I think this was a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.............for now.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

The fact is, President Obama did not politicize his release, unless you call the announcement of a POW being released with the soldier's parents at his side as being political self-aggrandizement. An Article 15 would never have occurred in the first place.

My point is whatever the Private did it wouldn't be national news. Remember the Secret Service agents on Obama's detail who were fired for unauthorized dating? A dozen or so uniformed military personal did the same thing but no one ever heard a word about them, that is the UCMJ.

Good, bad or indifferent Obama wishes he didn't do it.

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Oh, come on. Typical Canadian thinking. Either Black or White.

Clyde, once again you have been proven wrong, ES is a Brit, although she does not mind being called a Canadian, Wiggo is an Aussie, and I am a native born US citizen. You too frequently make assertions with no basis in fact, as is this case!

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we need more people in the world like Dwight David Eisenhower

Eisenhower would have had the Private shot as he did Eddie Slovik.

Cowards: The Execution of Private Slovik

Yes, Pvt. Slovik was executed, but as I stated in one of my previous posts on this thread, it was done after a through investigation and a court martial was held. It's called due process of law, not mob rule.

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I don't buy computers, I build them!!

Also he MUST judged under the USCMJ.

If Obama didn't politicise this his punishment could have been as little as an Article 15,(latrine duty for a month) but now it is a circus.

The fact is, President Obama did not politicize his release, unless you call the announcement of a POW being released with the soldier's parents at his side as being political self-aggrandizement. An Article 15 would never have occurred in the first place. Because of the previous low-level investigation into his disappearance, an Article 32 investigation would have been warranted, and which will take place as a normal part of the Pentagon's high-level investigation. In case some of you don't know what an Article 32 investigation is, under the USCMJ it is similar to a civilian grand-jury, with the exception that the accused has the opportunity to assist in his/her defense. If the Article 32 board finds enough evidence to warrant it then a trial, (i.e. General Court Martial) will commence.

Now, I'll pose a question for you -- You are the captain of a ship and a person has gone over board will you wait to find out if he/she jumped or fell off to make the decision to turn around to search for that individual or would you turn around immediately?

I have watched several news broadcasts last night and today and several Republican Congressmen and Senators were asked -- What they would have paid to have this soldier returned to his country and not one of them could answer the question, all they gave were the usual hemming and hawing and skirting the question.

So, the final question -- Knowing that there are 100+ prisoners at Gitmo that have not been charged for any crime who must be released within the next couple of years, and the price for the release of a POW was also the release of some of these individuals, would you agree with that price or would you let the soldier linger further as a POW because of what he has been accused of without any due process of law?

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I don't buy computers, I build them!!

we need more people in the world like Dwight David Eisenhower

Eisenhower would have had the Private shot as he did Eddie Slovik.

Cowards: The Execution of Private Slovik

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Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers,
the genius of its scientists,
the hopes of its children.

Because of beliefs like that most current Republicans would disown him.

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we need more people in the world like Dwight David Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers,
the genius of its scientists,
the hopes of its children.

the above was part of a speach before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on 16 April 1953

speach was given by ... five-star general in the United States Army Dwight David Eisenhower

He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.

He was a Great Soldier, humanitarian and Republican president of the USA 1953-1961.

Oh, come on. Typical Canadian thinking. Either Black or White.

That is not Canadian thinking unless having values is only a Canadian thing.

Considering I'm British its evident that its not typical Canadian thinking.

(not that I'm ashamed to be considered Canadian, Canadians have a very pragmatic, non idealogical, and basically humanist way of dealing with the world)

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Reality Internet Personality

Oh, come on. Typical Canadian thinking. Either Black or White.

That is not Canadian thinking unless having values is only a Canadian thing.

It's very frightening to think that any cop would carry that sort of attitude indeed. :-O

Oh, come on. Typical Canadian thinking. Either Black or White.

That is not Canadian thinking unless having values is only a Canadian thing.

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The mujahideen consisted of at least seven factions, who often fought amongst themselves in their battle for territory and control of the opium trade. To hurt the Russians, the U.S. deliberately chose to give the most support to the most extreme groups. A disproportionate share of U.S. arms went to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, "a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater."' According to journalist Tim Weiner, " [Hekmatyar's] followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department officials I have spoken with call him 'scary,' 'vicious,' 'a fascist,' 'definite dictatorship material."There was, though, a kind of method in the madness: Brezinski hoped not just to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, but to ferment unrest within the Soviet Union itself. His plan, says author Dilip Hiro, was "to export a composite ideology of nationalism and Islam to the Muslim-majority Central Asian states and Soviet Republics with a view to destroying the Soviet order." Looking back in 1998, Brezinski had no regrets. "What was more important in the world view of history?... A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War>"With the support of Pakistan's military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, the U.S. began recruiting and training both mujahideen fighters from the 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and large numbers of mercenaries from other Islamic countries. Estimates of how much money the U.S. government channeled to the Afghan rebels over the next decade vary, but most sources put the figure between $3 billion and $6 billion, or more. Whatever the exact amount, this was "the largest covert action program since World War II" - much bigger, for example, than Washington's intervention in Central America at the same time, which received considerably more publicity. According to one report:The CIA became the grand coordinator: purchasing or arranging the manufacture of Soviet-style weapons from Egypt, China, Poland, Israel and elsewhere, or supplying their own; arranging for military training by Americans, Egyptians, Chinese and Iranians; hitting up Middle-Eastern countries for donations, notably Saudi Arabia which gave many hundreds of millions of dollars in aid each year, totaling probably more than a billion; pressuring and bribing Pakistan-with whom recent American relations had been very poor-to rent out its country as a military staging area and sanctuary; putting the Pakistani Director of Military Operations, Brigadier Mian Mohammad Afzal, onto the CIA payroll to ensure Pakistani cooperation.

Read more at:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3d1_1374168674#XsqUOwT08Kgm4ECq.99

As 'Illegal Combatant's' they should have, and should be, 'shot on the spot', as is legal.

A retired cop advocating summary executions, something is wrong with your sense of due process.

He was a cop with that attitude? No wonder everyone thinks America is becoming a police state.

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Reality Internet Personality

Also he MUST judged under the USCMJ.

If Obama didn't politicise this his punishment could have been as little as an Article 15,(latrine duty for a month) but now it is a circus.

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As 'Illegal Combatant's' they should have, and should be, 'shot on the spot', as is legal.

A retired cop advocating summary executions, something is wrong with your sense of due process.

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You must really love this President and you are seeing things through rose tinted glasses and are distorting the facts as much as those you have attacked here.

Have you ever been at the tip of the spear or even served in either of the armed forces, if so which branch and what did you do? And, while you're at it please tell me which facts I'm distorting and whom I have attacked on this thread. BTW, this came out this morning http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/world/middleeast/can-gi-be-tied-to-6-lost-lives-facts-are-murky.html?_r=0. Lions & Tigers & Bears OH MY!

I will respond to this.

YES I have. There are more than two ("Either"?) Armed Forces.

Regarding what happened that night, and his motivation, and the Mother's of those who died: Do you believe a Politician? The NYT? Or his buddy's, and the Mother's of the dead?

Since YOU brought it up. The Air Force saved our butts on more than one occasion, but... I did miss the Golf Courses you guys had. Just kidding :) :) :).

@Clyde - When I said either of the armed forces, common sense would have told you that there were more than two, but then again maybe I should have been more explicit.

You just don't get it do you or are you just so blind to the issue at hand that nothing else matters. Number one, my heart and sympathies go out to all of the families of all of men & women who have been wounded and died in these two wars more than you will ever know. I've attended too many funerals, both enlisted and commissioned, over the last 50 years, some as a requested pall bearer from the families, to last me several life times.

Secondly, and hopefully this will be the last time I try to get into that thick skull of yours, there are two distinct matters at hand here. On one hand we have the return of the last POW of the current conflict, which as I have said before, we leave no man/woman on the field, regardless of what he/she may have done, and you a combat veteran, of all people should know this. On the other hand, is the matter of his alleged desertion which is a completely different issue and will be addressed in the appropriate manner as stated by the Pentagon as a separate issue. Until that matter has been taken up by the Pentagon, which I believe will happen as soon as he crosses into US air space, he is by law and the constitution, considered innocent of all charges and hearsay. As I have stated before, if and when he is charged and convicted by a military court martial according to the USCMJ, he should be punished to the fullest extent of the prevailing law. Or would you have just gone out behind the woodshed and fragged him without any legal recourse and due process of law, which I might add he is fully entitled to.

As for the Air Force covering your butt on more than one occasion, who knows it may have been me or one of my fellow Combat Controllers on the ground calling in those air strikes. I don't play golf, so I wouldn't know how the good the courses are, but I did hear that they were pretty good, especially those in Thailand. I was too busy in places like the Hobo Woods or sluicing through paddies anyway.

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I don't buy computers, I build them!!