to go to prison. I’m
sure he’s paid and paid for betraying his comrades, quite possibly suffering
brutal sexual violence. But if he is found guilty, he needs to be formally
reduced to the rank of private, stripped of all privileges and entitlements (the
taxpayer should not pay for a deserter’s lifelong health care — Bergdahl’s book
and film deals can cover that), and he should be given the appropriate prison
sentence, which would then be commuted by the president. Thereafter, let Mr.
Bergdahl go home and live with himself.
As for President Obama, how about
just one word of thanks to the families of those fallen soldiers you sent out to
find Bowe Bergdahl?
— Fox News Strategic Analyst Ralph Peters is a
retired Army officer and former enlisted man.
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