The Bergdahl Case Gets Curiouser and Curiouser

From The American Thinker:

Watching relatively inexperienced Army prosecutors blow a case against accomplished civilian defense lawyers is not entirely unusual. As a young JAG officer I was perhaps so victimized myself, and definitely saw it occur in other cases. The old saying that military justice is like military music -- not particularly good -- has some basis in reality. But it is also possible that the Army deliberately made it easy on Fidell and his team, and seeing a shadow boxing loss at the Article 32 as a political win.

Article 32 hearings are a good way for the military to dispose of cases that they don’t like, since they give the appearance of having brought the manner to a mini-trial and are comparatively fair compared to civilian grand juries. At least as reported, Bergdahl’s Article 32 doesn’t appear to have made a good case against him for anything more than an AWOL charge, which I think would suit the Army just fine. It would allow the Army to dispose of the case through something less than a General Courts Martial, preserve Bergdahl’s veteran benefits for his apparent physical and psychological disabilities, and not extend the matter into the election year, embarrassing Obama and his increasingly likely successor as Democrat nominee, Vice-President Biden. Call me cynical, but I think that is where we are headed.

Interesting, but I does make a lot of sense.