We Don't Leave Our Own Behind

I'd be lying if I said I didn't think there was something "off" about the account of Sgt. Bergdahl's capture and whether it seemed like he might have deserted, but that particular issue isn't up to me, and I can't pass judgment regarding his state of mind, so I think the only thing I really know, is that he is an American soldier who wore our uniform whose parents desperately want him back home, and that settles it. Maybe some separate inquiry settles what he may or may not have done--and there will be an extensive debriefing on this individual, but in the end, this isn't about Sgt. Bergdahl. It's about what we think right is.

I don't know how it happened, but the best factual run-down I can point to is at Gawker. In the comments are some people who were associated with the mission to try and rescue Bergdahl when he was recently captured, a mission that cost six lives. If you were part of an event were six lives were lost and you had reason to think it might have been over a deserter or a turncoat--I don't question what they are thinking. That anger is real and that conclusion makes a whole lot of sense...it's just that--

I'm hung up on the idea of people being treated as if they are innocent until proven guilty. I remember when Bergdahl was first captured and FOX News correspondent Lt. Col. Ralph Peters actually suggested that the Taliban should waste him to save us the trouble. It incensed me. Because it seemed to me that in part, the claim that he was a deserter was like writing this soldier off. It was shrugging off what was happening to him. It was proving the shittier parts of what Michael Hastings' article regarding Bergdahl revealed regarding his impressions of his service were kind of true.

But bringing Bergdahl home so we can close out the account on him is a one-sided prospect. We exchanged him for five Taliban we had at Gitmo.  Sen. McCain had a complaint that these were the worst of the worst of the killers, and he can sit the hell down. If they were the baddest of the baddest asses we had in there, why didn't we even try and convict them of anything? Because we couldn't. See, in America, one is innocent until proven guilty. In Gitmo, one is guilty because people like Sen. McCain have never made up their minds about whether we treat folks like our Taliban Five as POW's or deem them "enemy combatants" to try and strip them of any Geneva code rights because we decided to wage war on a tactic (terrorism) and not an actual state. And in the meantime, the legal file we have on them is post hoc and propter fucked. We can't bring them to trial because we don't bother with cases. Or case files.

Is that ambiguous enough for you? This is the muddle President Obama inherited, where we are in combat but not a declared war, and have detainees who aren't charged with anything but apparently, superstition in the minds of neocons that if they suck air as free men they will immediately be destroying all the cities.

These words matter.  If Bergdahl was just AWOL when captured, his stint as a hostage is like, time served. If he deserted in the middle of a lawful war, he'd be fit for the firing squad. If this was a POW exchange, we're operating under the legalities of war.

And now I understand how Joseph Heller was the best documentarian. Because there are a lot of catches to war or war-like things.  I am just hoping Sgt. Bergdahl gets to spend a little time with his folks before popular opinion puts him in Leavenworth. Since so many are all-fired up to see him beat down worse than his captivity ever did.

Would you call that patriotism? Because I don't think I would. And as grouses go, it looks partisan to me.