I'm near the point of begging off blogging about the Bo$ton Globe.
"PTSD cited in Wellesley ‘road rage’ arrest" by Eric Moskowitz Globe Staff February 19, 2016
DEDHAM — When Wellesley police patted down Ian Beagan, they felt Army dog tags under his dress shirt and sweater. When they checked him for identifying marks at booking, they found the numbers 8-3-1-1 tattooed across his right knuckles.
The tags and the inked digits — the date Beagan’s friends were blown up, according to his father — hinted at the burden he has carried in the four years since he returned from Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the 25-year-old community college student was arrested for allegedly pointing a loaded gun at another motorist on Route 9, in an incident police said was “road rage.” In court Friday, Beagan’s lawyer called the episode a result of post-traumatic stress disorder, and a judge postponed Beagan’s arraignment so he could seek evaluation and treatment.
I have several feelings regarding this incident.
The first is the rage I feel at what this lying government has done to these guys. The same government that has neglected them upon their return home (unless it was to fill 'em up with pharmaceuticals for their various war-driven ailments).
Related: The Biggest Iraq War Scandal That Nobody's Talking About
Kind of burns you up, doesn't it?
The second is the knee-jerk excuse for the soldiers above what civilians would face. Already we have seen states set up special veterans courts outside of civilian courts to handle the unique cases. Not only does that smack of further tiers regarding AmeriKan JU$TU$, it inserts the civilian and volunteer military into a special class that one can only compare to what I have been taught and told of Nazi Germany.
That's not to say I want vets disarmed because of this incident, either. That leads down a slippery slope that could imperil us all. If the resistance is to have leaders, it will come from that group. Maybe that's why there are always weird sorts of accidents and things causing them to vanish from the face of the earth. Dead men don't talk, nor do they act.
Beagan told police he had been a combat medic and hinted at an experience his father detailed to the Globe in an interview. On Aug. 3, 2011, the truck Beagan usually rode in was carrying five soldiers when it struck a hidden improvised explosive device on a bridge in the Nerkh District, his father said. Two died instantly; two others were badly wounded. Beagan was not on board, but he responded quickly to the scene, treating the wounded.
I feel for him, but the excusing the conduct tone is offensive.
Btw, I'm also not the one who sent him there over a raft of lies while this government literally creates (with other allies and intelligence agencies) the very groups it is claiming to fight.
Good way to keep wars going forever, I suppose.
“Some soldiers have survivor’s guilt,” said his father, Michael Beagan. On top of that, “medics feel it’s their duty to keep their unit safe — that even if they weren’t there, somehow it’s their fault, and Ian has tremendous guilt that his buddies died.”
Beagan’s parents had a no-gun policy in their Needham home, opposed the Iraq war, and had mixed feelings about Afghanistan. They were stunned when Beagan enlisted in 2010, requesting to become a medic.
“It’s about the guy next to me,” Beagan’s father remembered him saying. “I feel like I should do my share to protect those guys.”
By the time Ian Beagan returned to Massachusetts in 2012, he seemed consumed by combat memories, his father said, though he did not talk about it.
Beagan’s parents persuaded him to seek support from a Veterans Health Administration overwhelmed by backlogs.
What a goddamn joke, and btw, it's the liars that sold you the wars that not only neglected veterans to death, but looted the $y$tem for themselves.
Of course, all those problems have been washed down the memory hole, what with a new CEO at the helm, Congre$$ having thrown billions at it to fix, and more wars on deck.
A therapist diagnosed Beagan with PTSD in 2013. But he often had to wait weeks between appointments, and his disability benefits took a year to kick in, his father said.
Taking matters into their own hands, Beagan’s parents found a private therapist and their son began twice-weekly appointments, Michael Beagan said. In the summer of 2013, Michael and Ian Beagan traveled to Haiti on a medical mission with a group from Needham’s Christ Episcopal Church. Beagan enrolled in community college classes, determined to work in health care and help amputee veterans.
Maybe the best thing would be to not start wars based on lies for the profit of a few, 'eh?
Might as well be talking to God because the insane psychopaths in charge of this country and their craven underlings serving only themselves can't hear a goddamn thing.
Beagan’s parents changed insurers at the end of 2015, but the therapist did not accept their new coverage. His parents offered to pay out of pocket, but Beagan waved them off. For seven weeks, they held their breath, while encouraging him to restart treatment.
What is odd there is the VA is the prime AmeriKan example of socialized medicine. That is why I no longer want single payer here, and the crappy corporate creation that is Obummercare is a total failure. I'd leave it to the states, and I haven't accessed health care in over five years (knock wood). Didn't have a good experience regarding the physical, imagine the prying is even worse now. Besides, I don't to cost the state any money either. I think people should just die if they can't get health care, and the last place I would look for it is here in AmeriKa -- where it is more about profit than people.
I mean, let's stop kidding ourselves about what this government stands for and what this $ociety is about. Give it to me straight, doc.
They knew he kept guns, even if it mystified them that he had been able to get a permit with his PTSD diagnosis. They knew, too, that he was self-medicating, that he struggled to sleep, and that he experienced “hypervigilance,” his father said.
What was he using?
“They spend a year with people trying to shoot at them, and they come back here and it’s like landing on a different planet,” he said. “They still have a sense that they have to protect themselves.”
So if they join law enforcement and blow somebody away, cut 'em a break.
And it all comes back to this goddamn lying government sending those kids off to fight and die in fraudulent wars.
On Thursday afternoon, Beagan called his parents from Wellesley, where he was under arrest, his father said. When driving his Toyota Camry, Beagan kept a loaded Glock 23 — a .40-caliber handgun engraved with an American flag — in the center console, according to police. He admitted that “he [messed] up and brandished his gun” at a driver who had repeatedly encroached on him at around 11 a.m., police wrote.
Is that how it went?
The other driver, a 48-year-old Canton man who sought help from an officer working a construction detail, told police he had simply applied his brakes ahead of a lane closure before a honking Beagan swerved beside him, flashed a middle finger, then raised a gun, pointing it upward and then toward the other driver, police wrote. Beagan told police he only pointed it in the air.
Maybe he was late for class?
The man “stated that he was scared,” and police described him as “obviously shaken up.” They tracked Beagan’s car to Massachusetts Bay Community College and found him in a science class.
He cooperated with officers and directed them to his locked car for the gun, allowing them to search and take it without a warrant, according to the police report. He spent the night in lockup, charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and bringing a gun to school property.
In Dedham District Court Friday, Beagan stood silently in the dock as defense lawyer William Lenahan asked for time to check his client into a VA hospital “to stabilize his mental health.” Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Christopher Meade objected, citing “a very disturbing set of road-rage facts.”
Judge James McGuinness overruled the prosecutor, postponing the arraignment to March 11, while ordering Beagan to surrender his guns.
As the Beagans prepared to take their son to the hospital, their lawyer suggested his arrest might be a blessing in disguise. “Hopefully,” Lenahan told reporters outside the courthouse, “we will be able to get him some help.”
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"Allston student arrested after alleged road rage incident in Wellesley" by Eric Moskowitz Globe Staff February 18, 2016
Wellesley police arrested a 25-year-old Allston student Thursday for allegedly pointing a .40-caliber pistol at another driver in an apparent road rage incident on Route 9, police said.
After the other driver pulled over and told a police officer working a construction detail, Wellesley police tracked down the man who allegedly pointed the gun, Ian Beagan, at Massachusetts Bay Community College, police said.
Beagan was heading westbound in his black Toyota sedan Thursday morning when the driver ahead of him in the left lane hit his brakes while approaching road construction on Route 9 beyond Cedar Street, according to Wellesley police Lieutenant Marie Cleary.
Beagan pulled alongside in the right lane, honked his horn, and “made a profane hand gesture.” He rolled down his window and raised a handgun, then pointed it at the other driver, a 48-year-old man, that man told Wellesley police.
After the driver slowed and Beagan passed, the driver noted the Toyota’s registration number and pulled over at the construction site shortly before 11 a.m. to report the incident to a police officer there.
Wellesley police identified Beagan as the Toyota’s owner. Because the incident occurred just a few hundred yards from MassBay, police contacted the school, which confirmed that Beagan was enrolled there.
A college employee found Beagan in a scheduled class and asked him to step out.
Speaking with officers in an empty classroom, Beagan then “confirmed that he had been driving on Route 9 west and had displayed a handgun inside his vehicle,” according to police. He gave the officers the keys to his Toyota; with Beagan’s permission, they found his Glock 23 locked inside, police said.
A Wellesley police photo shows the gun to be an Austrian-made Glock with an American flag engraved on the back. Beagan is licensed to carry the gun, but state law prohibits possession on school property.
Police arrested Beagan and charged him with gun possession on campus as well as with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Dedham District Court.
A spokeswoman for the 7,000-student school, Lee Koh, called it a rare incident for MassBay and a Wellesley police matter, saying that the college cooperated with local law enforcement.
Interesting.
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Had the same kind of excitement out here!
"Suspect arrested in UMass incident that locked down campus" by Brian MacQuarrie and J.D. Capelouto Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent February 19, 2016
A 19-year-old man surrendered to Framingham police Friday on charges of armed robbery and assault at a University of Massachusetts Amherst dormitory, which prompted a nearly two-hour lockdown the previous night at the sprawling campus.
William McKeown of Framingham turned himself in at police headquarters at 12:45 p.m. Friday after an arrest warrant had been issued in Hampshire County, where UMass is.
McKeown is set to be arraigned Monday in Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery, and armed robbery, according to the Hampshire district attorney’s office.
McKeown and another man had been let inside Pierpont Hall Thursday evening by a student, UMass spokesman Daniel Fitzgibbons said. The dormitory, like all residence halls at UMass Amherst, is locked 24 hours a day and accessed by swipe cards issued to students, Fitzgibbons said.
The victim suffered a minor head laceration and was known to McKeown, who allegedly showed a handgun in the dormitory but did not fire the weapon, UMass Police Chief Tyrone Parham said.
“This particular assault victim had clearly been specifically targeted,” Parham said at a news conference Thursday. McKeown, who is not a UMass student, entered the dormitory with another man. A warrant has not been issued for that man.
The Daily Hampshire Gazette, citing a criminal complaint by the UMass Police Department, reported that the two suspects entered the dorm to sell marijuana to the assault victim. After a disagreement, McKeown allegedly struck the victim in the head “with a hard object believed to be a gun,” according to the complaint.
Maybe it is time to legalize that stuff.
Framingham police said they were alerted at 7:30 p.m. Thursday by UMass police, following the alleged assault, and given information about two adult males and a motor vehicle. After receiving that advisory, Framingham and State Police searched two locations with the consent of the property owner.
“While the subjects were not located, the wanted vehicle was located at one of the locations and later impounded,” Framingham police said.
McKeown surrendered less than 24 hours after a gun was reported in Pierpont Hall at 5:17 p.m. Thursday.
Campus officials ordered a shelter-in-place lockdown, and alerts were dispatched to 39,000 people in the campus community through texts, e-mails, and loudspeaker warnings, Fitzgibbons said.
Real, crisis drill, mind-manipulating psyop, who knows? Welcome to the world in which we live.
One alert read: “Hostile armed person reported in Pierpont Hall. A handgun was shown but not fired. Suspect is a [white] male wearing a dark colored shirt and a gold chain.”
Sophomore Cate Matthews credited police with updating students with six alerts during the lockdown. Matthews said she and her friends had just walked into the dining commons about a half-mile from Pierpont when the first notice went out.
“UMass police were really good at sending out information as soon as they had it and keeping everyone updated,” Matthews said.
Hmmm.
Janna Feldman, a sophomore who was with Matthews at the dining commons, said, “We were kind of far away from the situation, so for us it seemed a little overdramatic. But if you were in Southwest [campus],” where the alleged assault occurred, “it was probably appropriate.”
Hmmmmmmm!
Fitzgibbons said the incident will allow UMass to analyze security, which he said it had bolstered in the dormitories at significant expense.
At least you know why tuitions and fees are rising.
“There are always people who will try to circumvent things,” Fitzgibbons said. “We try to educate students not to let people they don’t know into the buildings.”
I'm not saying you should, but the message is live in fear -- and maybe we should.
The intrusion showed the value of the campuswide warnings, he added.
“We’ve been getting a lot of positive reaction to the use of the alert system,” Fitzgibbons said. “It shows that the system works on campus, and it works on different levels.”
This is starting to stink of a staged event with the excuse being....
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Related: Two men sought after scare at UMass Amherst campus
I'll be staying off campus so I'm not worried.
"Veterans say R.I. needs to do better on outreach" by Jennifer McDermott Associated Press February 16, 2016
PROVIDENCE — The state is on the verge of hiring a director to oversee its veterans’ affairs division, though some veterans say what they really need is someone to work directly with them and help them get the benefits they’re entitled to.
Why would they need that? What is with this government anyway?
Rhode Island’s veterans division does not have a person focused solely on outreach and helping veterans with claims. Many other states and towns employ veterans’ services officers. Massachusetts has one in each municipality, according to its department. Connecticut assigns them by congressional district.
Again, they don't have citizen servant officers, do they? They don't have special offices set up for the rest of us.
I'm not saying veterans shouldn't get this, or are not entitled to everything they put their lives on the line for. What I'm saying is there is the ever-increasing division and stratification in our society with an increasing focus on militarism.
Leaders of Rhode Island veterans’ organizations say that the state tries to help its veterans but that the efforts are often disjointed. They worry veterans don’t know about their benefits or don’t pursue them, in part because the state doesn’t have someone dedicated to working with their groups and federal officials to help.
I'm really, really tired of excuses being offered by the state and government that are always telling us how great they are doing and how they are tackling all the problems they helped create.
How about you?
‘‘They just don’t know what’s available to them,’’ said David Smith, commander of the Disabled American Veterans of Rhode Island. ‘‘And I don’t know if all the veterans’ groups know all the information.’’
Wouldn't this war-promoting government make sure they got everything that was coming to them, or do they just discard the soldier when he/she is no longer useful?
Two caseworker positions, at a salary of about $56,000 each, were added to Rhode Island’s budget in 2014 for this purpose. The job specifications weren’t approved until July, and the posts haven’t been filled.
I don't know what kind of budget shape Rhode Island is in, or how their roads, schools, and employment situation looks, but what the hell?
So where did the money go?
There’s also an opening at the division for a director, a position authorized in 2011 and funded by Democratic Governor Gina Raimondo last year. The state plans to announce the appointment in coming weeks.
The position was advertised with many of the same job responsibilities that the division’s current associate director has, at a salary of $108,000 to $122,000 annually, months after Raimondo signed an executive order promoting a lean government.
‘‘The last thing we need is another layer of bureaucracy, especially if the positions are so closely similar and almost duplicate,’’ said Ana Sarver, who is retiring from the Navy. ‘‘Whatever resources that are dedicated, financial or otherwise, would be better spent on outreach for veterans.’’
Talk to any anthropologist and he/she will tell you that is the sign of a society in decline and near death.
Ever notice that the political bureaucrats answer to bureaucracy is always another layer of bureaucracy?
The state needs people to tell younger veterans, especially, about their benefits, because they’re not necessarily going to veterans’ organizations to find out, added Sarver, who was stationed in Rhode Island and plans to return.
Other veterans say they want someone with a director’s title and the influence that comes with it to advocate for them, but agree that the state should focus more on outreach.
‘‘There is no communication coming from the state, saying this is available or we’re going to try to do this for you,’’ said Frank Collins, commander of an American Legion post in Providence. ‘‘If I don’t know what’s going on, how are other veterans going to know?’’
Maybe that is the whole point.
After all, it saves the government money.
At the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Jim Boardman spends two days a week helping veterans claim benefits. The state needs a caseworker to help handle the overflow of cases from veterans’ organizations because the current system ‘‘really doesn’t work,’’ he said.
Hasn't for a long while, but like so much in this government, the system is on autopilot and the politicians are back in first class socializing.
According to the Executive Office of Health & Human Services, the director will be charged with fully staffing the office. Sophie O’Connell, a spokeswoman, said they expect to move quickly on hiring the caseworkers, which are fully funded, once the new director is in place.
The veterans’ division co-hosted a summit recently to talk with veterans about how the state can better meet their needs. One of its staffers does outreach as one of several duties.
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All these years, all these wars, and getting the veterans the promises they deserve is still a problem?
Why would anyone believe in this government?
"Veterans seek greater emphasis on PTSD in bids to upgrade discharges" by Dave Philipps New York Times February 19, 2016
WASHINGTON — Kristofer Goldsmith was discharged from the Army at the height of the Iraq war because he was not on a plane to Baghdad for his second deployment. Instead, he was in a hospital after attempting suicide the night before.
I remember a kid once.... (moment of silence, please)
On the sergeant’s first deployment, his duties often required him to photograph mutilated corpses. After coming home, he was stalked by nightmares and despair. In 2007, he overdosed on pills, and his platoon found him passed out in a grove of trees at Fort Stewart, Ga., that had been planted to honor soldiers killed in combat.
Instead of screening Goldsmith for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, records show that the Army wrote him up for missing his flight, then forced him out of the military with a less-than-honorable discharge. When he petitioned the Army to upgrade his discharge, arguing that he missed his flight because of undiagnosed PTSD, it rejected his appeal.
In the years since, he has appealed twice more for an honorable discharge and has been denied both times.
“To say it’s an uphill battle is an understatement,” Goldsmith, 30, said recently as he walked down the hall of a Senate office building where he was trying to get lawmakers to listen to his plight. “I’ve been fighting for eight years, and I can’t get anywhere.”
Many who have tried to upgrade their discharges have received the same response. Records show that the Army Review Boards Agency — the office with legal authority “to correct an error or remove an injustice” in military records — has rejected a vast majority of cases that involve PTSD in recent years.
I suspect it is because it will cost the Pentagon money. That's why they do this.
Since 2001, more than 300,000 people, about 13 percent of all troops, have been forced out of the military with less-than-honorable discharges. Congress has recognized in recent years that some of these discharges were the fault of dysfunctional screening for PTSD and other combat injuries, and it has put safeguards in place to prevent more — including requirements for mental health professionals to review all discharges. In recent years, less-than-honorable discharges have dropped drastically; and today, troops with PTSD are more likely to be medically discharged with benefits. But that has done little to help those like Goldsmith who were discharged before the changes.
Now, Goldsmith and a small group of veterans are pushing for a bill in Congress that would overhaul the system by mandating that the military give veterans the benefit of the doubt, requiring the boards to decide cases starting from the presumption that PTSD materially contributed to the discharges.
I always have.
“We put out an unprecedented number of troops for minor infractions, and I believe a lot of them were suffering from PTSD,” said Representative Mike Coffman, a Colorado Republican and Iraq war veteran. Coffman said he planned to introduce legislation this month that would shift the burden of proof about PTSD from veterans to the military.
Congress created military review boards after World War II to correct wartime missteps, but observers say this has rarely happened in recent years. In 2013, the Army Board for Correction of Military Records, the supreme authority in the Army’s review agency, ruled against veterans in about 96 percent of PTSD-related cases, according to an analysis done by Yale Law School’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic.
“The boards are broken,” said Michael Wishnie, a Yale professor who oversees the clinic. “They are not functioning the way Congress has intended.”
Truthfully, that is the story of this entire government right now. It's broken and not functioning, save for the special interests that it serves.
He added that the boards’ decision-making process is often opaque, and that they have done little to educate veterans on the upgrade process.
The Army Review Boards Agency did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
In an attempt at a solution in 2014, the secretary of defense at the time, Chuck Hagel, instructed the boards to give “liberal consideration” to all veterans seeking an upgrade of their discharge because of PTSD. Since then, rulings in favor of veterans at the Army Board for Correction of Military Records have surged to 45 percent from 4 percent, according to records.
But veterans say a more lasting remedy is needed. They point out that Hagel’s order could easily be reversed by the next president, and it does little to address the boards’ underlying problems.
Observers say the boards are overwhelmed. And, despite a growing caseload from Iraq and Afghanistan, the staff at the Army Review Boards Agency has steadily shrunk. In 2014, it had 135 employees to process 22,500 cases, according to an agency briefing.
WhereTF is all the goddamn money going?
The panels that review discharges often have only four or five minutes to look over cases that may be hundreds of pages thick, Wishnie said.
Where is that rubber stamp of denial?
“There is a sense they are rubber-stamping cases and not taking time to reach a just decision,” he added.
And these are the veterans who went out and risked their lives so that the war-mongering government could advance its agenda.
If they won't take care of them, what makes you think they are going to take care of you?
Many veterans say they feel the boards give little credence to the medical evidence presented to them.
They refuse to recognize depleted uranium poisoning, too.
Two months after he left the Army, Goldsmith was told he had PTSD at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital. But denial letters from the Army Review Boards Agency said it was unclear whether the PTSD stemmed from his service in the military.
“They start from the assumption that the Army made the right decision, and unless you can definitively prove otherwise, you are out of luck,” Goldsmith said.
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I wonder why he got his story told.
Related:
VA hospital in Jamaica Plain closed through Friday
Don't worry; they transferred all patients to a hotel.
VA to spend $1.7 million on Jamaica Plain hospital repairs
Sorry for the neglect.
Maybe you want to make a federal case out of it?
"Bowe Bergdahl to face court-martial in desertion case; Ex-Taliban captive could be sentenced to life in prison" by Richard A. Oppel Jr. New York Times December 15, 2015
NEW YORK — The case against Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl is likely to remain a staple of attacks by Republicans, who say it emphasizes President Obama’s weakness on foreign policy. The presidential candidate Donald Trump has called the sergeant a “traitor” who should be executed.
Bergdahl’s chief defense lawyer, Eugene R. Fidell, said in a statement, “We again ask that Donald Trump cease his prejudicial monthslong campaign of defamation against our client.”
In the Bergdahl “Serial” podcast interviews, which were recorded by Mark Boal, a screenwriter and producer, and provided to “Serial,” Bergdahl said he realized within 20 minutes of leaving that he had done “something serious.”
I only saw a little of it.
In the interviews, he told the same story that he had described to the Army’s investigating officer, Lieutenant General Kenneth Dahl, about why he left the outpost: because he wanted to cause a crisis by hiking to another base 18 miles away that would allow him to have an audience with a senior Army commander where he could outline what he felt were serious leadership problems that were endangering his unit.
Bergdahl told Boal that during his hike he had also decided to surveil Taliban fighters emplacing improvised explosive devices that could be used to kill US soldiers, and to turn that information over to commanders at the other base. He said he “was trying to prove to the world” that he was a top soldier and that in some sense he even wanted to emulate someone like Jason Bourne, the spy-movie character.
OMG, this is looking more and more like a completely contrived event, folks. It was scripted for various purposes.
The decision to swap detainees for Bergdahl drew condemnation from Republicans, who argued it would embolden the Taliban to kidnap other Americans. Republicans and some members of Bergdahl’s unit also described the sergeant as a defector, and said that a half-dozen or more US troops had died searching for him.
But in his testimony, Dahl said no troops had died specifically searching for Bergdahl and that no evidence was found to support claims he intended to walk to China or India or that he was a Taliban sympathizer.
Did you see some of that slop?
Bergdahl’s former platoon leader, Captain John Billings, testified that soldiers searched almost nonstop, never knowing when the ordeal would end, while their underlying mission to support Afghan security forces fell by the wayside. The search involved thousands of troops.
Maybe they shouldn't have even bothered, if they even did at all.
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"Bowe Bergdahl’s attorney lashes out at Trump; At issue is fair trial for alleged deserter" by Deb Riechmann Associated Press December 16, 2015
WASHINGTON — The attorney for Army Sargeant Bowe Bergdahl lashed out on Tuesday at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and congressional committees for peddling misinformation that he says is impeding his client’s right to a fair trial.
Bergdahl, 29, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province on June 30, 2009. His disappearance and the possibility that he might face light punishment had angered many in the military, given that his fellow soldiers took considerable risks to search for him.
Bergdahl’s attorney, Eugene Fidell, asked that Trump ‘‘cease his prejudicial months-long campaign of defamation against our client.’’ In October, Trump called Bergdahl a ‘‘traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed.’’
Fidell told The Associated Press that Trump stated more recently in Las Vegas that five soldiers were killed trying to find Bergdahl. The Pentagon has said no one died in the searches.
Trump also has pledged to review the case if Bergdahl is not appropriately punished, Fidell said.
‘‘I have no idea what Mr. Trump has in mind, and I don’t think Mr. Trump has any idea of what he has in mind,’’ he said. ‘‘I think he’s a big faker.’’
He's not the only one thinking that.
The lawyer criticized Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, for saying his committee would investigate and hold a hearing if it disagrees with the outcome of the case.
Fidell also took issue with a 98-page report issued last week by the House Armed Services Committee that criticized the Obama administration’s decision to swap five former Taliban leaders for Bergdahl.
‘‘Given this sort of barrage of vilification and now arm-twisting by the Senate and House Armed Services committees, which obviously wield tremendous influence over the military, I have to say that this is very troubling,’’ Fidell said, adding that a pending court case is not the business of congressional committees.
Behaving like the Israelis they work for?
Bergdahl hasn’t spoken publicly about his decision to walk away from his post, his subsequent five-year imprisonment by the Taliban, or the prisoner swap in May 2014 that secured his return to the United States. But during the past several months, he spoke extensively with screenwriter Mark Boal, who shared about 25 hours of the recorded interviews with Sarah Koenig for her popular podcast ‘‘Serial.’’
Bergdahl says in the interviews that he walked off his base to cause a crisis that would catch the attention of military brass. He wanted to warn them about what he believed were serious problems with leadership in his unit. And he wanted to prove himself as a real-life action hero, like someone out of a movie....
I think he is an actor with the role of a lifetime!
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Also see:
Bowe Bergdahl arraigned at North Carolina Army base
Classified documents prompt wrangling in Bowe Bergdahl case
Bergdahl Gets a Break
So did Obama.
Where did all that talk go, huh?
And now Scalia is dead.
Hmmmmmmm!
UPDATE: New details hint at role of psychology in Bowe Bergdahl defense
