DescentBB

Well slick, if we have a war on terror, POW's can be held until the wars end. Stop being a whiney apologist.

Those prisoners were non-uniformed combatants. They could be shot on sight or captured and shot in a firing squad according to the rules we impose on ourselves.
we kept them for interrogation, or maybe just waterboard practice or something and created the situation for ourselves by converting them to 'prisoner' status but that doesn't change who they ultimately are. A lot of the ones we released showed up back on the battlefield killing american troops.

So, in spite of visions silly fantasy that we can drone them at will and follow them from an eye in the sky, they are likely to become a problem for us and their release certainly adds to the enemies incentive to take prisoners. All we did is create 5 potential problems to eliminate 1.

And slick just because the deal with Qatar was finalized this last week doesn't mean during all these previous weeks when the deal with Qatar was in flux there wasn't time to follow the rules and seek Congressional involvement in the decision. That is a very lame, and very typical-for-slick attempt to make cover for Obama's disregard for the law. He knew the vast majority was against releasing those 5 guys but he needed to do it for his own purpose so he did it anyway.

The body count weighs heavily in our favor.

vision wrote:The body count weighs heavily in our favor.

I'm not so sure. 6800 of our boys have died. If you would like to see their faces:
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/national/fallen/

Of course vision we all know how you sympathize more with the dead of the AQ and Taliban terrorist than you do your own nations troops.

callmeslick wrote:apparently, the Qatar aspect wasn't finalized until last week, when the Prince was over here for his son's West Point graduation.

so they DID have time to advise congress on the matter. thank you for clearing that matter up

And, whine though you all will, the point made was valid: keeping these people in illegal, limitless confinement at a camp in violation of most civilized international law at Gitmo is more important than getting every American home, in the minds of some.

they are enemy combatants there has been no Armistice or surrender signed. are you saying we are in violation of the Geneva convention for the treatment of prisoners of war???

because you'd be wrong.

I daresay to, that the Gitmo prisoners are getting better medical care than our own veterans.

woodchip wrote:I daresay to, that the Gitmo prisoners are getting better medical care than our own veterans.

you're not implying that the VA hasn't been taking care of out veterans are you?!?!?!?!?!

CUDA wrote:

woodchip wrote:I daresay to, that the Gitmo prisoners are getting better medical care than our own veterans.

you're not implying that the VA hasn't been taking care of out veterans are you?!?!?!?!?!

toss in Bengazi, and you've got the right-wing fox trot!! Yee-Hawwww!! You all are going to be so tickled with 8 years of Hillary, because then you will realize how truly conciliatory and moderate Obama is.

callmeslick wrote:

CUDA wrote:

woodchip wrote:I daresay to, that the Gitmo prisoners are getting better medical care than our own veterans.

you're not implying that the VA hasn't been taking care of out veterans are you?!?!?!?!?!

toss in Bengazi, and you've got the right-wing fox trot!! Yee-Hawwww!! You all are going to be so tickled with 8 years of Hillary, because then you will realize how truly conciliatory and moderate Obama is.

yep and just to piss you off totally.

Guess which administration / Party has been in-charge for ALL those ★■◆●-ups.
HEY come to think of it. I hear Jay carney is leaving. might be a good Career move for you. you are an experienced story teller after all.

wouldn't give up retirement on a dare, CUDA. I turn 59 in September and kinda like not answering any bells, deadlines or 'metrics'.

Well. More to the story. It appears the administration originally was planning on making a cash swap for burgdahl a few months ago. Then the administration put that on hold several weeks ago and went with the prisoner swap.

so much for the lie that the administration didnt have time to notify congress.

WAIT the administration lied???????

Want to see my surprised face

callmeslick wrote:

CUDA wrote:

woodchip wrote:I daresay to, that the Gitmo prisoners are getting better medical care than our own veterans.

you're not implying that the VA hasn't been taking care of out veterans are you?!?!?!?!?!

toss in Bengazi, and you've got the right-wing fox trot!!

Better than the two step you sway to.

callmeslick wrote:Yee-Hawwww!! You all are going to be so tickled with 8 years of Hillary, because then you will realize how truly conciliatory and moderate Obama is.

And you will be equally tickled with Cruz. As to Hillary Clinton:

"In April, the Times also reported on Clinton’s difficulty defining her accomplishments at the State Department."

Now if Hillary has difficulty in reporting her own successes, what makes you think she will make for a good candidate? And if she in fact has no successes, why would we want a failure to run our country?

woodchip wrote:...

Now if Hillary has difficulty in reporting her own successes, what makes you think she will make for a good candidate? And if she in fact has no successes, why would we want a failure to run our country?

To be fair to her, if you have the majority of the mass media locked in to eagerly fabricate praise for you you might not have practiced that spin either....

Will Robinson wrote:

woodchip wrote:...

Now if Hillary has difficulty in reporting her own successes, what makes you think she will make for a good candidate? And if she in fact has no successes, why would we want a failure to run our country?

To be fair to her, if you have the majority of the mass media locked in to eagerly fabricate praise for you you might not have practiced that spin either....

Ah, but will the press be totally on her side?:

"Some of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides blasted the New York Times for what they said was unfair coverage of the former first lady during a recent secret meeting with the paper’s Washington bureau, the Washington Free Beacon has learned."

"During the closed-door gathering, Clinton aides reportedly griped about the paper’s coverage of the potential 2016 candidate, arguing that Clinton has left public office and not be subjected to harsh scrutiny, according to a source familiar with the discussions."

"Neither the Times nor the Clinton camp would discuss on the record specifics. However, sources familiar with the meeting describe it as an attempt to brush back and even intimidate the staff of the Times. The sometimes fraught relationship between Clinton and the press has been well documented."

So there is some dissension amongst the press corps. How much so will become more evident as we get into 2015.

CUDA wrote:Well. More to the story. It appears the administration originally was planning on making a cash swap for burgdahl a few months ago. Then the administration put that on hold several weeks ago and went with the prisoner swap.

so much for the lie that the administration didnt have time to notify congress.

WAIT the administration lied???????

Want to see my surprised face

With all your hyperbole CUDA, what would YOU, PERSONALLY, want if it was one of your boys sitting over there stuck in the hands of the Taliban looking like death warmed over, being called a deserter by half the country and everyone said your kid was not worth the 5 terrorists and could rot in hell for all they cared? Me thinks you would have a different perspective.

I’m getting the idea people are concerned with the way it was done, not that it was done.

tunnelcat wrote:

CUDA wrote:Well. More to the story. It appears the administration originally was planning on making a cash swap for burgdahl a few months ago. Then the administration put that on hold several weeks ago and went with the prisoner swap.

so much for the lie that the administration didnt have time to notify congress.

WAIT the administration lied???????

Want to see my surprised face

With all your hyperbole CUDA, what would YOU, PERSONALLY, want if it was one of your boys sitting over there stuck in the hands of the Taliban looking like death warmed over, being called a deserter by half the country and everyone said your kid was not worth the 5 terrorists and could rot in hell for all they cared? Me thinks you would have a different perspective.

you thinks wrong.

would I want my son back? Sure. what father wouldn't.
but as a Man he would need to stand on his own actions. if he deserted his post as we know he did. and renounced his citizenship and is being reported by the letter he left on his bunk, and then waged Jihad against this nation like the top secret file says he did. then sorry my son you made a choice.

you reap what you sow.

how do you KNOW he deserted his post, when the Top General in the Army said they would look into it?

CUDA wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:

CUDA wrote:Well. More to the story. It appears the administration originally was planning on making a cash swap for burgdahl a few months ago. Then the administration put that on hold several weeks ago and went with the prisoner swap.

so much for the lie that the administration didnt have time to notify congress.

WAIT the administration lied???????

Want to see my surprised face

With all your hyperbole CUDA, what would YOU, PERSONALLY, want if it was one of your boys sitting over there stuck in the hands of the Taliban looking like death warmed over, being called a deserter by half the country and everyone said your kid was not worth the 5 terrorists and could rot in hell for all they cared? Me thinks you would have a different perspective.

you thinks wrong.

would I want my son back? Sure. what father wouldn't.
but as a Man he would need to stand on his own actions. if he deserted his post as we know he did. and renounced his citizenship and is being reported by the letter he left on his bunk, and then waged Jihad against this nation like the top secret file says he did. then sorry my son you made a choice.

you reap what you sow.

Yet, we as a nation have judged that man BEFORE we even know the answer. And to find the answer, we need the return of that last POW from our longest war to be brought home alive, no matter what the circumstances that caused him to became a prisoner.

And you know what's even sicker? Fox News passing judgement upon that prisoner's father for having the temerity to grow a beard that looks Muslim. Shame on them. Tsk, tsk. Judging someone by their beard....

Was it the beard or the praising Allah that got the attention? Spin city....

CUDA wrote: You really are incapable making posts without personal attacks arent you.

Back on subject. As Will rightly pointed out. Seems the administration had enought time to contact Qatar about it didnt they. Guess they werent that eorried about his health now were they. Keep making excuses you guys. You're doing so well at defending your position. NOT

This is coming from a man who does the exact same thing you accuse me of? You're just mad because every time you throw a punch, you get one right back. You want me to just take it and roll over? Nobody pushes me around. Point the finger all you want, no one is listening anymore. No one cares.

And judging by this quote, you're so mad, you can't even type properly.


Going back to my first post in here, the "carter. iran." post, it is meant to illustrate the fact that the US administration is no stranger to negotiating for release of hostages. I'm sorry that you don't like it, but that's how it is.

We don't know the details that went into this. We don't know what kind of negotiations were needed when the deal was being made. Unless you or will have the inside track as to what went on during the discussions, we only know what we read. People can pretend the administration had 'plenty of time' to contact Qatar, but they don't know that for sure. So unless either of you have prisoner negotiation skills, I don't think either of you are qualified to tell us anything. And the most important thing of all, it's done. An american is on home soil.

But it's easier to be the armchair general and say 'obama bad!', isn't it.

They had plenty of time. The deal with Qatar was months in the making and set aside because the Congress had already said no to trading those 5 bastards. If the white house had time to contact Qatar to start up the deal again they certainly had time for a second call to Congress. That much is certainly clear. They have more than one phone or more than a few minutes to dial a second number...

They purposely did an end run around the law because it had not worked for them when they had tried it the legal way.

callmeslick wrote:how do you KNOW he deserted his post, when the Top General in the Army said they would look into it?

 

A Pentagon report clearly indicates that as early as 2010, the Department of Defense knew that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had, in fact, deserted his fellow soldiers by walking away from his post.

 

Calling the proof “incontrovertible,” a Pentagon official detailed that Sgt. Bergdahl was a deserter.

Will Robinson wrote:Was it the beard or the praising Allah that got the attention? Spin city....

Not sure why it would matter either way, apart from Islamophobia. If the soldier and his father were both devout Muslims with brown skin and all this wouldn't change our responsibility to get him back.

No one is saying we shouldnt have gotten him back. What we are saying is that they shouldnt have given them 5 top taliban commanders to do so. And that the President shouldn't have violated the law in the process.

HRM I wonder how the people of Afghanistan feel about this deal. Releasing those 5 mass murders back into their country to start killing all over again.

Ya bet they're loving that.

vision wrote:

Will Robinson wrote:Was it the beard or the praising Allah that got the attention? Spin city....

Not sure why it would matter either way, apart from Islamophobia. If the soldier and his father were both devout Muslims with brown skin and all this wouldn't change our responsibility to get him back.

Why it matters is only in the context which Fox allegedly raised the issue....to imply the guy walked off the base, deserting his post to join the Taliban. As opposed to the story Team a Obama tells....that he served with distinction and was taken prisoner while doing his duty.

The specter of him praising Allah sort of fits with one of those scenarios. I don't think if he just happened to have a long beard and his fellow soldiers hadn't revealed he deserted his post Fox would be bringing up the beard as anything significant.

TC's comments seemed to be designed to attack the messenger and obfuscate the actual point raised and have the reader infer Fox is just a looney islamophobe network with no good reason to point at the appearance/behavior of the returning 'hero'.

A tactic I know you are intimately familiar with.

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, posted on his Facebook page, "As for the circumstances of his capture, when he is able to provide them, we’ll learn the facts. Like any American, he is innocent until proven guilty."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... stinction/


Thought that was an interesting part of the story I read. Like the general, I'm still waiting to see what the verdict is.

----------

It isn’t clear when Army intelligence and other officials debriefing Bergdahl may get to that topic. Warren said the first priority in early discussions with him is to generate intelligence about the enemy that U.S. troops can use now. The next priority is to learn as much as possible about ways to improve the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training that American troops get before deploying overseas.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/d ... z341okMUtZ

Maybe we could ask one of the dead soldiers that went to get him back, if he left his post.

Gen. Dempsey, like any good top level political person in his position would, is spinning things a little to try and diminish the flack his superior is taking for the trade.
A soldier is NOT like any other American, he does not enjoy the same protections from his accusers that a civilian has from a civilian legal system.

I tend to rely on the eyewitness testimony of the people that were there over a politician General.

The remaining 6 members of his platoon said he walked away from his post.
They say when they went looking for him they had Afghan's telling him that there was an American looking for someone that spoke English so he could make contact with the Taliban.
they said that shortly thereafter the attacks on their base intensified.

The eyewitness testimony says he is without question a deserter. And a probability of him being a collaborator.

Will Robinson wrote:Was it the beard or the praising Allah that got the attention? Spin city....

Yeah, and the conservatives favorite spinner channel is the one that did it. Classy.

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/06/03/ ... ember.html

CUDA wrote:I tend to rely on the eyewitness testimony of the people that were there over a politician General.

The remaining 6 members of his platoon said he walked away from his post.
They say when they went looking for him they had Afghan's telling him that there was an American looking for someone that spoke English so he could make contact with the Taliban.
they said that shortly thereafter the attacks on their base intensified.

The eyewitness testimony says he is without question a deserter. And a probability of him being a collaborator.

So we should just leave him like so much trash? Glad our military is a little more considerate. If he is a deserter, which it sounds like, let the military deal with him properly and court martial him. That's the procedure, so deal with it. We don't have to like the circus surrounding his release, and it WAS a circus with Obama pontificating in the Rose Garden like he did something great and wonderful. We also don't have to like the fact we traded 5 murderous a$$holes to get our soldier back. It may be distasteful, but Obama has done nothing any different than what other presidents have done in the past. But don't EVER forget what's important, Americans never forget or leave their soldiers behind! If we did, we'd be no better than the Taliban.

http://theweek.com/article/index/262832 ... n-bergdahl

Hey captain knee jerk. Try not skimming next time

bottom line remains the same: whether he deserted or not, whether some family member found Allah or not, he is an American Citizen, innocent until proven guilty by his peers, and should not be left anywhere, ever. In ANY other administration, that would have been the ONLY matter considered, especially when the swap allows for some monitoring, and you were releasing people that should have been released a decade or so ago. But, no matter what, he should have been brought back by his country. Period. What we see by way of debate is just more Obama-hard-ons from the same folks who wave same around, daily. Disgusting lack of national unity, but so tiresome and typical.

CUDA wrote:Hey captain knee jerk. Try not skimming next time

Yeah, and I bet YOU would have traded 5 terror suspects for YOUR son when it all came down to brass tacks. The ONLY reason you're griping is because that bad ol' Obama, who you loathe, did it. If Reagan, your hero, had done it, you'd be patting him on the back and thanking him, even though he did something far worse than Obama, trade actual missiles for hostages. There's absolutely no doubt that weapons of war, missiles, will be used eventually to KILL PEOPLE!

callmeslick wrote:bottom line remains the same: whether he deserted or not, whether some family member found Allah or not, he is an American Citizen, innocent until proven guilty by his peers, and should not be left anywhere, ever. In ANY other administration, that would have been the ONLY matter considered, especially when the swap allows for some monitoring, and you were releasing people that should have been released a decade or so ago. But, no matter what, he should have been brought back by his country. Period. What we see by way of debate is just more Obama-hard-ons from the same folks who wave same around, daily. Disgusting lack of national unity, but so tiresome and typical.

Slick your position is built on some shaky ground.
1, by what do you determine those 5 should have been released a decade ago? They should have been shot in the head a decade ago.

2, the way you chose your words is similar to Kerry, 'allows for some monitoring'....
Yea monitoring could take place, it won't of course and no American is allowed to have anything to do with the 5 and any restrictions that could be put on them. What is much more likely is they are free to resume directing the death of infidels and opposition.

Wow! Great deal!

I agree that even if he is a deserter he needs to be brought home but the price we paid was completely wrong. Sometimes you don't get to bring them home and, given the price we paid, it would have been better if this had been left to be one of those times.

Obama screwed the pooch trying to get some insulation from the VA debacle.
And you will always excuse him purely on partisan grounds.

So wait!!!!!

He's innocent until proven guilty. And deserves a trial.
But the President can target and kill US citizens with drones with no trial at all.

your double standards are showing again.

What we see by way of debate is just more Obama-hard-ons from the same folks who wave same around, daily. Disgusting lack of national unity, but so tiresome and typical.

Ya and I'll point to my signature for that comment

CUDA wrote:But the President can target and kill US citizens with drones with no trial at all.

As far as I know there is not a single person on this board who approves of drone strikes against US citizens.

vision wrote:

CUDA wrote:But the President can target and kill US citizens with drones with no trial at all.

As far as I know there is not a single person on this board who approves of drone strikes against US citizens.

Tell that to slick.

vision wrote:

CUDA wrote:But the President can target and kill US citizens with drones with no trial at all.

As far as I know there is not a single person on this board who approves of drone strikes against US citizens.

I'm in favor of a training accident that hits Congress.

.
.
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(That was a joke for all you spying NSA tool bags that might be reading this).