Barack and Bowe: A teaching moment
Not long after President Obama appeared
in the Rose Garden with the parents of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl to
announce that their son would be freed by the Taliban in return for
the release of five hard-core Taliban detainees from Guantanamo, I
witnessed a rare television event. Here were Bill O’Reilly on Fox’s
“The O’Reilly Factor” and Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC’s “Morning
Joe’’ saying the same thing.
And just as amazing was what they were
saying about President Obama’s prisoner swap. They didn’t get it.
They didn’t understand it. It made no sense. They were incredulous.
Mika said, “Can anybody help me here?” Bill O’Reilly said, “I
don’t get it. This is crazy.”
Let’s try to illuminate what
confounds Bill and Mika because what it reveals goes way beyond
Sergeant Bergdahl. It goes to the mindset of President Obama.
Bergdahl left his base in eastern
Afghanistan in the summer of 2009 and was captured by the Taliban.
They held him captive until his release May 31, 2014. Prior to
Bergdahl’s deployment to Afghanistan he reportedly told a fellow
soldier, “If this deployment is lame, I’m just going to walk off
into the mountains of Pakistan.”
In June of 2009, according to Michael
Hastings of Rolling Stone Magazine, Bergdahl sent an email to his
parents that stated in part, “I am ashamed to even be an American.
The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is
all revolting. The title of U.S. soldier is just the lie of
fools...The horror that is America is disgusting.”
The Pentagon investigation in 2010 into
his disappearance concluded that he walked away from his unit.
According to the New York Times, he left a note in his tent
indicating that he was starting a new life.
Bradley Bethea, a soldier who served
with Bergdahl, has called him a deserter. Bethea has said that his
brigade received an order not to talk about Bergdahl. Cody Full, a
member of Bergdahl’s platoon has said, “He knowingly deserted.”
CNN has reported that at least six American soldiers were killed in
the effort to find Bergdahl, although that account has been
questioned.
In a deal involving the United States,
the Taliban, and officials from Afghanistan and Qatar, Bergdahl was
swapped for five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo. The “Taliban
Five” are high ranking military and/or intelligence officers. Two
of them have been accused of war crimes by the United Nations. In
effecting the exchange, the Obama administration did not follow the
legal requirements to inform Congress.
Presidents use the Rose Garden for
events that are glorious, magnificent and honorable. They don’t use
the Rose Garden for a ceremony that they know will create a political
firestorm, especially a bipartisan political firestorm. But that is
exactly what happened. Unbelievably, an undaunted White House poured
gasoline on the fire by sending out Susan Rice to say on ABC
television that Bergdahl had served “with honor and distinction.”
Could it be that the president and his advisers were not able to
anticipate the consequences of their behavior? Of course not. And
that why folks like BO’Reilly and Brzezinski don’t get it.
Nope, political naiveté is not the
explanation. The explanation is that President Obama simply didn’t
care about the inevitable blow back from the Rose Garden event. He no
longer cares because he’s folded his tent two and half years before
his term in office expires.
The brutal truth is that America
elected a president who was not equipped to do the job and who has
convincingly proven it for the last five years. His bungled health
care bill brought the Tea Party to power in the House and elected so
many Republicans at the state level that their gerrymandering now
guarantees GOP control of the House until at least 2022.
In foreign policy the president was
unable to anticipate or leverage the Arab Spring movement in Egypt or
Libya, including the horror at our mission in Benghazi. Our relations
with Israel are at an historic low. The president’s red line in
Syria was an avoidable blunder that turned Vladimir Putin into a rock
star and savior. The president’s policy of a pivot to Asia is
stillborn.
President Obama has never been able to
manage the vast executive branch that reports to him. Think
healthcare.gov, the IRS and the VA.
He’s trapped by his own incompetence.
He’s furious. And his default position going forward has become
“damn the torpedoes.” It’s sad, but worse than sad, it’s
dangerous.
LeRoy Goldman is an unaffiliated voter
who lives in Flat Rock. He can be reached at: EmailMe
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