I won't talk about Bowe Bergdahl's actions here, as I'm trying to focus on why the trade makes sense and why it was the right thing to do. If you want to hear more about his story, there's some info in this statement from guys who were definitely there during the response to his AWOL, and a guy from his unit: (This website is mostly former MARSOC CSOs and PMCs, but they have contacts all over the SOF community)

http://www.oafnation.com/guests-pieces/ ... we-bagdahl

Anyways, back to my point here. This trade made sense for the following reasons:

1) When we pull out of Afghanistan and that conflict comes to an end, ALL detainees in Guantanamo Bay that came from there will be sent back, which would have included the five guys we just traded. There is no conflict I'm aware of where we kept foreign detainees after the conflict ended. Those five returning to Afghanistan and going right back to the Taliban was an inevitable fact of life. The smart thing to do is at least use that to our advantage, and get this guy home, regardless if he's a deserting piece of shit or not.

2) By getting him back, we've just taken away a propaganda tool from the Taliban, which is exactly what they've been using him as this entire time. If he had been giving them information, that info is now long outdated and he is of no use to them anymore intelligence wise. You only keep a useless pain in the ass around long enough until you decide that he's not worth the trouble anymore, and maybe they'd just have killed him soon on video.

3) The guys we traded them are now fish in the sea once more. The next time we see them we won't have to take them prisoner. There's a good chance they will end up victims of a drone strike in the near future, and at that point it becomes a win-win situation for us. We get our guy back, there are five less mouths to feed at Gitmo, and these guys wind up dead in the end.

4) I'm fairly certain there were a handful of US intelligence agencies monitoring the ass clowns who showed up to make the trade in Qatar. There's a good chance we're still tracking those five guys as we speak.

5) We always do what we can to get our people back. Regardless if it's Jessica Lynch or Bowe Bergdahl. No one gets left behind.

6) This is not a case of America dealing with terrorists, nor are POW exchanges anything new in American history. The Taliban are not a terrorist group, they are insurgents. It's hard for most Americans to understand this distinction, and it's something that needs to be clarified. Insurgents are local groups that are fighting against a local gov't. Terrorist groups are transnational organizations that hold central core values, and operate without borders or national identities. Modern examples of insurgencies include the Af/Pak Taliban, the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the Chechen/N. Caucasus independence movement, Hamas in Israel, the FARC in Columbia, the FSA in Syria, and the E. Ukrainian separatists. Modern examples of terrorist groups include Al Qaida and their affiliates, the Lords Resistance Army, Boko Harim, Al Shabaab, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Abu Sayyaf in the Phillipines, and old groups like Black September, the Red Army Faction, or the Irish Republican Army. The "US does not negotiate with terrorists" policy does not apply to this trade because the Taliban are not terrorists.

Just some food for thought.


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Thank you for an excellent comment and one I am in total agreement.

This not the time or place to make judgments other than we never leave an American soldier behind.

Here is one point I would like to make.

Bush (and Obama) said that the War on Terror ISN'T like regular wars. That is the whole reason we HAVE Gitmo, which is a violation of international law in regards to prisoners of war.

So, yet again, this administration is trying to have it both ways. They are enemy soldiers when it suits their needs or terrorists when that suits their needs.

If these guys are soldiers, then by all means, do a prisoner exchange....and close Gitmo.

If these guys are terrorists, then YOU CAN'T do a prisoner exchange because you are negotiating with terrorists. But, you can keep Gitmo open.

I think Obama's whole foreign policy is a weak carbon copy of Bush's, which was just a bunch of poorly written neocon fantasies. It's like trying to watch Battlefield Earth.

senorgrand wrote:Here is one point I would like to make.

Bush (and Obama) said that the War on Terror ISN'T like regular wars. That is the whole reason we HAVE Gitmo, which is a violation of international law in regards to prisoners of war.

So, yet again, this administration is trying to have it both ways. They are enemy soldiers when it suits their needs or terrorists when that suits their needs.

If these guys are soldiers, then by all means, do a prisoner exchange....and close Gitmo.

If these guys are terrorists, then YOU CAN'T do a prisoner exchange because you are negotiating with terrorists. But, you can keep Gitmo open.

I think Obama's whole foreign policy is a weak carbon copy of Bush's, which was just a bunch of poorly written neocon fantasies. It's like trying to watch Battlefield Earth.

As someone said on the net, we are just in the fourth term of the Bush Administration.

We did what was needed to get an American serviceman back.

Some of the more radical GOP has gone haywire over this trade. I would expect to see the likes of Cruz and others call for impeachment.

It's going to be a difficult path if they say that he violated the law and should be impeached, they leave themselves open to charges they don't care about the military personnel.

It's hypocrisy that bothers me. These guys can't both apples AND an oranges...they are terrorists OR soldiers. Pick one.

senorgrand wrote:Here is one point I would like to make.

Bush (and Obama) said that the War on Terror ISN'T like regular wars. That is the whole reason we HAVE Gitmo, which is a violation of international law in regards to prisoners of war.

So, yet again, this administration is trying to have it both ways. They are enemy soldiers when it suits their needs or terrorists when that suits their needs.

If these guys are soldiers, then by all means, do a prisoner exchange....and close Gitmo.

If these guys are terrorists, then YOU CAN'T do a prisoner exchange because you are negotiating with terrorists. But, you can keep Gitmo open.

I think Obama's whole foreign policy is a weak carbon copy of Bush's, which was just a bunch of poorly written neocon fantasies. It's like trying to watch Battlefield Earth.

I would make the opposite case, that Obama's foreign policy is far different from Bush's. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Gitmo are all inherited messes from the Bush administration, and the best thing for Obama to do was to let them run their course according to the established plans already in place there. There really isn't too much he could do about any of those things, especially with Congress not letting him close Gitmo and no stateside prisons wanting to take the detainees from there. Gitmo will inevitably close at some point, and all detainees returned, it's just a matter of when.

Those three issues aside, his foreign policy is closer to that of JFK or Bush senior in my opinion. He's making much greater use of foreign partners, and being pragmatic about how he approaches new conflicts. For example, we basically did a regime change in Libya without ever putting troops on the ground. Imagine if Iraq had looked like that instead. He's been working with local gov't's in places like Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan to combat Al Qaeda instead of doing the Bush model of invade-occupy-build. The use of indigenous gov't, supported by special forces trainers, intelligence assets, and drones works much better than his predecessors policies. It's the same way we took Abu Sayyaf down in the Philippines and the FARC in Columbia.

His threat of force got Syria to essentially abandon it's chemical weapons program, which they hadn't even acknowledged that it existed prior to that point. This is reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt's statement of "speaking softly, but carrying a big stick."

He has been working to strengthen our partnerships with key allies in the Pacific to counter Chinese ambitions and N. Korean aggression, including Japan, S. Korea, The Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan.

The situation in Ukraine is still developing, so time will tell on that one, but he's already done the right thing by assuring our NATO partners in Eastern Europe, like the Baltic states, that we won't let what's happening in Ukraine happen to them. The way things are looking, the Ukraine may become a NATO member in the near future, and we may install more air defense batteries in Eastern Europe of Putin keeps this kind of shit up.

I think Obama has done a good job foreign policy wise since he's taken office, and I think history will side with him in the end.


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If the inherited messes were so disdainful to the current regime they would not have survived more than a few months. It's politically important for Obama to keep the DoJ and their masters happy.

tj1371x wrote:I would make the opposite case, that Obama's foreign policy is far different from Bush's. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Gitmo are all inherited messes from the Bush administration, and the best thing for Obama to do was to let them run their course according to the established plans already in place there. There really isn't too much he could do about any of those things, especially with Congress not letting him close Gitmo and no stateside prisons wanting to take the detainees from there. Gitmo will inevitably close at some point, and all detainees returned, it's just a matter of when.

Those three issues aside, his foreign policy is closer to that of JFK or Bush senior in my opinion. He's making much greater use of foreign partners, and being pragmatic about how he approaches new conflicts. For example, we basically did a regime change in Libya without ever putting troops on the ground. Imagine if Iraq had looked like that instead. He's been working with local gov't's in places like Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan to combat Al Qaeda instead of doing the Bush model of invade-occupy-build. The use of indigenous gov't, supported by special forces trainers, intelligence assets, and drones works much better than his predecessors policies. It's the same way we took Abu Sayyaf down in the Philippines and the FARC in Columbia.

His threat of force got Syria to essentially abandon it's chemical weapons program, which they hadn't even acknowledged that it existed prior to that point. This is reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt's statement of "speaking softly, but carrying a big stick."

He has been working to strengthen our partnerships with key allies in the Pacific to counter Chinese ambitions and N. Korean aggression, including Japan, S. Korea, The Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan.

The situation in Ukraine is still developing, so time will tell on that one, but he's already done the right thing by assuring our NATO partners in Eastern Europe, like the Baltic states, that we won't let what's happening in Ukraine happen to them. The way things are looking, the Ukraine may become a NATO member in the near future, and we may install more air defense batteries in Eastern Europe of Putin keeps this kind of shit up.

I think Obama has done a good job foreign policy wise since he's taken office, and I think history will side with him in the end.

Thank you. It helps to look farther back on the time line than the last election.

So you guys are cool with Obama telling today's domestic critics that these guys are POWs, but telling the international community for years that these guys WEREN'T POWs?

senorgrand wrote:So you guys are cool with Obama telling today's domestic critics that these guys are POWs, but telling the international community for years that these guys WEREN'T POWs?

I think I'm missing your point here (the fault of my own ignorance). Not really sure what labels went on whom. I thought the Gitmo prisoners were called "detainees"? I don't care what they called them yesterday or what they'll call them tomorrow, they are prisoners of a conflict. When the conflict ends, there's no point in keeping them, feeding them, or trying to get info out of them anymore. They'll all go back and we'll close that place down finally. Only reason we weren't keeping them detained in Afghanistan was b/c they didn't have a judicial and prison system in place the way Iraq did (like Abu Graihb, err however you spell that place). From what I understand, the afghani judicial system before we went over there was the Taliban grabbing you up, holding a sharia law trial, and then chopping your head off in front of the whole village. Still happens today in some parts of the country that have a lower presence of ISAF forces from what I hear.


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They haven't been considered POWs for 13 years. So how can they be part of a POW exchange?

Obama and Bush consider them criminals, not soldiers. Until now, when it suits the current president.

Well I certainly don't write our policies or do our labeling. I'm just a lowly cog in a large military machine. What I do know is that when you take a prisoner in war, it's a POW. And when that war ends, you generally set those POWs free. Sometimes, you trade those POWs for the POWs on your side. Criminals steal things. POWs get captured fighting against your side during war.


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I agree they are POWs, but that's not what the president has said...until now.

Then really we're just arguing over labels here. I thought they have always been referred to a "detainees" which is the same thing as a POW in my opinion. Call them whatever you want to call them I guess. We've detained/POW'd enemy combatants in all of our wars. I don't see any difference.


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tj1371x wrote:Then really we're just arguing over labels here. I thought they have always been referred to a "detainees" which is the same thing as a POW in my opinion. Call them whatever you want to call them I guess. We've detained/POW'd enemy combatants in all of our wars. I don't see any difference.


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The point is, those labels have legal meanings. Enemy Combatant has different legal constraints than a POW, such as international law, and the Law Of Armed Conflict, requires POW's be treated a certain way, while Enemy Combatant is a much more muddied term with looser requirements for humane treatment.

Yes this is a world of legal quagmires; they tortured even the language of law to justify the U.S. using torture.

5 freed from Gitmo in exchange for Bergdahl join Taliban’s political office in Qatar

KABUL, Afghanistan — Five members of the Afghan Taliban who were freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for captured American Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl have joined the insurgent group’s political office in Qatar, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday.

They will now be among Taliban representatives negotiating for peace in Afghanistan, a sign some negotiators in Kabul say indicates the Taliban’s desire for a peace pact.

Others fear the five, all of whom were close to the insurgent group's founder and hard-line leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, bring with them the same ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam that characterized the group's five-year rule that ended in 2001 with the U.S.-led invasion.

Holy zombie post, Batman! Back from the dead - and just in time for Halloween.


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...to find a peaceful end to America's longest war, which has already cost the U.S. more than $900 billion.

It's been a bottomless pit, how much of that money was skimmed off by corrupt Afghan politicians. Another proxy war just like those in the Cold War, but talking is better than not talking. Their presence doesn't mean they'll have any power in the negotiations just that having been prisoners they have more knowledge of Americans.