Negotiating With The Taliban.

[Admiral Yi]

Certainly the default assumption of a person is that they are not a criminal, or do you disagree?

What function does the word "default" serve in that sentance?

[Razgovory]

Adjective?

[Admiral Yi]

Ossum.

Are we talking about Bergdahl or a name picked at random from the phone book?

[Razgovory]

Ossum.

Are we talking about Bergdahl or a name picked at random from the phone book?

Either one.  It would seem impossible to "whitewash" something or someone when they have not done anything wrong while certainly possible to smear someone who has done no wrong (and someone who has done wrong for that matter).  Therefore they aren't two sides of the coin and it is not fair to describe those who support the return of an American POW as whitewashing.

[Jacob]

What do we know about his living conditions?  Has he been rotting for the last five years.

I would have been perfectly happy with a North Korea type deal, as I already said.  Taliban sends Lurch a text message, says "this guy is eating all our food, never does his dishes, says he wants to see his mom and dad, will you take him?"

Okay, I'm happy with "leave him as he is" rather than "left to rot". I don't know anything about his living conditions.

Don't get the bit about potentially affecting his chances.

Well, if it's generally been established in the public discourse that he deserted rather than was captured then it would seem that the politically safe course of action would be to not exchange those guys for him.

To the degree that Fox & friends did the "rescuers would have shot him if they found him" and "these guys from his unit thinks he was a total weirdo and he's probably anti-American" schtick and successfully portraying him a negative light before the deal, they increased the political risk of getting him out of there and correspondingly decreased his chances.

If that all happened after the deal then it's a moot point in this case, though it seem that we have established that any deal to release a prisoner in the future is subject to an inquiry into the character of the prisoner, that means the release of future prisoners may be pursued less vehemently if the potential optics are bad.

If you're going to characterize anyone who objects to the exchange on the grounds of desertion as "smearing his character for political advantage," then it only seems fair to characterize people who support the exchange as "whitewashing his character for political advantage."

I don't think I buy that. I think the default assumption about a soldier is that they are serving their country, and that they are "heroes" (for the new value of "hero").

If you are moving the needle on that, without concrete evidence, then you are smearing his character. If you are sticking with the default, you are not whitewashing, until it is contrary to concrete evidence. The inverse equivalent would be to try to make Bergdahl out to some sort of special hero who'd done noticeable great things, without evidence to back that up.

I mean, say Bergdahl is not all those bad things he's been made out to be in this political battle? How likely is it that he can clear his name in the public eye, given how politically charged his release has become?

[Admiral Yi]

Either one.  It would seem impossible to "whitewash" something or someone when they have not done anything wrong while certainly possible to smear someone who has done no wrong (and someone who has done wrong for that matter).  Therefore they aren't two sides of the coin and it is not fair to describe those who support the return of an American POW as whitewashing.

Well not either one, because we don't have information about possible irregularities for a randomly picked person.

You're absolutely correct that if Berdahl is pure as the driven snow it is impossible to whitewash him.  Also absolutely irrelevant.

You're trying to fit the square peg of innocent until proven guilty in criminal law into the round hole of policy and public opinion.

[Razgovory]

Either one.  It would seem impossible to "whitewash" something or someone when they have not done anything wrong while certainly possible to smear someone who has done no wrong (and someone who has done wrong for that matter).  Therefore they aren't two sides of the coin and it is not fair to describe those who support the return of an American POW as whitewashing.

Well not either one, because we don't have information about possible irregularities for a randomly picked person.

You're absolutely correct that if Berdahl is pure as the driven snow it is impossible to whitewash him.  Also absolutely irrelevant.

You're trying to fit the square peg of innocent until proven guilty in criminal law into the round hole of policy and public opinion.

If we took a random a person out of the crowd named say. "Commodore Ki", we would not regard him as a traitor.  It is impossible to whitewash him since we have no knowledge of anything he actually did.  Now if a crazy person who claimed to have communicated with "Commodore Ki" for the better part of 10 years made all sorts of bizarre claims about "Commodore Ki" but has never actually met him or have any evidence and based his peculiar statements on stuff he remembered other people saying, refuting the madman's absurd statements wouldn't qualify as whitewashing either.  If some person who ran a PR firm who is known to hate Commodore Ki decided to publicize the madman's raving about "foot massages" and the like I'd call that a smear, and defending the good Commodore would not be whitewashing.  It would be just common sense and general decency.

[Admiral Yi]

You lost me at the crazy person part.

[Sheilbh]

If I had ten divisions of Siegys, I'd buy stock in Coors. 

Why? They'd only buy a couple of slabs.

A dude who deserted/defected whatever back in like '54.  He taught NK spies English and played the heavy in some propaganda films.  AFAIK North Korea just let him go (humanitarian grounds? illness?).

Again that's a blurry line between desertion and defecting which are two rather different things.

What do we know about his living conditions?  Has he been rotting for the last five years.

According to himself for large parts of it he was kept in a cage. I believe there's other sources that he was at least shackled most of the time after his first escape attempt. His physical condition in the last video looked extremely poor (and was part of the reason negotiations kicked up a gear) but he's less malnourished now, it looks like the Taliban fed him up before sending him home, though is still suffering from some physical problems.

To the degree that Fox & friends did the "rescuers would have shot him if they found him" and "these guys from his unit thinks he was a total weirdo and he's probably anti-American" schtick and successfully portraying him a negative light before the deal, they increased the political risk of getting him out of there and correspondingly decreased his chances.

Some of Fox have at least always argued this since 2009, others haven't:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL9P6W9vt6E

[Razgovory]

You lost me at the crazy person part.

Let me break down for you, if I made a bunch of accusations against you, you refuting them wouldn't really be a "whitewash".

[Admiral Yi]

It would really help if you chose one person to talk about and stuck to him, or stuck to the abstract.

[crazy canuck]

Yi still uses a phone book.

[derspiess]

  It's all Haig's Hagel's fault!

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/208803-obama-shifting-blame-for-bergdahl-trade-to-hagel

[derspiess]

Hansmeister would've had his Taliban captors fired.  And then given a 78-slide PowerPoint presentation.

[Razgovory]

We need more articles telling us what Stonewall Jackson would have done.