re: Should Obama be impeached over Berghdal?

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The Administration enjoys the moral high ground in saving an American soldier who was held by the Taliban as a POW for five years. We're America and we don't leave any of our soldiers behind.

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He wasn't held by the Taliban

And based on the looks of it it seems like he assimilated to his captors, not like he was being tortured every day like Vietnam POWs were

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Great article about Bergdahl



LINK

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First comment on the article nails it, and the comment was written a year ago

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I WAS THERE. I'm sick of all the lies. Here is the TRUTH, from someone on the ground. We were at OP Mest, Paktika Province, Afghanistan. It was a small outpost where B Co 1-501st INF (Airbone) ran operations out of, just an Infantry platoon and ANA counterparts there. The place was an Afghan graveyard. Bergdahl had been acting a little strange, telling people he wanted to "walk the earth" and kept a little journal talking about how he was meant for better things. No one thought anything about it. He was a little “out there”. Next morning he's gone. We search everywhere, and can't find him. He left his weapon, his kit, and other sensitive items. He only took some water, a compass and a knife. We find some afghan kids shortly after who saw an american walking north asking about where the taliban are. We get hits on our voice intercepter that Taliban has him, and we were close. We come to realize that the kid deserted his post, snuck out of camp and sought out Taliban… to join them. We were in a defensive position at OP Mest, where your focus is to keep people out. He knew where the blind spots were to slip out and that's what he did. It was supposed to be a 4-day mission but turned into several months of active searching. Everyone was spun up to find this guy. News outlets all over the country were putting out false information. It was hard to see, especially when we knew the truth about what happened and we lost good men trying to find him. PFC Matthew Michael Martinek, Staff Sgt. Kurt Robert Curtiss, SSG Clayton Bowen, PFC Morris Walker, SSG Michael Murphrey, 2LT Darryn Andrews, were all KIA from our unit who died looking for Bergdahl. Many others from various units were wounded or killed while actively looking for Bergdahl. Fighting Increased. IEDs and enemy ambushes increased. The Taliban knew that we were looking for him in high numbers and our movements were predictable. Because of Bergdahl, more men were out in danger, and more attacks on friendly camps and positions were conducted while we were out looking for him. His actions impacted the region more than anyone wants to admit. There is also no way to know what he told the Taliban: Our movements, locations, tactics, weak points on vehicles and other things for the enemy to exploit are just a few possibilities. The Government knows full well that he deserted. It looks bad and is a good propaganda piece for the Taliban. They refuse to acknowledge it. Hell they even promoted him to Sergeant which makes me sick. I feel for his family who only want their son/brother back. They don’t know the truth, or refuse to acknowledge it as well. What he did affected his family and his whole town back home, who don’t know the truth. Either way what matters is that good men died because of him. He has been lying on all those Taliban videos about everything since his “capture”. If he ever returns, he should be tried under the UCMJ for being a deserter and judged for what he did. Bergdahl is not a hero, he is not a soldier or an Infantryman. He failed his brothers. Now, sons and daughters are growing up without their fathers who died for him and he will have to face that truth someday.

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Oh, the Haqquanis. I'm sure the American public will really appreciate the difference

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On top of all of this, he directly violated a law that he himself signed by not including Congress before making a deal.

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Don't you remember.....Obama has a phone and a pen.......he will act if Congress will not. Laws do not matter to him, unless of course he agrees with it.

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There is nothing more self-defeating than impeaching a man who has no chance of being convicted. No Republican should even utter the word in public between now and November 4th. Doing so would take Obamacare, the VA, Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, etc., off the table for the 2014 elections. The Democrats would like nothing better than being given such a cause celebre before the elections.

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I don't think it will happen that quickly. Per my earlier post, I would be willing to be the Administration will try to fend off or delay any attempt at Impeachment by challenging the law in front of the SCOTUS. What this means is that there would first end up being a special investigator or investigating committee set up. After months of going over data and having hearings, the absolute earliest any findings would be put out would be the Fall 9and that's being very generous).

The next step would be the Administration challenging the law before the SCOTUS as unConstitutional. That decision could take a week or a couple of months (considering the immediate importance of the answer, I believe they would do it like the ACA and answer quickly).

So the absolute outside earliers any Impeachment hearings could start would be right at election time, but again that's being incredibly generous on the time table. Add to that other Congressional investigations going on at the time as well and it paints any Dems supporting the President in a pretty bleak light.

Most likely things would shake out just after the elections, which should see the GOP winning back the Senate if everything with the ACA keeps roughly poking the Dems in the keister.

The only saving grace the Dems and (more importantly) the President have would be the SCOTUS to find in his favor and that decision coming out just prior to the elections. That decision could easily be used to propagandize how the GOP is just making things up, tilting at windmills, etc.

If a Republican tries to tie this issue to Benghazi on those grounds, he's got a bigger pair of nuts than I do.

That just seems like political suicide.

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There is nothing more self-defeating than impeaching a man who has no chance of being convicted. No Republican should even utter the word in public between now and November 4th. Doing so would take Obamacare, the VA, Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, etc., off the table for the 2014 elections. The Democrats would like nothing better than being given such a cause celebre before the elections.

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You are on the right track, but allow me to highlight a trend here for you: Have you guys noticed that, whenever there is a 'scandal', another 'scandal' seems to pop up, taking the previous 'scandal' off the front pages?

I'll work in reverse here. A POW, apparently to most now (the media included), not worth the trouble rescuing. Now hearings are being called on to figure out why this deal was ok. How does T.Gowdy even put on a straight face, and investigate Benghazi with his chief complaint being 'this Administration does not care about the safety of its people abroad', or didn't provide enough security, when it just gave everything to get one of its own back?

I'm pretty sure this Administration is attempting to control the narrative now by manufacturing faux scandals or 'good stories'. The VA and the NSA also appear to be 'scandals' they have controlled to counter real problems.

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A president above the law is indeed a brave new world

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Yeah, totally never happened before.

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Yeah, totally never happened before.

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Change!