It concerns the release of Sgt Berdahl from Taliban captivity in exchange for 5 of their people detained in Gitmo. I’m delighted for Bergdahl and his family but I do have misgivings about this deal. Apparently the Taliban released weren’t small potatoes, these were important leaders who could bring a whole lot of grief to the US in future and I’m sure they plan on doing just that. I’m sure there are others at Gitmo who the Taliban would love to get back. So, what? Kidnap another soldier? Well, it worked once, it will probably work again.
I thought the golden rule for governments was that you don’t negotiate with terrorists. Ever. The reason of course being that you set a really bad precedent which future terrorists will certainly take note of.
I know it must be a hell of a decision for a President to have to make. It can’t be easy to stick to your guns and tell the terrorists that no matter how many soldiers they capture you will never barter with them.
It’s far easier to give them what they want. But is it the right thing to do? I very much doubt it.
A lot of military are really upset over this because he actually deserted his post and was looking for Taliban to join them. Not only that, like three or four soldiers were killed looking for his sorry ass after he left.
I think this whole thing was a big mistake. Obama was probably partially hoping for a public relations boost and it gets a few more Gitmo people out of his hair. I hope that none of this backfires.
It was completely the right thing to do. Gitmo shouldn’t exist in the first place, and getting our guys back is vital. As for complaints from the Right, remember that sainted Ronnie dealt arms to the Contras against Congressional approval. You can’t have it both ways. And the way to keep the Taliban from kidnapping our people is to get them the fuck out of Afghanistan.
The rule is: You don’t negotiate with terrorists. Ever. [Except for when you do.]
That is to say, our official stance is that we don’t negotiate with terrorists. Ever. (And when we do, we handwave some excuse like this time that we didn’t negotiate directly with the Taliban, but through an intermediary, namely the Emir of Qutar.)
Given the whole ‘damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t’ attitude of the Republicans, I’m fairly certain they would find some way to complain no matter how this shook out.
It’s an ongoing struggle. It’s not like we promised we’d stop fighting terrorists (including those we released). And it’s not like the terrorists promised they’d stop fighting us. If we actually convinced the terrorists that we were serious and we wouldn’t negotiate for captives, all it would accomplish is they would stop taking captives and would kill our people instead.
And we don’t know what other type of negotiations are going on policy wise re Taliban/Afghanistan - I think it is the presidents call to make.
Of course it encourages future kidnapping of American Soliders, but they would do that anyway. Obama knows this - and I doubt it is going to win him any points.
I wonder how much leeway they give/promise the people making the trade off?
Is it fair game to follow them with a drone and take them out later.
If they do it right away - no one will ever trust the US again, but I wonder if they will collect intelligence and how much they can. Presumably if they aren’t stupid enough to keep their mobile phones they will go into some public place and disappear…
And you know that some night, the NSA slipped a mickey into their hummus and chipped all of them. Somewhere in Ft. Meade right now is a monitor going “Beep, Beep” and GPSing every Allah-loving one of them.
Yeah, I was going to say. Israel has negotiated prisoner exchanges for decades. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists, ever” … on matters of strategic substance. But a prisoner swap mediated by a third party? Normal business in the real world. We don’t want to send to our own the message that if they’re grabbed, then “sucks to be you, buddy”.
And if there are those in the military who have a bone to pick with Bergdahl, well, guess what, now we got him back and now he can be asked questions.
Could you give me a link to some compelling evidence that he was actually attempting to join the Taliban?
If he was, wouldn’t they have featured him in a bunch of propaganda videos saying the Shahada, declaring allegiance to the Taliban, proclaiming he had joined the Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders etc.?
There is also the issue that the president is supposed to give Congress 30 days notice prior to releasing anyone from Guatanamo. The claim is that there wasn’t time, but it’s hard to believe the entire negotiation, from start to finish, took less than 30 days. And I doubt the bill says that the president must give 30 days notice “unless there isn’t time”.
It doesn’t matter how much time the negotiations took. What matters is the time AFTER the negotiations are concluded and the Taliban has given their final list of five. (It doesn’t do any good to tell Congress “we’re going to be releasing some guys from Gitmo, but we don’t know who yet.”) Once the five were identified, was the Taliban willing to wait another 30 days?