# Should the US be bartering with terrorists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 1, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787 "2014-06-01T20:32:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/41 "2014-06-02T16:58:42Z")
> [@The\_Fornicator](#): > > Once again shades of the Crusades; the people invading another country, killing, torturing and imprisoning natives without trial are the good guys and the people in their own country rejecting the invaders are the terrorists. Got to love these white man wars. The Crusades pitted one set of invaders against another. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/42 "2014-06-02T18:12:46Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > 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. So the military believes that one of their own should be deliberately left in the hands of the enemy without trial? Either it’s an emotional response or there must be damn good evidence of these accusations (not that it’s necessarily right even if there were). ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/43 "2014-06-02T18:46:12Z")
Does anyone know what the combatant status of the 5 Taliban actually was? Are we technically “negotiating with terrorists” as we would if they were al-Qaeda? Maybe I’m about to give the administration too much credit. But given that the political benefit to Obama from doing this has been zero, I suspect that there’s some strategic rationale here and that the exchange was decidedly not for domestic US consumption. My guess is that in the absence of an open-ended military commitment to Afghanistan, and given that we have not succeeded in eradicating the Taliban, it seems like our options are to leave the country with the Taliban either relatively strong or relatively weak. Presumably the strategic benefit here is that reconciliation with some of the less hardline Taliban sows disunity in their ranks, between the true believers and those they consider to be sellouts. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/44 "2014-06-02T19:21:02Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Which was an idiotic decision reaching underpants on head levels of stupidity. Its unfortunate that while Israel is inflexible on issues it ought to be flexible on (such as settlements in the West Bank), it is utterly lacking in spine and manly firmness on this issue. It is quite probable that far more Israeli soldiers will die at the end of these released terrorists then if Gilad Shalit had been murdered by the terrorists. > > We should never conduct any prisoner exchanges unless (at the least) it was a ratio of 1:1. You know I would have thought this too many years ago, but here on the Dope I read a post by **Alessan** that described the promise made to Israeli citizens in exchange for their sacrifice. It was very moving. It was an actual foreign word - I can’t do it justice in summary. But the idea that the Israeli government would go to the ends of the Earth to recover the bodies of its fallen in respect for the families and to the promise made was particularly moving. I can’t begin to understand the difference in perspective, but after reading the post I had no issue over the actions in this regard. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/45 "2014-06-02T20:04:05Z")
[Why The Five Taliban Detainees Had To Be Released Soon, No Matter What](http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/06/02/3443719/the-case-for-negotiating-for-bergdahls-release/) > [@](#): > > The United States is engaged in an armed conflict in Afghanistan against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces authorized by Congress under the 2001 Authorizations to Use Military Force. It is remains controversial whether this armed conflict extends beyond Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan, but what is not in doubt is that of the enemy forces party to this conflict, the Taliban is confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Obama recently announced that the combat role for the United States in the armed conflict in Afghanistan will end this year and all participation will completely cease by 2016. > > When wars end, prisoners taken custody must be released. These five Guantanamo detainees were almost all members of the Taliban, according to the biographies of the five detainees that the Afghan Analysts Network compiled in 2012. None were facing charges in either military or civilian courts for their actions. It remains an open question whether the end of U.S. involvement in the armed conflict in Afghanistan requires that all Guantanamo detainees must be released. But there is no doubt that Taliban detainees captured in Afghanistan must be released because the armed conflict against the Taliban will be over. > > Sgt. Bergdahl was a U.S. soldier captured in an active zone of combat. The circumstances of his capture make him a Prisoner of War, not a hostage as some have erroneously claimed. In traditional conflicts, both sides would release their prisoners at the conclusion of hostilities. This is not a traditional conflict, however, and the Obama administration rightly had no expectation that Sgt. Bergdahl would have been released when U.S. forces redeployed out of Afghanistan. As that date neared, any leverage the United States possessed would have been severely undermined. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/46 "2014-06-02T21:01:46Z")
I don’t think there is a good blanket policy of negotiation that we can follow. We can try to stick to an ideal but understand that in the dirty world of terrorism, there will be situations that fall outside of the neat lines of black and white we like to paint the world in. I don’t think we should generally be negotiating with terrorists, but occasionally its fine. I don’t really think that doing it once in a while encourages them any more than our policies already do ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/47 "2014-06-02T21:09:57Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > This. > > We elect a President every four years, and invest him with the authority to act on our behalf. He has access to relevant information we don’t, and it’s his job to set and steer our foreign policy. It’s his call to make. This is 100% correct, and I don’t fault Obama for his decision. Nevertheless, the issue could have been a lot simpler if (1) the “War on Terror” in general and the legal status of Guantanamo detainees wasn’t the kind of murky moral and legal morass that they have become, (2) the current GOP didn’t have a well-deserved reputation as knee-jerk obstructionists, and (3) the executive didn’t have this obsession with secrecy such that not nearly enough members of the legislative branch are briefed on matters like this, a fact which has led to a mutual distrust that breeds over-speculation. It is incredibly unlikely the five men released pose any kind of threat to U.S. interests (they’re stuck in Qatar for another year anyway). But given the secrecy surrounding their detention or even the details of their identities, we really can’t say that for sure. And given the usual GOP suspects in Congress, even if their claims have merit they’ve acted in such bad faith with this president that no one outside of the Fox News bubble is going to listen to them anyway. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/48 "2014-06-02T21:52:52Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Why The Five Taliban Detainees Had To Be Released Soon, No Matter What](http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/06/02/3443719/the-case-for-negotiating-for-bergdahls-release/) So, the Taliban thinks the war is over? That’s great!! Oh wait, they don’t. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/49 "2014-06-02T22:01:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So, the Taliban thinks the war is over? That’s great!! > > Oh wait, they don’t. But **we** do. That’s a public commitment. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/50 "2014-06-02T22:12:23Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So, the Taliban thinks the war is over? That’s great!! > > Oh wait, they don’t. Ha, I bet they think they won it too! Oh wait, they did. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/51 "2014-06-02T22:17:56Z")
I think **Brainglutton** has a fair point here. The Taliban are not international terrorists - they are regional combatants in a war that is ending. You can withhold an al-Qaida leader indefinitely, because that’s a war without end. However, I think a new legal regime is sorely required here, as indefinite detention without trial is abhorrent. But a Taliban leader? If the war in Afghanistan is official over, how do you justify continuing to hold them? That said, if it turns out that Bergdahl was actually a deserter who sympathized with the enemy, then this is a spectacularly bad PR move for the administration. Which wouldn’t surprise me, because I think they’re largely a bunch of incompetents. But in any event, if that’s what Bergdahl was, then I should hope that he goes straight into a military jail when he comes home, to stand trial for desertion. The real scandal will be if he is an actual deserter but the Obama administration twists arms or pardons him to avoid a public spectacle. Even worse, if they parade him around as a hero for PR reasons. That would be devastating to military morale. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/52 "2014-06-02T22:19:52Z")
Obama goes after American citizens fighting with terrorists and it’s “how dare Obummer assassinate an American citizen (no matter what they’ve done),” but when he gets an American citizen (who never fought with terrorists) back with no blood shed its, “yeah, well this American citizen was probably a deserter anyway …” The right wing needs to make up their minds over what should and shouldn’t be done with American citizens they don’t like. Check that … probably a bad idea, come to think of it. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/53 "2014-06-02T22:39:45Z")
1. If the enemy is holding one of ours, we bring them back, no matter the cost. If he was a traitor, that determination rests with the military justice system, NEVER with the enemy nor with hearsay. 2. One of ours, even a criminal, is worth a hundred or more Taliban. 3. The Taliban is already highly motivated to kill/capture Americans. It’s not possible to increase their desire for this goal. If this deal does anything, it strengthens the incentive to keep their captives alive. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/54 "2014-06-02T22:59:30Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Obama goes after American citizens fighting with terrorists… Al-Awlaki did not fight alongside anyone. Get your facts straight. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/55 "2014-06-02T23:10:50Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. The Taliban is already highly motivated to kill/capture Americans. It’s not possible to increase their desire for this goal. If this deal does anything, it strengthens the incentive to keep their captives alive. Right. It’s telling that this is the only prisoner they had, and he was captured under what certainly appear to be highly unusual circumstances. If they were able to capture more Americans, they would already be doing so. They may well want to capture more prisoners to exchange, but that won’t matter, because it would appear that they can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/56 "2014-06-02T23:30:02Z")
for starters Berdahl was never a Sergeant. Wiki says he was given this rank in absentia in 2011. He left his post in 2009. His comrades say he talked about crossing the border into Pakistan and just walking away. They also said he asked if he could leave the area with his gun and night vision goggles. He was refused this and subsequently left with nothing but a compass. Since then the death of 6 people are attributed to missions searching for him. Those involved had to sign a non-disclosure statement. It’s been 5 years and in that time the government has attempted to keep what happened quiet. This isn’t a situation that cropped up over night requiring immediate action. The President could have involved Congress with a phone call. This complete disregard for the law and in deference to the wishes of the Afghan government makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/57 "2014-06-02T23:42:13Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > for starters Berdahl was never a Sergeant. Wiki says he was given this rank in absentia in 2011. He left his post in 2009. His comrades say he talked about crossing the border into Pakistan and just walking away. They also said he asked if he could leave the area with his gun and night vision goggles. He was refused this and subsequently left with nothing but a compass. Since then the death of 6 people are attributed to missions searching for him. Those involved had to sign a non-disclosure statement. This and other reporting suggests to me he had a mental breakdown. Who would not go after a comrade who was suffering from a mental breakdown out in the desert, in enemy territory, unarmed with no food or water. > [@](#): > > It’s been 5 years and in that time the government has attempted to keep what happened quiet. This isn’t a situation that cropped up over night requiring immediate action. The President could have involved Congress with a phone call. This complete disregard for the law and in deference to the wishes of the Afghan government makes no sense. How did the government keep it quiet if all this shit is available on the interwebs. Did none of those Congress-critters read the interwebs? How do you know that his present health condition did not require immediate attention or death? Were you his attending Physician? Do you think that Congress (you know which one I’m talking about) wouldn’t try to throw a monkey wrench into the negotiations? Finally: would you want this congress to intervene if it was your son? ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/58 "2014-06-02T23:51:20Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > This complete disregard for the law and in deference to the wishes of the Afghan government makes no sense. If this had been Pat Tillman and a Rethuglican Prez the GOP would be creaming their pants and declaring a national fucking holiday. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2014, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/59 "2014-06-02T23:55:59Z")
> [@sinjin](#): > > This and other reporting suggests to me he had a mental breakdown. Who would not go after a comrade who was suffering from a mental breakdown out in the desert, in enemy territory, unarmed with no food or water. > > How did the government keep it quiet if all this shit is available on the interwebs. Did none of those Congress-critters read the interwebs? How do you know that his present health condition did not require immediate attention or death? Were you his attending Physician? Do you think that Congress (you know which one I’m talking about) wouldn’t try to throw a monkey wrench into the negotiations? None of the troops around him suggested he was having mental issues or a breakdown. anything is possible but at this point you’re shaking the 8 ball of excuses to see what comes up. > [@sinjin](#): > > Finally: would you want this congress to intervene if it was your son? yes, if he deserted and caused the deaths of others searching for him. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787/60 "2014-06-03T00:02:17Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > If this had been Pat Tillman and a Rethuglican Prez the GOP would be creaming their pants and declaring a national fucking holiday. the Rethuglican Prez. Really? This is your reasoned argument in support of releasing 5 major terrorists in trade for someone billed as a deserter by his fellow troops and responsible for the deaths of those looking for him. You realize the opinion of the troops involved existed prior to the President’s involvement? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-us-be-bartering-with-terrorists/689787.md?page=4)