No Time for Sergeants

So. Look, here’s the thing about the Bowe Bergdahl thing: it makes me uneasy, but it doesn’t make me angry.

OK, here’s the problems, as I see them. First of all, all the appearance is that Our Only President violated the law. Congress passed legislation—bad legislation—that clearly said don’t let people out of Guantanamo without advance notice to us. Our Only President did let people out of Guantanamo without advance notice to them. That’s… a violation of the law. And the idea that the Executive can violate the law whenever they claim it’s necessary for the homeland security makes me uneasy no matter who is in the Executive or what they are doing. I am, I suppose, willing to admit that sometimes it must be done, but it should make us all uneasy, and we should try like hell to stay out of any must-be-done situations.

Another problem: The general matter of P.o.W. trades (or hostage trades, if you would rather call it that—had we classified our prisoners as P.o.W.s under the law?) makes me uneasy. The idea of negotiating for release of individuals and trading our own captives is inherently problematic, not only because we are buying and selling humans but because it seems like such a bad way to run a war. I am, I suppose, willing to admit that sometimes it must be done, but it should make us all uneasy, and we should try like hell to stay out of any must-be-done situations.

And then: it sure seems like the specifics of this deal are lousy. We get back a guy who ought to have faced a court-martial as Absent Without Leave, at the very least, and possibly tried for desertion in the face of the enemy. I obviously can’t say whether he was guilty—lots of people have been calling Sgt. Bergdahl a deserter, but he hasn’t faced a court-martial—but at the very least I find it difficult to believe that the return of this fellow is going to make it easier for us to accomplish the remaining goals of the war. And we’re giving up five prominent fellows who took us some serious capturing to get in the first place. On the face of it, whatever the other circumstances, this looks like crappy negotiating.

Finally, I have to add that as a matter of politics, this appears to be a colossally stupid fuck-up. This was presented to the US as if it was self-evidently a Good Thing, and Our Only President and the administration seem to have been totally unprepared for it to become a Scandal. In a context where everything—everything—is the subject of attacks, they presented a very questionable deal as if it would inspire us all to join hands and shout halleluiah. Bad, bad, bad.

On the other hand… I find it hard to care very much. There’s an awful lot of so-what about it all. I mean, let’s go back down that list:

First of all, of all the violations of the law the Executive has perpetrated over the last twenty years in the name of homeland security, this is as harmless as I can imagine. It doesn’t excuse the thing, but it does make it harder for me to get worked up about it. Assassinations? Yeah, that’s a big deal. Covering up massive domestic spying programs? Yeah, that’s a big deal. This one? Meh. And, you know, there is a big difference in my eyes between violating the law to throw people into Guantanamo and violating the law to let people out. Both are wrong, mind you, and I am not defending Our Only President on this one, just pointing out that it’s difficult for me to do much more than tut, tut.

As for the general problem with P.o.W. trades, if in fact we are winding down the war, returning prisoners of war is part of that process. I was going to write a normal part of that process but we don’t really know what’s normal about this kind of war, yet—the precedent, really, is Vietnam, and I don’t think it’s a good one. Still, if we don’t want to just keep these guys forever, at some point we’re going to let them go. Which makes the ’trade’ aspect more a matter of timing than reciprocity.

Which applies to the specifics as well—if we were going to let these guys at some point, then it’s less of a big deal that we negotiated to give them all for the one P.o.W. that we could get back. And while I’m at it, the stuff about how bad it would be if they went back on the battlefield against us seems like a tiny deal as well—after a decade in Gitmo, I can’t really imagine that these fellows will be a tremendous operational boost to the Taliban. A PR boost, sure, but who cares about that? In terms of actual attacks against our troops or our allies or our interests, it’s not going to make a difference between the Taliban’s success or failure. Maybe, maybe, maybe, possibly with some sort of recruitment pickup, and then crediting them for anything the new recruits do? It’s not anything I can get worked up about. Certainly not in the context of all the recruitment material we have been providing them over all that time.

Which leaves me with the political miscalculation, which again, was stupid and bad, but I don’t really care. It’s not going to sway a bunch of midterm voters. It’s not going to doom any bill that would have had a chance to pass. So Our Only President looks bad for a week? I wish he wouldn’t do that, but I can’t get worked up about it.

So why am I writing about it, if I can’t get worked up about it? Because it has been niggling at me that if it were a President from the Other Party, I would get worked up about little stuff like that. And I think that’s OK, really, only I guess it’ll make me feel better to state outright that even if I’m not worked up about it, even if I don’t think it’s a big deal, it’s clearly not a good thing.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.