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Headlines keep changing rapidly

It occurs to me that our collective attention keeps getting diverted from crisis to crisis — and few of us talk openly about the crisis that passes from our view.

* Remember the Syrian civil war? We were going to bomb Syria for using chemical weapons on civilians. Then we backed off. The Russians entered the picture and helped broker a deal to get rid of the weapons.

* A Boeing 777 disappeared en route from Malaysia to China. It apparently crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Search teams from several countries are looking for the wreckage that contains 239 passengers and crew. To date, nothing’s been found.

* Then came Ukraine. The Russians entered the picture there, too. Ukraine ousted its pro-Russian president, who fled to Russia. The Russians essentially annexed Crimea, moved a lot of troops to the Ukraine border, then backed off after the Ukrainians elected a news president who is acceptable to Moscow.

* A Nigerian terrorist group — Boko Haram — kidnapped about 300 girls and is holding them captive somewhere. World opinion erupted and the demands came out for the international community to do all it can to rescue those young women.

* Americans got caught up in the Benghazi story yet again. The House of Representatives formed a select committee to examine the Benghazi attack one more time. Maybe we’ll see the end of this probe. Then again, maybe not until after the 2016 presidential election that’s likely to feature one Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was secretary of state when the U.S. consulate was attacked in September 2012.

* The Veterans Administration took the headlines away from Benghazi with reports of veterans dying while awaiting health care in Arizona. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned and a thorough review is under way to find a cure for what ails the massive federal agency.

* Taliban militants released Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and the questions about his release and the terms that brought it about have created the latest headline grabber.

These sequences keep building on themselves. Our attention is riveted on these storied and then it’s diverted from one “crisis of the moment” to the next one.

Is it any wonder why Barack Obama’s hair has gotten so gray?

Hey, what’s happening with Syria these days?

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Good call, Hailey officials

Hailey, Idaho officials and civic leaders shouldn’t have to worry about anyone accusing them of having a tin ear when it involves the uproar over the release of one of their own from Taliban hands.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bowe-bergdahls-hometown-cancels-celebration/

The good folks of Hailey had planned a celebration to welcome home U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was freed the other day after being held captive by Taliban militants. Bergdahl was serving his country in Afghanistan when he was taken captive.

Then came the questions about (a) whether he walked off his post and deserted, (b) whether the United States gave up too much (five high-ranking Taliban officers) in exchange for Bergdahl’s release and (c) whether President Obama broke the law by brokering the deal without advising Congress.

Hailey officials cited “security concerns” as the reason for canceling the celebration. Do you think?

Yes, security surely would be an issue. More to the point, Hailey officials do not want to be seen as honoring someone with so many serious questions hanging over him.

Sgt. Bergdahl deserves the chance to answer the desertion allegations. We don’t know the particulars of his capture, other than what some of his comrades have said. Do they have all the fact? Probably not.

As for Hailey, I hope the town gets the chance to welcome home one of its sons. Just not yet.

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What say you, Col. North?

Allow me to stipulate right off the top that I am acutely aware that the source of this blog post is an admittedly progressive pundit who routinely criticizes conservatives on her nightly TV talk show.

However, the point made here is a valid one.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/oliver-north-and-maximum-absurdity

Many Americans are steamed over the terms of the deal that brought about the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. One of them — are you ready? — who’s really angry about it is former Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North, the former principal character in another hostage-release deal that, um, drew a lot of attention to a Republican president.

As it is stated in the link attached here, it is almost beyond comprehension that this guy, of all people, would have anything to say at all publicly about a deal that involves “negotiating” with enemy agents. He was involved up to his armpits in precisely such a deal. It brought shame and, yes, scandal to President Reagan’s administration. He also was actually convicted of a crime, although his conviction was overturned on appeal.

Still, for Ollie North to weigh in … well, there’s your benchmark for absurdity.

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What if we'd left Bergdahl behind?

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As the feeding frenzy continues over the release of a one-time prisoner of war in Afghanistan, a lot of key questions have arisen.

I’ve covered some of them already in this blog. Another one has popped up.

What would the reaction have been had the United States — knowing the history of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s views on the Afghan War and perhaps suspecting he had left his post, as has been alleged — left him behind?

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/208213-reid-charges-gop-with-hypocrisy-on-bergdahl

The demands for answers have been loud, clear and largely justified.

Bergdahl was released by his Taliban captors after he’d been held for five years. In exchange, we released five high-ranking Taliban thugs from Gitmo on the condition they be restricted from traveling out of Qatar for a year. After that, well, it’s anyone’s guess, I suppose.

Bergdahl reportedly opposed our Afghan War effort. He said so in emails back home. Those views allegedly were known by the Army. We went after him anyway. President Obama said Americans “don’t leave soldiers behind” in war.

What we gave up to get him and the allegations that he “deserted” his comrades have raised a huge uproar.

Some of my very own friends here in the Texas Panhandle have called Bergdahl a traitor. They want him punished, thinking they know all the facts already. One fellow even said we ought to send him back to his captors.

Whatever.

Still, the question remains: What would be the tone of the criticism if we’d turned our backs on a soldier who some Americans already believe committed an act of treason? Would those people who today are critical of the recovery effort applaud an abandonment?

My strong suspicion is that they would be screaming themselves hoarse at the notion that the United States actually would leave one of our warriors behind, in the hands of a ruthless enemy.

Perhaps that takes us directly into the excruciating decision made at the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA, the National Security Council and the Oval Office itself.

It hardly, therefore, seems fair for peanut-gallery pundits to draw premature conclusions about a delicate matter about which they know next to nothing.

Yes, there are many questions to answer. How about first getting those answers?

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Here comes 'impeachment' talk

Wait for it. Here it comes. Are you ready for it?

Some talking heads in both the left- and right-wing media are talking about impeachment as it regards the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

Oh … brother.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/208264-gop-senator-obama-faces-impeachment-push-if-more-prisoners-leave-gitmo

Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — who knows a thing or two about impeaching a president of the United States — now warns that President Obama could face impeachment if he releases any more prisoners from Guantanamo Bay without consulting first with Congress.

The United States turned over five Taliban detainees in exchange for Bergdahl. The exchange reportedly took place without the White House advising Congress of it in advance, under federal law. Republicans are outraged — outraged, I tell you — that they weren’t so advised.

The White House has apologized for what it calls an “oversight.” That hasn’t stopped the uproar.

Sen. Graham — himself an Air Force reserve lawyer — once helped prosecute President Clinton during the 42nd president’s 1998 impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. The Senate acquitted the president and Republicans ended up paying dearly for it politically at the next election.

Some left-wing media pundits — notably MSNBC’s Ed Schultz — believe Republicans are waiting for the results of this year’s mid-term election before commencing impeachment proceedings against Barack Obama. The idea, according to Schultz, is that the GOP could gain control of the Senate and tighten their grip on the House, particularly with tea party Republicans winning elections across the country.

I’m hoping Schultz is just hyperventilating and will calm down once he catches his breath.

We’ll need to get some answers to questions about Bergdahl’s release and, just as importantly, his capture five years ago. Was he AWOL? Did he abandon his post? If he did walk away, should the Army court-martial him? Let’s sort all that out first.

As for the release, the president and the Pentagon brass were determined not to leave an American behind once we leave the Afghanistan battlefield. Bowe Bergdahl was the lone U.S. service member being held captive. The brass felt it was worth it to exchange five Taliban officers for Bergdahl.

Did they do it by the book? That, too, remains to be determined definitively.

Good grief. Let’s can this impeachment talk until we get all the facts on the table.

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R.I.P., heroic American

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An American hero has died. He’s the last of a special brand of fighting men who, when duty called during our nation’s bloodiest war, answered in a unique and inspiring way.

Chester Nez, 93, died in Albuquerque, N.M. He was the last of the original 29 Code Talkers, Navajos who were tasked with developing a code that the enemy could not decipher.

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2014/06/last_of_world_war_iis_original.html#incart_river_default

I long have wondered something about the tactic developed during World War II that produced the Code Talkers: Who in the world at what was then called the War Department come up with this idea?

It was utterly brilliant.

Nez was one of 29 men who formed the first Code Talker unit. The Navajos developed a glossary that they expanded into a full vocabulary of terms they used to communicate with each other in the Pacific Theater of operations. The Japanese had been able to crack many encryptions. The Navajo code? Forget about it.

The Code Talkers were speaking in a language that had not put into writing. The Japanese would hear and could not tell what language it was, let alone what the U.S. Marines who spoke were saying.

“It’s one of the greatest parts of history that we used our own native language during World War II,” Mr. Nez said in a 2009 interview with the Associated Press. “We’re very proud of it.”

The next year, Mr. Nez said that “the Japanese did everything in their power to break the code but they never did.”

The Code Talkers would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2001 and would be acclaimed for the genius they used in employing such an amazingly innovative tactic to use against a fierce enemy.

May this great hero, Chester Nez, now rest with the others who helped their nation win a titanic struggle.

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Hot time arrives in Panhandle

We’re likely to set a temperature record for the date in Amarillo before today ends.

I won’t predict what it will be. I will predict, however, what’s going to be on the lips of a lot of my friends and neighbors: “Man, it’s too hot out there. When is it going to cool off? I’m tired of the heat … already.”

Too bad, fellow travelers.

I’ll now remind everyone of what we were saying just about eight or so weeks ago. We were wishing, begging, even praying for warm weather to get here. Don’t you remember that? I believe I might have said a prayer or two in seeking some warmth.

Our prayers have been answered, as if we didn’t know they would be, given the time of year and our location here on the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle.

Summer’s still about two weeks away. However, it’s close enough to actual summer to be good enough for Mother Nature to bring some heat the region.

Just remember: It gets like this every single, solitary year. We’re going to get hot. That’s what it means to live here, just as it means that we’ll get cold in the winter — and often well into the spring.

Summer’s about to arrive.

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Tea party hangs on in Dixie

It looks as though the national tea party still has a dog in the hunt, as the saying goes.

At least for now.

Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel is holding to a slim lead in the Republican primary race with incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran. If the challenger fails to get to 50 percent when all the votes are counted — he stands at 49.6 percent with 97 percent of the ballots counted — the two men are headed for a June 23 runoff.

It was thought that perhaps the tea party perhaps could lose this one, too, as it had in other states — that are not Texas. McDaniel has been campaigning against Cochran’s influence in the Senate and the seniority he’s built and, oh yes, all that public money that he directs toward his home state. McDaniel’s one of those “outsiders” who will shake things up.

From where I sit a few hundred miles west of Mississippi, it appears McDaniel would like to become one of those folks who wants it done his way or no way at all. Well, the results aren’t in. We’ll have to wait a few more days, perhaps weeks, to know whether the Mississippi Republican Party has snapped out of it.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/mcdaniel-cochran-appear-headed-runoff-mississippi-n121851

What is most astounding is that McDaniel still holds a lead after the hideous story broke about his campaign goons breaking into a nursing home to photograph Cochran’s bed-ridden wife to make an anti-Cochran campaign video highlighting the senator’s alleged “infidelity.”

It’s one of the more bizarre political blow-ups I’ve seen in some time.

Decency seems to have hit the road in Dixie.

I am anxious to see how this nastiness plays out.

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Say it ain't so, Mississippi

As I write this short blog post, tea party candidate Chris McDaniel is holding onto a slim lead over Thad Cochran in the race for Cochran’s U.S. Senate seat.

Cochran is a conservative Republican seeking his seventh term in the Senate. He’s also a champion of what’s called “pork-barrel” legislation, bringing money and federal projects to Mississippi. The tea party doesn’t like that kind of thing. Frankly, neither do I.

But the campaign took a hideous turn down the stretch for the Republican Party nomination. McDaniel supporters broke into the nursing home where Mrs. Cochran has lived for the past dozen or so years. She’s incapacitated. She suffers from dementia. Yet the McDaniel goons thought they’d take pictures of her to use in an anti-Cochran political ad that talks about his alleged relationships with women other than his wife.

I had hoped Mississippians would turn on McDaniel over this matter. His henchmen have been charged with criminal trespass in this hideous display of disgracefully dirty politics.

They’ve counted nearly 90 percent of the vote. It doesn’t look good for Sen. Cochran. It doesn’t look good, either, for Mississippi Republicans who may be about to nominate in whose name this disgraceful act was committed.

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Apology won't cut it

Betting is for fools, but if I were a betting man I’d say the White House apology for brokering the prisoner exchange to gain the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl won’t quiet the Capitol Hill critics.

To be honest, I don’t blame congressional critics for being ticked off.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/208070-white-house-apologizes-to-senate-intelligence

The White House has called it an “oversight” that it didn’t notify congressional leaders in advance of the release and the exchange. Officials issued the apology to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein. House Speaker John Boehner says it’s more than an oversight; he believes the White House knew Congress would kill the deal. I’ll leave it mind readers to determine whether Boehner knows what he’s talking about.

Still, the deal has enraged members of both parties in both houses of Congress.

A 2013 law required congressional notification of such activity. The White House had said initially that it did tell some lawmakers that a deal was in the works. Now, though, the White House is singing a different tune.

Here’s another question that needs asking: Did you or did you not talk to Capitol Hill about this deal in advance?

Do I think a crime was committed here? No. I think we have instead a terrible political miscalculation that well could explode all over the president, his national security team and the Pentagon.

A deeper concern for me is whether Sgt. Bergdahl deserted his post. Does that preclude his country seeking his release from the Taliban? No. It does raise questions that need some air-tight answers.

Did he walk away from his post? Did his doing so put his comrades at undue risk? Did he go willingly with the Taliban when they captured him?

Offering an apology might assuage a tiny bit of anger among some lawmakers. However, if they have a role to play under the law in these kinds of warfare “transactions,” they have reason to demand some answers.

Moreover, Sgt. Bergdahl has some serious questions awaiting him when he gets home.

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