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GAO says Obama broke law with Bergdahl swap

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  • GAO says Obama broke law with Bergdahl swap

    Not that it matters.....

    Source: NationalReviewOnline


    President Obama violated a “clear and unambiguous” law when he released five Guantanamo Bay detainees in exchange for Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the Government Accountability Office reported Thursday.

    “[The Department of Defense] violated section 8111 because it did not notify the relevant congressional committees at least 30 days in advance of the transfer,” the GAO report said. “In addition, because DOD used appropriated funds to carry out the transfer when no money was available for that purpose, DOD violated the Antideficiency Act. The Antideficiency Act prohibits federal agencies from incurring obligations exceeding an amount available in an appropriation.”

    © Copyright Original Source



    Source
    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

  • #2
    It is obviously racist to expect Obama to abide by the law.

    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
      It is obviously racist to expect Obama to abide by the law.
      I think Holder should launch an aggressive investigation!
      The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

      Comment


      • #4
        I think we should support the troops even when it's politically inconvenient.

        Comment


        • #5
          Does it have to be done in an incredibly bone-headed "enemy dictates the terms" manner?
          The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by lao tzu View Post
            I think we should support the troops even when it's politically inconvenient.
            Support the troops by giving in readily to enemy demands!
            The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

            [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
              Does it have to be done in an incredibly bone-headed "enemy dictates the terms" manner?
              Looks like it did.

              How would you have done it?

              There are times when the other guy holds all the cards, and you've got to take the deal, even if it means they get the better end of it, and even if it means congress doesn't get its 30 day notice. How many Hamas members did Israel free up in their last prisoner exchange?

              I think the sniping around the Bergdahl release is just that, sniping. It's been politically motivated from the start, which doesn't bother me so much, but at the expense of our former POW, which does. A line needs to be drawn here. We don't sacrifice our soldiers at the altar of condemnations toward our commander in chief.

              Or we shouldn't anyway.

              I put a muzzle on it when we went into Afghanistan, and a much bigger muzzle on it when we went into Iraq. It can be hard, but it can be done.

              As ever, Jesse

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
                Support the troops by giving in readily to enemy demands!
                You're no veteran.

                Good luck on your studies, kid. Folks who've been there are talking now, so shush.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by lao tzu View Post
                  You're no veteran.

                  Good luck on your studies, kid. Folks who've been there are talking now, so shush.
                  I was thinking of commenting, but you have made me realize how unworthy I am to even think of such a thing.
                  I DENOUNCE DONALD J. TRUMP AND ALL HIS IMMORAL ACTS.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by lao tzu View Post
                    Looks like it did.
                    Without consulting or advising congress? What was the urgency?
                    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                      Without consulting or advising congress? What was the urgency?
                      Congress was consulted and advised. They didn't get their 30 day notice, which was indeed designed to give folks time to consider prisoner releases from Guantanamo either into the U.S. or aligned countries, but wasn't designed to handle a prisoner exchange with erratic jihadis on the other side. I don't much care for "signing statements" under any president, including this one, but I'd say it's pretty clear this was a scenario he was hoping to cover.

                      An American soldier was being held prisoner. Let's not pretend that's not urgent, or that it became less urgent over time. Bergdahl in captivity was a thorn that needed pulling, and everyone agreed on that, at least until someone got the clever idea his release was a stick they could use to beat up on Obama, and if it meant tossing Bergdahl under the bus, so be it.

                      America's Last Prisoner of War ... you've read this, right? It's from June, 2012. Bergdahl was released in May, 2014.
                      In the video they're watching now, Bowe doesn't look good. He's emaciated, maybe 30 pounds underweight, his face sunken, his eye sockets like caves. He's wearing a scraggly beard and he's talking funny, with some kind of foreign accent. Jani presses her left hand across her forehead, as if shielding herself from the images onscreen, her eyes filling with tears. Bob, unable to look away, hits play on the MacBook Pro for perhaps the 30th time. Over and over again, he watches as his only son, dressed in a ragged uniform, begs for someone to rescue him.

                      "Release me, please!" Bowe screams at the camera. "I'm begging you – bring me home!"

                      You saw the pictures of him getting out of the jeep, blinking back tears like he hadn't been in the light in weeks. Reports had it that was his punishment for repeated escape attempts. If he screwed up and got captured, it's not like he was the first PFC who'd managed to do something dumb, and it doesn't take his chain of command, what there was of it, off the hook.

                      If you still don't care for how he was released, let me ask you again, how would you have done it?

                      As ever, Jesse

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by lao tzu View Post
                        You're no veteran.
                        I am. Shut it.

                        Bergdahl was saved and Chris Stevens wasn't because the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States has absolutely no loyalty to America or Americans who still maintain any ounce of respect for this country's heritage. Serving under him recklessly endangers your own lives and the lives of good people here and elsewhere, and puts you at great physical and moral hazard far exceeding that of the previous president. Get out of the US armed forces as soon as you can before it's too late, because the axe is already falling primarily on those officers who would protect a soldier for doing the right thing, and the promotions are going to amoral careerists.

                        Good luck on your studies, kid. Folks who've been there are talking now, so shush.
                        Talk as much as you want, remember only that the twisted incentive structure of the volunteer military means:

                        Originally posted by John T. Reed
                        Today, the American people as a group seem to think the military should be staffed by SEOSEC, that is, “Somebody Else Or Somebody Else’s Child.” They couldn’t care less about the quality of the people who serve as long as it’s not them. Furthermore, they want no risk that they would be drafted and no increase in taxes to pay for a higher quality military.

                        In fact, implicit in the decision to have a military at all is a decision to staff it with people of adequate quality and character to get the job done. An argument could be made that because of the catastrophic consequences of losing a war, we should staff the military not with adequate people, but with the best people.

                        How do you get the best people to do a job that is akin to being an executioner? A draft is the only way.

                        Let me tell you the only groups of U.S. citizens who are not draft dodgers:

                        -those of us who ever served on active duty in the military
                        -those who were eligible for the draft when it existed but who did not get drafted—like my brother Bill who got a low draft number in the draft lottery in the late 1960’s
                        -persons who are physically unfit for military service

                        Everyone else is arguably a draft dodger. Nowadays, the favorite way, and only way necessary, to dodge the draft is to pass a federal law that prohibits drafting anyone. That law makes us predominantly a nation of draft dodgers with a minority of veterans.

                        A Spartan king was quoted by Thucydides as saying,

                        The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.

                        Just so. We are currently that nation.
                        Is was bad, but not unsalvageable previously. It has gotten much worse.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          So, Epoetker favors slavery (draft). Anyway, evil government => evil military.
                          The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

                          [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
                            So, Epoetker favors slavery (draft).
                            A sad but inevitable fact of life is that without some previous experience as a dependent, you will never be qualified to be a master of anything.

                            Anyway, evil government => evil military.
                            As Mencius Moldbug says, there are never good cogs in a bad wheel, but there have to be decent ones there for it to work. Remove them or encourage them to remove themselves as early as possible from the evil power structure, and the structure then loses its effective power no matter how much money you pump into it.

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