Bowe Bergdahl’s Trial Is Upon Us, And Obama Hopes You Won’t Notice It Because…

08 Oct, 2015 by Scott McKay

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…the picture that will be painted in that trial is not one of a presidential administration which has a clue what it’s doing.

And it’s beginning to sound like Bergdahl’s defense will be that because the jihadists to whom he deserted treated him badly that ought to count as “time served” for his desertion.

No, really.

Five years of torment at the hands of what one witness called “psychopathic sadists” make it likely that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl would serve little if any jail time, military lawyers said, even if he were court-martialed and found guilty of desertion and misconduct.

Testimony about Bergdahl’s horrific treatment by the Taliban-associated Haqqani network — as well as other evidence largely undisputed by prosecutors at his Article 32 probable-cause hearing on whether he should face court-martial — revealed significant mitigating factors, experts said. That evidence, if left unchallenged, would probably spare him confinement were he convicted, the lawyers said, and could replace court-martial with another disposition.

“It’s hard for me to imagine either a judge or a military panel sentencing him to any additional confinement with the facts of this case,” said Victor Hansen, a former Army lawyer who’s now an associate law professor at the New England School of Law. “From a fairness point, what more do we want to punish him for?”

Allen West smells a rat, to put it mildly…

Bergdahl’s supposed detention for five years was of his own choosing. He made a conscious choice to violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice by deserting in a combat zone. Folks, that’s punishable by death, which of course won’t happen. But to come up with this weak-as-pond-water mess that he’s already suffered is unconscionable.

Let’s consider something, why is it that Bergdahl was held for those five years? This enemy we face does not “hold on” to American combat troops. They’re ritually disemboweled and savagely beheaded. What were the “mitigating factors” that meant Bowe Bergdahl got special treatment? He certainly didn’t look like he was in bad health.

You want to know another “mitigating factor”? Consider the six U.S. soldiers who lost their lives searching for a deserter, Bowe Bergdahl, what about their suffering — they’re dead. They lost their lives because some deserter decided to abandon them. Guess what, they didn’t abandon him and they lost their lives in pursuing that noble goal.

Ladies and Gents, this episode stinks with undue command influence.It’s rather interesting that the person who did the investigation on Bergdahl is now the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army. If anyone believes President Obama wants a long, drawn-out court case with a life imprisonment verdict for someone he traded for five senior Taliban leaders, you’re misguided. Obama wants Bergdahl’s case to go away, with minimal consequence.

West says he thinks this Bergdahl trial has been manipulated by the Obama administration in order to bury it. Nothing about it adds up.

And he might be right.