We Need a Million More Bowe Bergdahls, Says a Former US Army Ranger

[eridani]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/202641/we-need-million-more-bowe-bergdahls-says-former-us-army-ranger

“The evidence against him that he’s responsible for the deaths of six soldiers is tenuous at best,” Fanning continued. “But the bigger point is the fact that the entity to blame for these deaths is the US military, for sending these soldiers into a war that should never have happened. The Taliban surrendered months after the initial invasion. But our politicians wanted blood.”

Fanning feels for Bergdahl. “Anyone who has been in Afghanistan could clearly see that the US had nothing to do in that country,” he told me. “We were little more than pawns in village disputes most of the time.”

“To be honest with you,” Fanning said, “we need a million more Bowe Bergdahls. Anybody who has any degree of common sense or moral fortitude would say, ‘This is ridiculous. I’m not gonna fight this war.’”

Fanning told me, as Musil had last year, that it is not at all easy or in some cases possible to declare yourself a conscientious objector once you are in war.

“I could totally relate to this guy,” he said. “I consider him a hero. To kill somebody for a cause you don’t believe in is potentially worse than being killed yourself, because those scars last forever. Just walking off the battlefield as Bergdahl did seems like an easier route than seeking conscientious-objector status.”

[NobodyHere]

1. Or just don't join the military in the first place

nt

[Buzz Clik]

3. +1

[Dont call me Shirley]

2. This is what the ruling class fears the most...

their own paid fighters turning against them.

[Adrahil]

4. Two MAJOR issues...

1) The military doesn't send ANYONE to war. That decision comes from civilian leaders sitting in Washington. The military executes the orders issued by the President.

2) We have an all-volunteer force. Bergdahl joint the Army in 2008, when the Bush war clusterfucks were well under way. Anyone who enlisted in that time frame should have know what they were getting themselves into. Let's put it this way. When my nephew was considering signing up in 2007, I told him he'd be an idiot to join up while Dubya was President. That fact that his step-brother came back from A-stan a complete mess reinforced that. I advised my step-nephew against joining as well, but we're not as close, so he chose not to follow my advice.

[mountain grammy]

6. "But our politicians wanted blood"

pretty much puts the blame where it belongs.

The fact that anyone joins our military doesn't mean they can't disagree and shouldn't draw a line they won't cross. Many young men and women join with a true sense of honor, love of country, and doing the right thing. Many had joined the National Guard, the purpose of which is home defense, sent off to the battlefield again and again.
Just because the military is all volunteer should not mean soldiers should give up every sense of morality.

[McKim]

5. Sometimes They Don't Get to Come Home

My brother in law died in Vietnam for a lie. Sometimes they never come home and they leave a great vacant space in the family. I tried to talk a kid at the carwash out of joining up and I offered to pay for his books in community college but he joined up anyway.