Association of Free Citizens

Historically, prisoner exchanges are not unusual in time of war.  The trade off between returning paroled veterans to an enemy in exchange for your own and the necessity of guarding and feeding them in your rear areas must be carefully considered in light of the conditions on the battlefield.  Modern “hot” wars do not lend themselves to such exchanges, the preferred method being to intern enemy soldiers for the duration.  Which does not mean that what is ‘preferred’ always, or even mostly, what actually happens.

In our current ‘kinetic military action’ against fanatical Islam no captured American has survived very long, they are either tortured and killed on the spot or are made to star in a beheading video.  In this respect Bergdahl is exceptional, starting from apparently having walked away from his post leaving all his equipment behind to his having survived five years in Taliban captivity.  I won’t speculate on why that should be, but based on what we’ve heard I am not inclined to grant him much benefit of the doubt.

Be that as it may, the Obama administration’s actions are clear.  This is another, bold, step along the road from Constitutional rule of law to dictatorial tyranny with a detour into treason.  Treason in that Obama, our murderous prince of peace, has again acted unilaterally directly against the explicit law of the land which requires him to obtain Congressional approval to do this kind of thing.  Treason in that the administration clearly had to have negotiated with the enemy, even if through intermediaries, to have arranged this swap.  Treason in freeing no fewer than five high level enemy commanders for one low level enlisted man he certainly provided aid and comfort to the enemy he consistently denies his purported countrymen.  Treason in having pursued a ‘war of necessity’ in a manner best designed to weaken America’s armed forces in exchange for nothing at all.

Meanwhile, as of this writing, Congress lies supine either in tacit support of fundamentally undermining America for fear of being called racist if they don’t like the deal, or because they are fully in sympathy with the administration’s aims or they are setting party above the nation they have sworn to serve.  No matter how you cut it Congress has earned the opprobrium it gets, and more.

Remember back in the day when radical Islamists would capture some hapless American somewhere and hold him for ransom?  We used to pay, until somebody figured out that all we were doing was incentivizing more kidnappings.  One we stopped paying the kidnappings stopped too.  Now, thanks to the Obama administration every American anywhere in the world once again has a price on his head again.

We can look forward to more kidnapped Americans, more illegal, unopposed executive action, more erosion of American morale by both military and civilians, more subversion of the law, in a word, more, much more failure.The Left tells us that we should be proud (or else suffer the consequences) because we have made Progress!  As it increasingly abandons the founding principles in favor of alien ideas and ways of doing things, this administration it is clear that their legitimacy rests not on the Constitution and rule of law, but ultimately on the power that can only come from the barrel of a gun. Government by, for and of the people is a thing of the past.

I, all of us, have become prisoners of a Socialist tyranny.  Sometimes I wish somebody would exchange me back into the land of the free.  But there is no extrinsic power that can make that exchange. We the People have that power, power that is ours by inherent right.  It is up to us to recognize it, seize it, exercise it and compel the tyrants to yield and flee.

Americans!  You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Cross posted at Republican Club of the Foothills.