Bipartisan House Members Demand Fox News Apologize For Analyst's Attacks On Captured Soldier
By Logan Murphy Thursday Jul 23, 2009 4:45am(original segment from July 20th)
Scumbag Ralph Peters, a retired Lt. Colonel turned Fox News "analyst" made some nasty statements about captured U.S. soldier Bowe Berdahl earlier this week, calling him a deserter and basically saying the Taliban should execute him:
Now look, Julie, I want to be clear. If, when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I'm with him. But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies at wartime... I don't care how hard it sounds, as far as I'm concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.
Now a bipartisan group of House veterans led by Ohio Democrat, John Boccieri has sent a letter to Fox News' Roger Ailes, demanding an apology.
As members of Congress and veterans of the United States Armed Forces, it was with incredulity and disgust that we watched Fox News Strategic Analyst Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters (Ret.) suggest on your airwaves that Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, "abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post, and just walked off," and stated that, if this is true, "the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills."
Mr. Peters' comments are so far beyond the pale that they don't even approach the decorum and respect deserved by a member of the United States Armed Forces. Mr. Peters' indefensible comments call into question, without any supporting evidence whatsoever, PFC Bergdahl's patriotism and commitment to his country, and suggest in a non-subtle way that he deserved to be captured. The events surrounding the capture of PFC Bergdahl are irrelevant at this point. The only priority should be his safe and immediate release to U.S. forces. Read on...
Peters attempted to backtrack, but according to Think Progress, he's still using Fox News to attack the captured U.S. soldier. Will Ailes do the right thing by firing Peters and publicly apologizing to Bergdahl's family? I wouldn't count on it.
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apologize immediately, and then STFU and stay off the teevee...
Else he might find himself facing some really PO'd Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
They should stop his retirement and send him to the war zone with no protection.
Tell them they wish to make a trade and do to him as they d... well please///
How about they do to Fox what the did to MoveOn during the Petraeus testimony. And I second your comment, liberalNmoderation.
Never. If they could clone this clown 10 times, they would do it a heartbeat.
It's ratings and money the Hitler way.
You don't seem to understand. Respect for troops exists only in the abstract when looking below certain ranks. See: Kerry, John F.; Cleland, Max; Tillman, Pat; etc.
Isn't taking college deferments while your buddies are sent to Vietnam, until it's safe enough to enter OTC a form of abandoning your buddies?
And I say this as a former Airman.
Your damn right it is. Shame on this man. Until they know more he should keep his mouth shut. He is hurting the young man's family. If you want to question someone's how about questioning McCain and his time as a war prisoner. Ask him why sitting on a committee about POWs and MIAs he refuses to let the families review their files. What is he hiding.
Songbird a the Hanoi Hilton :-(
mates on his memoirs.
It seems conservatives wouldn't know decorum or class if they bite them squarely in the ass.
Peters came on Thom Hartmann's radio show a couple of days after and said, "I was angry" and "didn't mean" what people were claiming he was implying, but absolutely refused to apologize, even "correcting" Hartmann when Thom thanked him for "apologizing".
Addendum: ThinkProgress has video of Peters on O'Reilly's show Tuesday, the two of them calling the soldier "mentally disturbed" and "crazy".
That's funny because if Peters was a liberal O'Reilly would be having him for dinner over this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbWULu5_nXI
All wrapped up on one execrable package: that's Ralph Peters. Whatever happened to the American ideals of relying on the law, due process, rules of evidence, etc? Peters' awful comments are so counter to democracy on any number of points it isn't even funny. I hope Faux News fires him, but then, they are faux, not real news, so I doubt it. Why do conservatives hate American troops?
THEY HATE everything
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYEXzx-TINc&fe...
...paid me, and the comments by Peters were pretty standard Winger fare, but I'm not sure I vote for Representatives and Senators so they can be public scolds. I'd rather they spend their time setting exemplary standards of conduct, informing themselves on the vital issues of the day, and writing, debating, and voting on worthwhile legislation.
I'm not interested in them passing resolutions about MoveOn or demanding apologies from idiots who run off at the mouth on TV.
it should'nt be on Congress's "to-do" list. But look at the interesting times we're living in; any nutter can spew any lie in the national media and go un-challenged. We have nightly public broadcasts of what is essentially corporatized hate-speech. The term "eliminationism" has entered the vernacular, with relevent context. That alone should frighten us to death.
Sites like C&L and others that call out the media bullshit exist and thrive mainly because the so-called "mainstream" media has lost so much integrity. The most common complaint boils down to "no is saying anything about it". So I'm actually glad in this case that someone is speaking up, even if it isn't their place to do so. At least they are 'another county heard from' that might actually be heeded.
Another plus in this is that if it's truly a 'bipartisan' effort, then it means that there are Reuplicans involved who are basically calling out their own- and admitted- propganda arm.
Seems to me he is suggesting that someone (the captors) should kill this soldier. Isn't that a crime of some sort? If it's not, it should be. I mean he knows nothing about the circumstances of this thing yet he is saying if it happened this way, it's okay for the captors to kill him.
His comments are giving aid to the Taliban in their attempt to break an American soldier, Peters should be held up as the traitor he is.
Fox News is going to suggest that he just hates Bergdahl because he's white and that they were just providing the balance necessary...you know...having a liberal troop-hating point of view on the show.
And there is something HEE-larious about the second comment's subject line.
That's the subject line that comes up if you don't add your own and you are right, it is funny.
Very good observation tgw.
... especially when they're empty, insincere, and meaningless coming from these people.
Let's restore the Fairness Doctrine and give it some teeth.
But not that many. You'd think they would all sign on and admonish this piece of garbage since they support the troops so much more than us.
I HATE Fox News. This is disgusting footage of a twisted man, using ideas straight out of the PNAC playbook. I even have to boycott the Kroger grocery store that's next door to my home, because they insist on showing Fox News 24 hours a day on a big screen TV. I wrote the company to complain, and corresponded with someone at HQ about this. They were nice to me but weeks later, it's still playing on the TV. I even told them that my other friends won't shop there for the same reason, and they didn't care. Partisan politics is more important than business to them.
that broadcast Faux News. And I tell them why I won't be back. McD's here in Raleigh/Durham seem prone to airing this garbage like we all want to suffer indigestion while eating.
But wait a minute, McDonald's is the home of clowns so maybe it does work.
Just trade this lowlife to the Taliban for the kid and be done with it.
F* YOU! I would personally kick the living crap out of you if you were to ever set foot in front of me mister! I am a soldier who served in that ill begotten so-called war over there and I can tell you right now that those boys people like YOU have put into harms way would do the same!
I have a feeling, we're gonna be hearing a story about this asshole soon, that he got the stuffin beat out of him by a group of angry veterans.
hope. What am OCS sh*t bag
By Goibiu's Pubes!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWxEkhE9GSg&fe...
of breaking all sorts of land speed records when confronted with actual danger. I assume this "analyst" to be no exception.
Shame of FOX for allowing a desk jokey to trash a guy who was in the middle of it all in country. With "support" like this, who needs enemies? Funny, how these assholes used to blow a fuse when the antiwar crowd wanted all our sons and daughters to be back home safe and sound, it is almost as if not putting people in harms way and trashing them for doing so... is what passes as "support" from the wingnut sector of our population. ugh...
The story is that Bergdahl just 'walked off the base' - but as far as I know, we still don't know why.
"Desertion" is one of a number of possibilities, and, even so, Peters' response is disrespectful and uncalled for. The corollary to saying that a deserter should be caught and killed by the Taliban ... is to assert that injuries/casualties among our troops, well, they asked for it, 'cause they knew what they were getting into.
For all we know, Bergdahl was sneaking off base to see a girl. Help an old person. Eat something other than the food on the base.
not necesarily walked away from the base.
Either way, the Pentagon does NOT consider him a deserter...and Peters should STFU until all the facts are known.
But you and I both know that ain't the SOP for faux noise.
PTSD.
But, Peters' comments make sense from a fox "news" viewers perspective.
Obviously the kid is not much use as a Soldier anymore. So, if he isn't killing brown people, he's not much use to the chickenhawks. Combine that with the probability that this Soldier will be needing aid from the VA, to chickenhawks and neocons, he's not a veteran with a problem brought on from his sacrifice for his country, no, he's a leech on the system.
Hence the scorn from the right.
Regardless of his reasoning, here's praying he makes it home alive.
Home alive and safe.
Nothing more than contempt for the real Army working heroes.
An officer, but certainly NOT a gentleman.
... consider him an officer outside of his former rank.
IMHO, leadership is more than being an asshole, and loyalty/respect has to flow both ways. If troops get the feeling you don't respect them, you get less from them. And if the only tool in your management kit is anger, you've got nothing.
I have worked with some FINE officers, both light and bird Col. and I would have followed them anywhere. I trusted and respected them. One I can think of at Fort Huachuca was one of the finest gentlemen I have known. He was a leader by example, not what he had on his BDU's. A true officer does NOT demand respect due to their rank, they earn that respect every single day. They know that its all about their troops. That is what makes an officer.
'nuf said
pfc Berghdal has a brother or a cousin in the military...if you know what I mean.
I find it refreshing to live in a country where, in time of war, a television news commentator can call upon this country's enemy to execute one of its soldiers. Don't you?
I find it minty fresh.
have these guys no decency, no shame, no lengths they would go to get ratings. the answer is in their contituency, their listening audience. as long as trailer park (educated or not, living in a trailer park in az or missouri or a penthouse on long island) as long as they have, their audience behind them they will continue to make their outrageous statements.
my biggest regret yesterday was in reading of one of my two favourite actors, robert duvall the other is anthony hopkins, duvall is a right wing conservative. how could this sensitive brilliant on screen actor believe the bullshit put out by the conservative element. can someone shed some light on this and help me out of this maelstrom. the only that could be worse is to discover that anthony hopkins too is a conservative. please don't tell me that.
I can imagine this chickenshit, 1st Lt. Ralph Peters, wandering Ft Lewis, WA in 1968, paired with another newly commissioned social cripple, as one of the "roving courtesy patrols" whose sole purpose was to provoke insubordination from freshly returned RVN combat troops mustering out of the service.
His qualifications for inclusion in the Army officer ranks? Let's use his own words as a recent Penn State University graduate, enlisting, at age 23, as a private with two flat feet, curved spine, and intermittent asthma, "The military was so desperate in 1976, that's why I got in." He retired 22 years later as a lieutenant colonel, having spent much of his career in intelligence. Military Intelligence, that is...the mother of all oxymorons.
Of course, he was commissioned much later than the excrement we had to deal with after returning from VietNam, but he seems to be an excellent fragging candidate. Luckily, the slimeball studiously managed to avoid any exposure to combat. Until now. He is now the enemy of all respectable veterans. Given the opportunity, I would proudly bloody this scumbag's face for Bowe Bergdahl's father.
How ironic that, two weeks ago, Rupert Murdoch was prancing around the same town where Pfc. Bergdahl was born and raised. If Lt. Col. Peters had spewed his filth on Rupert's network then, I can assure you there would have been toe-poppers on the Sun Valley Golf Course the next morning.
doesn't surprise me since the lunatic fringe on the Right is as looney as the Taliban
walking pile of feces DD214! He is a purported Lt. Col??? And he is saying this crap about an enlisted troop? What a rat bag! Plus he is making it appear he is speaking for the Army? When did he retire? The DoD is going to slap a gag on him m'thinks. He is the kind of "officer" that gives officers a bad name. what a chicken sh*t. Heard back during 'Nam kreeps like him would get a little present thrown into their tent - either one that went boomski, or a little green "two stepper" snake....
He is a punk and not an officer.
Here are the congresspeople who signed the letter. What is of more concern is who didn't sign it. You know what I mean?
John Boccieri (D-OH)
Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
Patrick Murphy (D-PA)
Thomas Rooney (R-FL)
Joe Baca (D-CA)
Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
John Shimkus (R-IL)
Christopher Carney (D-PA)
Ted Poe (R-TX)
Timothy Walz (D-MN)
Darrell Issa (R-CA)
Jim Marshall (D-GA)
Gene Taylor (D-MS)
John Spratt (D-SC)
Jose Serrano (D-NY)
Joe Sestak (D-PA)
Bill Delahunt (D-MA)
Don Young (R-AK)
John Conyers (D-MI)
Edolphus Towns (D-NY)
Eric Massa (D-NY)
David Roe (R-TN)
Joe Pitts (R-PA)
to ask why there were no Idaho Reps signatures on the petition. Evidently, they're too busy sucking-off the insurance companies to have heard about the letter. They need a wake-up call.
Mike Simpson, 202-225-5531
Walt Minnick, 202-225-6611
They already got mine...please help get something big started.
Leaving one of your own behind? Imagine what Fox News would have said about this guy if he was an "analyst" on any other TV news show.
Let Berdahl's mother, significant other, and the entire rest of his family, one by one, line up and deliver a jaw-shattering slap to his asshole face.
On Fox. During the same timeslot that Peters opened his fucking yap in the first place.
That would be the only way I'd consider this one balanced out.
To his ass and push him out the back of a C-130 over Waziristan.
a perfectly good parachute?
Who said it had to be a good parachute?
That's funny as hell!
More proof just how much Right Wing-Nuts hate our troops and don't support them.
if they think his comments are "beyond the pale." His comments are just about on par with most of the crap coming out of that shithole.
Will FOX news keep allowing him to use their rented portion of the public airwaves to spew his crap?
How silly of me... of course they will.
This Clown condemns one of my own, what is this piece of garbabges credentials for COMBAT, I do NOT mean sitting in a rear area of support, what is his REAL command Time of tROOPS in combative ARMS. This Sick piece of SH*T forgot about PVT. Tillman ranger Killed by FRIENDLY fire. This BS artist doesno't have a clue, but then again look at the station that is putting him on.
RECON
if this asshole would've said this if Boosh was in Office? I know what would've happened to him if he had been in 'Nam and said that.
A couple of nights ago, O'Reilly had this guy on his show, and he was making weak excuses for what he said.
O'Reilly called Pfc. Bergdahl "crazy" because he left his post without a weapon.
First, O'Reilly doesn't know exactly what happened. Second, O'Reilly has no right to call Pfc. Bergdahl "crazy" on air like that. What's Pfc. Bergdahl's family think about that statement?
O'Reilly needs to apologize as well.
Bergdahl's family should sue O'Reilly and Peters for slander.
I find it interesting that in the letter they defend the solider by saying that he doesn't actually believe any of what he said, it must just be that he is being forced into saying that by his captors. That may be true, but maybe he did mean it. This analyst was basically saying this soldier deserved to be killed for working with his captors, which I'm assuming he believes because the soldier said what may have been an honest opinion that the analyst didn't like. Since when does thinking that this war wasn't such a good idea make you an accomplice to terrorists? It would've been nice for them to point that out.
Ralph Peters should be ashamed. This is how he thinks about servicemen?
When he spoke the first time, his comment about Berdahl's "desertion" were bad enough. The public outrage forced him to come out to clarify his comment, but now he has made it worse.
Instead of calling for the safe release of Berdahl from the Taliban, Peters is suggesting that as a deserter, the US has no use for him. Does he realize that he may have just signed the young soldier's death warrant, or that he gave the Taliban good reason to maim or torture him?
If the soldier did desert his unit, that could be addressed by the military upon his release. Attacking him under such circumstances is cruel and unjust. How does Mr. Peters know that the soldier deserted? Was he there when this happened?
Ralph Peters must apologize for his reckless, irresponsible statements, and then he must be told to shut up and not to speak further on the subject.
This is what they think. Why should they apologize for expressing themselves honestly?
Fox News supports the Taliban's capture of this soldier. They think he deserved it and they're okay with the Taliban killing him.
Because they hate America, hate freedom and don't support the troops.
let's for a moment humor peter's alternate universe view of truth or consequences and say that if the soldier did desert his post and willfully both denegrated his cinc and disobeyed his superiors orders in addition to awol, desertion, and collaboration charges in wartime, under the u.s. uniform code of of military justice there are clearly multiple serious alleged infractions with which to bring the soldier before a courts martial.
here's where peter's caboose falls blindly off the track ; if the soldier is found to have commited these acts he does deserve to have the book thrown at him...and hard. the thing is, an american book, not a taliban one.
peters has forgotten why we fight...if he ever knew.
Fox has shown it's hatred of the Constitution of the US many times. Don't expect to get an apology from this asshat or Ailes.
Freak! It's obvious he has never been loved. Class A shithead.
"Beaucoup deep kimchi"-- the army turns people into idiots. My Korean friends would be enraged at this slight to one of their National Treasures (kimchi).
(Three languages to make on nerdy adage)
Of course the statement is beyond absurd. But if you actually try to follow this idiot's logic, you find he is just plain dumb.
How can you be 100% certain that he deserted unless you are able to have him in custody for interogation. So this asshole would rather save the tax costs of the investigation than let the soldier tell his side of the story.
he would already be fragged.
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