Leave No Soldier Behind

That’s the spin the Obama Administration is using to justify their prisoner swap of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and five Taliban terrorists. It’s true that the “unwritten law” of the U.S. Armed Forces is that you never, within reason, leave a fellow soldier, Marine, airman, or sailor behind on the battlefield, whether alive or dead.

The case of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is different in so far as he has been classified as a deserter from his platoon, a major breach of military conduct. Normally, prisoner swaps occur after the hostilities have ended and one side has been defeated. Neither of these things happened in this case. This swap occurred while the hostilities are still in progress. The Taliban, a stateless group of terrorists, are still at war with us and want to kill us at any chance they get. It has been a public relations disaster for Obama and his Administration, which was brought by their own actions, the Republicans and right-wingers had nothing to do with it.

To compound the insult and injury to the American people, Obama and his National Security Advisor, Susan Rice (of Benghazi fame) have been claiming that Sgt. Bergdahl served “honorably with distinction” and therefore was entitled to be swapped for those Taliban criminals. Are they for real?

Who got the better of this deal? Most observers and retired military officers and enlisted personnel say, almost unanimously, that this was not in the best interests of the U.S. The consensus is that those “hardened war criminals” will return to the fray and continue to inflict harm on us and our allies unless we can take them out sometime in the future.

Can you imagine, that during WWll, if we had in our possession Goering, Goebbels, and Eichmann, that we would have swapped those Nazi war criminals for a U.S. soldier who had deserted his platoon? Do you think we would have done that deal? Of course not, it would’ve been out of the question, but Obama thought that this was the humane thing to do, in this case, and that he’d be looked upon favorably by the public, but it has backfired on him big time, as well as it should have. Another thought has been bandied about that Obama did this to help him fulfill his promise to close down Gitmo and now with the worst of the worst terrorists no longer housed at Gitmo, it should be closed for good. Another miscalculation on Obama’s part, in my estimation.

It seems that every other week, a new scandal, involving the Obama Administration comes to light. If that doesn’t show the inexperience, naivete, and arrogance of our Commander in Chief, nothing else will, unless you are one of the Obama Zombies who can’t see that the “Emperor has no clothes”.

The tenet of “leave no soldier behind” is a worthy goal, but it should be done with common sense and with not a hint of politics involved. Shame on Obama, he has reached a new low.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann