US solider freed from captivity in Afghanistan

[Necropostophiliac]

A view from the left..........might be very surprising to some.

 

[The Other Side]

This maybe beyond the scope of my understanding since I'm just a truck driver but.......

-someone help me understand why the "enemy" gave BB a turban when he was released almost to say, "...here....you will need this some day;

-someone help me understand why BB's father uttered words that would seem to sanctify the white house under the name of islam if his captors were such terrible, vile people;

-someone help me understand why BB"s father grew his beard out almost to suggest adherence with the captors protocol.

Help me understand.....

Why? is it any of your business?

We did a trade, we dont know all the particulars of the exchange. We are probably tracking them and will kill them later anyways. We dont even know if they were charged with any crimes at gitmo, like the hundreds of other prisoners who stayed there for YEARS and never charged but released by GW BUSH.

Lets get over it.

The deal is done. Move on with your own lives.

TOS.

 

[DriveInDriveOut]

A view from the left..........might be very surprising to some.

Chris Matthews..... what a waste of time.

 

[moreluck]

....."Lets get over it.

The deal is done. Move on with your own lives.

TOS. ""

Practice what you preach !!

 

[wkmac]

The danger these guys actually pose seems a bit overhyped to me. They were all captured pretty early on and they've been locked up for 10+ years, whatever position they held with the taliban has been long since filled.

This is one more reason I posed the question about an intel op on some level. But the primary reason is that one of the former detainees has CIA connections and before capture had reached out to express a willingness to "work a deal" if you will.

Thanks in part to some Wikileaks intel, CNN reported last Thursday the following as to one of the detainees.

Early in 2002, shortly after the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban regime, Taliban leader Khairullah Khairkhwa phoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai asking for a job. As a member of the same tribe, he had known the Karzai family for years, and was hoping to use this link to switch allegiances to the new U.S.-backed Afghan government, a move typical of the twists and turns of the country's 30 years of war. Karzai promised to help, and referred Khairkhwa to his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, a close CIA ally based in Kandahar province.
Ahmed Wali Karzai agreed to send a representative to meet Khairkhwa in Pakistan. But before this could transpire, a rival Taliban figure alerted the Pakistani border police to Khairkhwa's presence. He was arrested, handed over to the Americans, and sent to Guantanamo.

Khairkhwa is one of the five Taliban leaders who were released from Guantanamo over the weekend in a deal for Sgt. Bowe Berghdahl, the lone American POW in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I learned of Khairkhwa's story, which is corroborated in his Guantanamo detainee files, from interviews with the late Ahmed Wali Karzai and other Afghan government officials.

In fact, all five of the swapped prisoners were initially captured while trying to cut deals, and like Khairkhwa, three had been attempting to join, or had already joined, the Afghan government at the time of their arrest.

Taliban prisoner swap makes sense


Some may have assumed my question earlier about a deep cover intel op asserted Bergdahl was the op but Bergdahl may have just been a convenient cover. If so, pretty smart as everything is focused on Bergdahl while the thought is that the 5 detainees are still hardcore jihadists. From an intel POV, seems an outcome much desired if one is out to hide the truth (practically in plain sight) and after reading the above piece from CNN dated last Thursday along with a few other pieces as background, the potential occurred and thus the question. If true, from a certain POV, the swap would make sense. Maybe even brilliant from a industrial-military complex POV.

The other side of this for Obama, if these 5 prove their worth, and it may not even take all 5, the claim of, "you are releasing jihadists back into the field of battle" could blow up in certain political opponents faces. And if Bergdahl had truly turned in a bad way for us, just as drones could take out the 5 former detainees, so could they have also taken out Bergdahl long ago. The fact that he's still alive either way raises some interesting unanswered questions.

I don't for one minute think that the highest military command wasn't conferred with on this exchange and/or did not signed off on it. The outcome of this whole affair will be interesting to watch indeed but it's not the obvious that will be the most interesting to watch.

 

[wkmac]

Chris Matthews..... what a waste of time.

Don't disagree but then I also don't consider Matthews left. Not unlike Hillary, both are a versions of Neo-Con lite.

 

[moreluck]

Left or right.
Liberal or conservative.

This labeling process can be simplified....idiot or non-idiot !!

 

[moreluck]

 

[moreluck]

 

[bbsam]

Don't care. Glad he's back.

 

[Jones]

Left or right.
Liberal or conservative.

This labeling process can be simplified....idiot or non-idiot !!

Must...resist...

 

[bbsam]

Must...resist...

go ahead. Indulge.

 

[MAKAVELI]

http://7online.com/news/bergdahl-wasnt-only-soldier-to-walk-off-afghan-outposts/104060/

 

[moreluck]

 

[moreluck]

 

[wkmac]

Good piece from Sheldon Richman at Future of Freedom Foundation.

Before being captured, these Taliban officers were treated as potential allies by the CIA or the U.S.-installed government of Hamid Karzai. Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes, writes that

all five of the swapped prisoners were initially captured while trying to cut deals, and … three had been attempting to join, or had already joined, the Afghan government at the time of their arrest.

This history shows that the categories we take as rigid and unchanging, such as “terrorist,” are in fact remarkably fluid in the context of Afghan politics. Uncovering the stories of these men tells us much about Guantanamo, the Taliban, and the possibility of a negotiated end to the conflict.

News Coverage Misinforms Americans on the Bergdahl Swap

 

[728ups]

Reuters reports that the outrage over "Six Soldiers being killed looking for Bergdahl" is yet another Republican Lie

http://atlasleft.org/about-those-soldiers-killed-looking-for-bergdahl-its-another-right-wing-lie/

“While many questions remain, a Reuters reconstruction of his disappearance indicates that at the time when Bergdahl’s six comrades in the 1st Battalion of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment were killed in August and September 2009, his fallen comrades were on other missions like securing the Afghan elections and, according to one U.S. military official, the period of intensive ground searches had already ended.”

 

[gman042]

When the war ends in the next couple months and the detainees at Guantanamo are released anyway, a prisoner exchange is not possible. If other attempts at freeing Bergdahl over the past 5years have not been fruitful, why would they be in the next couple months?

Let's be realistic. There never will be an end to this war as long as there are extremists involved. They hate America and everything that we stand for. They will do all in their power to alleviate the American threat to them.
As for Bergdahl.
Here again....let's be realistic. He came into enemy hand under questionable conditions. Abandoning his post? Leaving a note? Who leaves a note if he is abducted. He appears to have sympathized with the enemy.
Now...for his release....Our President took it upon himself to negotiate with known terrorists. When in our history has America EVER done that? Now terrorists know that they can abduct American citizens to gain what they want. No one is safe.

 

[wkmac]

gman

If I didn't know better, reading your first paragraph I would think you are speaking of the power structure of Washington DC and the social and economic forces behind it.

 

[gman042]

gman

If I didn't know better, reading your first paragraph I would think you are speaking of the power structure of Washington DC and the social and economic forces behind it.

Caught that, huh?