Deal To Free Bowe Bergdahl Puts Obama On Defensive -- New York Times
WASHINGTON — The White House argued on Tuesday that the “unique circumstances” presented by the opportunity to return Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl gave President Obama the authority to lawfully bypass a federal statute requiring the Pentagon to notify Congress a month before he transferred the five Taliban detainees necessary to complete the deal.
But the White House was forced by turns to defend its decision not to notify Congress and to send important aides to apologize to angry lawmakers who said they were left out of the decision.
A timeline of the negotiations with the Taliban, provided by the White House, made clear that it knew an imminent transfer was possible by mid-May, roughly two weeks before it took place. And officials familiar with the sequence of events said it was a desire to keep the talks secret for fear that any disclosure would scuttle the negotiations — and perhaps a reluctance to re-engage with Democratic and Republican members of Congress who were critical of the proposed swap in 2011 and early 2012 — that motivated the White House decision.
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My Comment: This CBS/AP analysis on the White House miscalculating the backlash over the Bergdahl deal is spot on .... the White House expected praise and support from everyone (especially from the media) ... and what they got instead was the exact opposite. What made the situation worse was having National Security Adviser Susan Rice going on ABC News Sunday and stating that Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction” and that he was a prisoner of war .... when many are saying that he is not. Not surprising .... Democrat Senators have become eerily quiet on the entire affair .... and the Pentagon brass are trying their best to clamp down on dissension.
In the end .... I expect the uproar over this prisoner swap to die down .... and if the five Taliban leaders who were released in this swap are back on the battlefield directing Taliban soldiers to kill Americans .... I expect the media to sweep that under the carpet also.
4 comments:
I respectfully disagree with your conclusion that the Bergdahl uproar will die down.
There is too much wrong with the Administration's position, on too many elements, for the furor to end, at least rapidly. Here is a partial list:
1. Did Bergdahl desert? While Gen. Dempsey is right, there are too many people offended by the circumstances of his departure to hush this up. There are also too many loose threads, e.g. what did his note say, what did his e-mails to his family say, did he renounce his citizenship, did he actively seek out the Taliban, etc. It does not matter that the brass is trying to hush people up. Too many people know about this for the episode to be covered up. This is quite different from Benghazi, in which relatively few people, all of whom remain in the Government, know what really happened.
2. Did soldiers die looking for him? This is hard to prove, but the families of the dead are outraged at the loss of their sons/husbands and have zero, repeat zero, incentive to trust anything the Administration is saying. They will not keep quiet either.
3. Did the Administration overrule the intelligence community and military about releasing the five Taliban officials who were released from Guantanamo? The intelligence community and military have no incentive to help the Administration spin this. As a sidebar, the Taliban people released were, in effect, cabinet members of the Afghan Government under Mullah Omar. These are leaders, not privates.
4. Why would the President appear at a podium in the Rose Garden with Bergdahl's father, who evidently was/is working to get everyone at Guantanamo released? The Administration could have quietly cut the deal with the Taliban; they didn't have to have the President publicly appear with the father.
5. How could Susan Rice say that Bergdahl served honorably and with distinction? The murky circumstances outlined in 1 and 2 were known within the Government. How could the Administration send her out to the Sunday morning shows with talking points lauding Bergdahl? For that matter, who wrote those talking points?
6. Who decided to by-pass Congress, and why? All presidents resist Congress' attempts to constrain their powers, but Obama campaigned against Bush's signing statements and signed the bill (passed with bipartisan support) he has now ignored. Diane Feinstein has broken the wall of Democratic senatorial silence, and when Democrats criticize the Administration, it is harder for them to dismiss criticism as partisan.
7. What additional films of Bergdahl do the Taliban have? They held him 5 years. What if during that time he said or did inflammatory things? The Taliban can damage the United States anytime they wish by releasing such film. Perhaps there are no shoes left to drop, but I wouldn't bet much money that the revelations are over.
8. This is concrete, in a way that Benghazi is not. The American public understands the difficulties our troops face in Afghanistan, and everyone understands what desertion is. This is not an abstraction.
Of course, if nothing new emerges this story will eventually be supplanted by other news. But I think it is premature to predict that the revelations have stopped. The Bergdahl affair may have only just begun.
Publius,
1) My opinion from evidence so far is yes, he did desert. It does matter it's known that the brass is trying to hush it up. To gag recently serving veterans or currently serving troops looks very unseemly.
2)As a veteran I have a hard time with this. After all it's part of the job you've signed up for, but that doesn't extend to the families.
3) From what I can gather they were told basically to salute and obey. As you indicated there'll be tons of leaks.
4) I don't know, maybe his ego is that bad.
5) I think this is crucial to the majority of their behavior, they have been captured by their own propaganda, so they not only won't see any reality beyond their ideology, they can't see anything else.
6) Again, don't know. My guess though is someone who has final say on all things.
7) Agreed.
8) Again agreed, but with this addition. There are common threads that connect every scandal, lying, naked political intimidation, and the fact that Ben Ghazi, the VA scandal, and now this are all military related and one after another. Some have claimed the American people are dumber than they used to be and oblivious to all this, but I don't think so and this may be the moment they say enough. We'll see. Great comment, I especially liked #7, I hadn't considered that and I bet good money you're right.
WNU, I also have to disagree with your belief that this Bergdahl fiasco will die down, for many of the same reasons as the above posts. There is just to much momentum building up against this move. More information is coming out every day, none of which has been of benefit to the administration. Even Bergdahl's hometown is turning against him.
I expect all of the released terrorists to rejoin the fight against America (after all, they were chosen for a reason). And if there is even a hint that they may be responsible for American deaths in the future, nobody will be able to sweep it under the rug.
This is political poison and could end up ruining whatever is left of Obama's legacy; I don't know why the administration made this deal when it seems so obviously wrong..maybe they know something we don't, or maybe they're just more naive than I thought.
Publius .... on a personal level I am praying that this entire sordid mess will get the public hearing and discussion that it deserves to have. Unfortunately .... I have become deeply skeptical on the American media and it's coverage of President Obama. The main stream media is heavily invested in him, and as a rule have been given him a pass for the past six years .... why not on Bergdahl. As for the opposition .... the Republicans are leaderless and in disarray .... they sorely need to get their act together and I do not see it happening over the Berdahl mess.
But I will admit that a lot of people are now demanding answers .... Publius, James, William .... your voices are one of many .... and I hope that on this issue you guys end up being spectacularly correct .... and I am spectacularly wrong.
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