American POW freed in prisoner swap. And the GOP doesn't like it.....

Interesting read here... Long but worth it.

http://www.bouhammer.com/2014/06/guest-blogger-raven-wolf-bergdahl-how-pride-and-arrogance-kept-us-from-getting-him-back/

 

I'll wait on the final judgment until more facts are in.

But I don't like the idea of making deals with terrorists. The terrorists definitely wanted those 5 guys back or they wouldn't have bargained for them.

That being said, I'm glad we got an American out of captivity. That is a good thing no matter what the soldier did. If the soldier did go AWOL then it's better to not leave a man behind, and let the military determine his guilt and punishment.

Maybe it's a wash in my book. We did something I hate doing, and did something I like doing.

 

They definitely need to ascertain if this guy was a deserter or not. Although it seems very strange. I'm not well versed in American military at all, but if a soldier wants to quit, can he just go to his commanding officer and request a dishonourable discharge? Why would he just walk off into an insanely dangerous area, why not just kick up a fuss, and behave so badly that he'll get sent home?

 

It's not that simple when you are in country, you're pretty much stuck there. The reason he'd sneak off is because most likely his intention was to join the Taliban. He left his sensitive equipment behind so as to give him the longest head start possible and he'd already shipped most of his stuff back home.

 

On Saturday, February 10, 1962, twenty-one months after his capture, pilot Francis Gary Powers was exchanged in a spy swap for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolf Ivanovich Abel) at the now famous Glienicke Bridge.
http://garypowers.org/1962-spy-exchange-of-powers-for-abel/

The plan deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages scheme, in which members of the executive branch sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of the American hostages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Contra_affair

The hostage crisis ended with the need for Western aid and investment by Syria and Iran following the end of the Iran-Iraq war and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with promises to Hezbollah that it could remain armed following the end of the Lebanese Civil War and that France and America would not seek revenge against it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon_hostage_crisis

The passengers and crew of TWA flight 847 endured a three-day intercontinental ordeal. Some passengers were threatened and some beaten. Passengers with Jewish-sounding names were moved apart from the others. United States Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem was killed, and his body was thrown onto the tarmac. Dozens of passengers were held hostage over the next two weeks until released by their captors after some of
their demands were met.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_847

 

LOL seriously if you are going to do this kind of damage control and spin for this administration, you should get paid for it.

Of course, there is one thing about this ordeal that separates it from all of those other foreign policy disasters, none of those mistakes were to secure the homecoming of a traitor.

 

yeah it was tough, it took almost 30 seconds. It does help to be old enough to have lived through these events.

Why do you hate American principles?

 

don't worry, these guys we released won't go back to killing Americans...

oh crap...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/mpDrQPK1Z9c?start=12" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Yeah these 5 guys that have been locked up for over a decade are way scarier than the thousands of militants in Waziristan, Syria, Helmand Province, Lebanon, Libya, Indonesia etc.etc.

 

The point wasn't about how long it took you to try and muddy the water in an effort to spin and deflect, rather the fact that you bother in the first place. What's the point?

 

Oh boy...

A senior official confirms to Fox News that the conduct of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl -- both in his final stretch of active duty in Afghanistan and then, too, during his time when he lived among the Taliban -- has been thoroughly investigated by the U.S. intelligence community and is the subject of "a major classified file."

In conveying as much, the Defense Department source confirmed to Fox News that many within the intelligence community harbor serious outstanding concerns not only that Bergdahl may have been a deserter but that he may have been an active collaborator with the enemy.

Full story here:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/02/sources-intelligence-community-investigated-bergdahls-conduct/

 

Could we theoretically implant them with a GPS chip or something then Tomahawk their ass in a few weeks?

 

The point is, the historical precedent is actually to negotiate with terrorist if it gets your people out. We don't sacrifice people
for principle.

I don't have a clue, but I wouldn't bet against there is some plan to monitor them. It seems to me the focus in the region is now killing rival sects anyway.

 

That's what I was thinking. There's more to this than appears on the surface. They might going to Qatar to torture the hell out of them or they may be trying to track them back to some big fish.

 

Dubious - you keep trying to minimize the importance of the 5 we traded. Why?

They were all high level leadership. The bad guys value them highly enough to trade what may have been a VERY valuable trade chip. It was their last and only US military captive.

It is incredibly stupid to think that these 5 1) are not going to return to their old ways and 2) have no value anymore. They have leadership skills, position in their tribes, connections, and quite a bit of power and influence in that world despite being out of the loop for a decade.

As I said earlier, this was NOT a Morey trade.

 

As shown on this board they are getting more frustrated as their theories such as trickle down/ supply side, deregulation, war first as foreign policy etc. are rejected by the American people. To make it worse their heroes McCain and Romney were beaten by the black guy whose Obamacare health plan is proving more and more successful.

 

You seem to think that because there have been foreign policy disasters in the past that is somehow makes this foreign policy disaster better. I can't understand that thinking.

 

Shm....never negotiate with a terrorist

 

they are old now

they have been out of touch for a decade and a lot of their contemporaries are dead

they are security risks for any actual tactical knowledge going forward

if our psyops are any good they could be pacified

the CIA let these guys go, they are known hardasses about stuff like that, they must be pretty sure this won't come back to bite them

pretty sure there will covert monitoring, Qatar is an "ally" that likes selling oil and it's the home of our highest tech naval base

whose to say mury didn't make the deal he wanted, sent the guys he was willing to send

 

disasters? those were the the sucesses