Should deserters be excluded from the principle of leaving no man behind?

Ever since this whole Bergdahl debacle, the question above seems to be pertinent.

So, what say ye, PF members? Should deserters be removed from this principle, or not?

 

Wouldn't you have to get them back and court martial them first to determine if they are a deserter? Maybe he was suffering from PTSD?

 

Good point.

I guess it's kind of a catch-22.

 

I'm going to go with yes.

People do have rights, and it's wrong to force people to be where they just don't want to be.

As long as they aren't actively working against the country they deserted, I have no problem with letting them go.

While I have heard many reasons for this, I just can't wrap my head on this we must all be loyal no matter what that craptastic authoritarians impose upon us.

 

Really?

 

Do you not know what "maybe" means?

 

No. We leave no one behind and if a court marshal is in order, we go ahead with it.

There is a process to be observed; we are a nation of LAWS. We don't make up stuff as we go; certainly not in cases like this.

 

Sometime after midnight on June 30, 2009, Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl left behind a note in his tent saying he had become disillusioned with the Army, did not support the American mission in Afghanistan and was leaving to start a new life. He slipped off the remote military outpost in Paktika Province on the border with Pakistan and took with him a soft backpack, water, knives, a notebook and writing materials, but left behind his body armor and weapons

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2014/06/03/nyt-bergdahl-left-a-desertion-note-n1847046

 

Really? That's your response?

 

Okay, thanks for that link.

I still don't understand how this makes him out to be a traitor though. To me, a traitor is someone who turns on their country and actively works against it in any way possible. He just left.

I don't like deserters, but I still don't understand why we shouldn't just let them go. A lot of the times their country is engaging in war for political gain, which can sometimes be an illegal war.

 

Gee, why even bother with a court martial!

 

"“Yes, I’m angry,” Joshua Cornelison, a former medic in Sergeant Bergdahl’s platoon, said in an interview on Monday arranged by Republican strategists."

I guess you forgot that part, eh?

So what you have is a third-hand report from heavily biased sources, making a claim but failing to produce the slightest bit of physical (ie. the alleged note) or circumstantial (ie. the alleged finder of the note) evidence. And we're just supposed to just shut down our minds and believe that sketchy story with a religious zeal? No, no sale. Only a fool would fall for that stinky fish.

 

This is not a yes/no question, hence I didn't vote.

The word 'deserter' implies that the individual has left of his own volition, for reasons individual to the case, and with intentions unknown. In every case we need to do a cost/benefit analysis. I don't necessarily disagree with what BHO did, because we don't know what military value Bergdahl may have had. Perhaps he was more valuable, militarily, than the 5 we traded for. Doubtful, but we don't know.

What I STRONGLY disagree with is BHO acting unilaterally, and then standing in the rose garden like an idiot and announcing it to the world. He did irreparable damage to the safety and security of Americans abroad (military and civilian) by doing that, and all just for political gain.

 

He's an American soldier who doesn't belong there. It's not his choice. It's not the Army's choice. There is no choice. Everyone comes home, dead or alive.

 

Perhaps a better question is why aren't deserters summarily executed by drone strike?

If we can execute citizens without trial why not deserters?