Should we be deeply troubled by the deal Obama cut with the Taliban?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s no surprise that Fox and other right leaning publications are upset. But, even the Washington Post is questioning the wisdom of this “deal”.

These are senior Taliban leaders. One is a fucking war criminal responsible for thousands of Shiite deaths. Read the backgrounds on these people. :eek: They are the worst and most dangerous Gitmo prisoners we held. They are dangerous because they are smart and have leadership capabilities.

For one POW that may have initially been a deserter? Is it worth another terrorism attack in America orchestrated by these former prisoners? We can’t even fully trust Bergdahl. He’ll need watching for years to come.

Obama sold out the American people. Plain and simple.

2

Yes, we should be worried. If they can get a five-for-one deal from the US, what’s to stop more terrorist groups from kidnapping more Americans to exchange for their people now that we’re willing to negotiate with terrorists?

3

Well Obama promised to shut down Gitmo. Exactly how he planned to go about it, now we know.

4

They’re going to kill us all, I assume.

5

Aceplace: There is existing thread–although with a broad title it is mostly about him:

6

What really disturbs me is all the blood we put into Afghanistan. Trying to prop up Karzai. These prisoners were in the former Taliban government.

We need to start a pool to see when the Taliban regains power. I’d say maybe within two years of the last American troops leaving?

7

Conservatives were mad at Obama because he didn’t get Bergdahl released. Now they’re mad that he did. Of course Liberals were mad at Reagan for they way he got the hostages in Iran released.

8

Oh noes! NOW they’re going to start kidnapping us!

9

No. We shouldn’t be.

10

The national hysteria about Al Queda Taliban terrorism continues, I laugh at you all, they knocked down the twin towers because we were stupid to not enforce our immigration laws and to relax the rules against carrying knives onto an airplane (or “boxcutters”, I remember once in the 70’s seeing a poor kid lose his little boy scout clasp knife because nothing that dangerous could fly, and he wasn’t even a group of young Arab men). So instead of honestly considering the threat against us we went into full revenge mode killing hundreds of thousands of Arabs while losing two wars and sending the middle east swirling down the toilet in chaos. WTF? We broke it and it can’t be fixed, let’s just close the door and let them play slaughter w/o us.

11

I’m hoping there is a drone strike in the future for those released Taliban.

I’m willing to wait until Bergdahl’s ready to tell his story before judging him.

12

Jog my memory here. How did Reagan get the hostages released? As best as I recall, he did so merely by the acts of, first, getting elected and, second, getting inaugurated. I don’t recall if he ever made overt threats during his campaign (did he?) but many people imagined that, Reagan being Reagan, his strategy would probably entail sending the bombers to bomb Baghdad back to the stone age (or at least credibly threatening to). Apparently the Iranian “students” saw it that way.

13

So, he got six people out of captivity who shouldn’t have been there. What part of this ought we to be objecting to?

14

But they were alleged to be some the baddest of the baddies there. (ETA: The five who were released from Gitmo, that is. We don’t really know anything about Bergdahl.)

Too bad we never, y’know, actually gave them a fair and honest trial, or any trial at all for that matter, in order to, y’know, actually judge that.

15

Did you even read the Washington post article? A war criminal was released. A guy that victimized his own people.

We’re not talking about some goat herder that got arrested in a battle area. These are senior Taliban leaders from the 1990’s. Their backgrounds are known and documented.

I could accept releasing a few of the less violent prisoners. Men who simply got caught up in the fighting.

16

Documented because they’re our former allies, you mean?

Try them or release them. Those are the only decent options. If we’re not going to try them, then yes, we should release all of them. Land of the free. Home of the brave.

I’m less enthused about ransoming a US soldier but that’s a different issue.

17

Selling weapons to Iran, which was under an embargo, to get hostages freed. It was called the Iran-Contra Affair, or Arms-For-Hostages Affair.

EDIT: Not the hostages from the Iranian revolution. I erred there. Buthostages held in Lebanon by terrorists with strong ties to Iran.

18

I came in here, and read up to your post, intending to make the same one myself.

+1

19

I think it was an ok deal.

The men being released are pretty old and do not have their underlings and power bases anymore (or so I should think). I dont think they are much of a threat. Plus we have probably learned all we could from them.

The American POW does sound like a sort of deserter but he’s still an American so I’m glad we got him back.

Plus as I understand they will not be released for another year.

I’m ok with it.

20

I recall one of the Lebanon hostages was a minister that had gone there to give aid. IIRC those same terrorists grabbed a couple more people right after releasing the Lebanon hostages.

Which is what will probably happen in Afghanistan. Some poor soldier will get dragged off into captivity to replace the guy we just got back.