Can we NOT disseminate the right wing meme that Bergdahl was a deserter here at DU?

[Savannahmann]

64. Cali, I honestly don't know about this situation

It is rare that I find myself in disagreement with you. In this case, I have remained silent because I do not know what happened. The circumstances of his capture are difficult to explain. How he managed to wonder from a camp and get captured in the first place bothers me. How the Taliban forces were close enough to that camp, and apparently undetected is also troubling. That aside. The claims of his desertion have been bandied about since he was captured five years ago.

My opinion on the matter is simple. The Government has an honor bound duty to protect the citizens, no matter where those citizens are, and no matter what crimes they may be alleged to have committed. Bergdahl was and is an American Citizen, who was held hostage for five years. The Government has, and shall always have, a duty to attempt to retrieve that person no matter how they ended up being held hostage.

Prior to World War II, the 4th Marine Division was in China. They would run patrols, and generally speaking fly the flag to protect American citizens in China. The citizens knew they could count on the Marine's. Those citizens included adventurers, missionaries, diplomats, businessmen, travelers, and wanderers. How they arrived in China, for what purpose, didn't matter. What mattered was the Marines were there to protect them.

If Bergdahl did desert, for whatever reasons, that is not relevant to the issue. The Government has and always has had a responsibility, a debt of honor, to find and take necessary action to free citizens who were held hostage.

I don't know if he did wonder off in an effort to leave the Army and the war behind. I don't know if he deluded himself into the idea he was headed to China. I don't know if he just took a walk through an area he believed to be the next best thing to secure trying to gather his thoughts. All I know is that even if the worst about him is true, that did not relieve the rest of us of our responsibilities. He is an American Citizen. Because of that citizenship, we have a collective responsibility to see him freed from captivity.

I don't think I've been as clear as I usually am in my posts. For that I apologize in advance. I hope I have made the point that the principle of the matter is what counts, not the muttered charges. If we must begin to justify the expense and effort of our actions based not upon the principle it represents, but upon the value of the individual in question, then I fear we have moved far closer to the Oligarchy than I had previously believed. Wasn't it THX 1138 where he got away because they had expended too much money in attempting to capture him? If we have become that society, I weep for us all.