A few hours after the release of American’s only prisoner of war, who had been held in captivity for five years, his parents joined President Obama at the White House.
The President had telephoned Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl’s parents early Saturday to tell them their son was headed home.
The 28-year-old’s release was part of negotiations which agreed the release of five Taliban members being held at Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
This is an extreme example of American self centredness:
In order to obtain the release of a low ranking soldier they have been willing to release five acknowledge high ranking members of the Taliban.
Yet they continue to detain one British Protected person, Shaker Aamer
who was caught up in one of the bounty fuelled collection of detainees. He has been detained for over a decade. The worst allegation against him (supported only by inadmissable evidence as gained by bribes and torture) is that he led a platoon in Afghanistan- not that he was a senior Taliban member as in the five released above.
He is currently being tortured daily in Guantanamo (the UN describes forced feeding of competent persons as a method of torture).
I am trying to avoid this ending up in the pit so I will moderate my conclusion:
Does anyone see any hypocrisy over the valuation of an American life against a British Protected person.
Apparently it is two dangerous to release a middle aged man ho may have been a foot soldier, but fine to release five major movers to free an American grunt.
Your ideas intrigue me, but without some links to some news stories so I can figure out what you’re talking about, exactly, I’ll have to settle for a subscription to your newsletter.
The British have certainly raised a stink about Aamer’s release, so I’m perplexed as to why it hasn’t happened yet. With some detainees, it’s impossible to find a country to repatriate to, so I can comprehend the reasoning, even if I don’t agree with it. But in this case, the British have said they want him back, and we should give him back if they’re willing to take him. Although, maybe the British are playing some behind-the-scenes game which we don’t know about.
What’s surprising about the American government releasing some high-ranking Taliban prisoners to get the lone remaining prisoner back from Afghanistan?
How is that different from Israel’s policy of releasing huge numbers of prisoners in exchange for much smaller numbers of prisoners from Hamas or the Hezbollah?
That is not the hypocrisy. The hypocrisy is allowing five avowed senior Taliban members to go free, to allow the release of an illegally confined American and at the same time illegally detaining a Brit who at worst was a low level fighter and probably was not even involved.
The message is that it is OK to detain a low risk Brit and at the same time as releasing five highly dangerous Taliban to free one American.
Trading prisoners to secure the release of an American captive isn’t hypocrisy. It’s the government’s job. Our soldiers enlist with the promise that we will not leave them behind.
Does Britain want Aamer back? I think that could be arranged. How about we exchange him for Julian Assange?
Errrrr… They don’t have him. He lived at the Equadorian Embassy which is technically Equadorian territory. Besides, he’s already supposed to be sent to Sweden to answer rape charged.
Yeah, its an economic nightmare here. Israeli POWs are valued so high in the hostage marketplace, that a rate of anything under 100 prisoners per soldier is unthinkable.
But don’t worry. You paid 5 for this one? They’ll ask for 10 next time.
What bothers me is that the United States is holding untried prisoners in an off-jurisdiction site for more than a decade. This from the “land of the free”.
The US in legal circles is a bastion of jurisprudential thinking, a deeply respected source of developments in the law, and American decisions are widely referred to as persuasive precedents throughout the world. Not always followed but influential nevertheless.
You have a President who is a Professor of Law. A man who is familiar with the nuances of law and who understands right from wrong.
And yet Guantanamo still holds prisoners? It wasn’t too long ago that we all despised Russia for doing the same. Shame on Obama. Shame.
You do realize that, under the Geneva Conventions, the US is completely within its right to hold military captives up until the cessation of hostilities, right?
I tend to agree where realpolitik is that American lives are more important than the lives of others. A seriously xenophobic position common to many in the US.
The US insists that it is not currently trying to extradite him from the UK or potentially from Sweden should he be sent there. But that of course is weasel words.