240 years of precedent down the tubes

[Rajvik]

Since the founding of the United States there have been few things that haven't changed. One of those things was a simple rule, the United States does not negotiate with terrorists ever. Over the weekend the President decided that we would trade five known terrorists currently residing in Gitmo for one hostage soldier. His explanation and justification was that he was trading POW's with another government. Tell me, what country does the Taliban rule. Are they not a fallen regime now recognized as a terrorist group which makes the soldier a hostage of terrorists and not a POW. What impetus is there now keep the terrorists from taking more hostages to get back people that they want or need. Remember, these are the ppeople who have sworn themselves to our destruction, don't give them what they want.
 

[Bob Schroeck]

He also blew off a law requiring that Congress be informed of this kind of thing. I haven't been happy with Obama since the NSA revelations; I am positively furious with him now. The man I thought would bring a new respect for civil and individual rights to the government is turning out to be at least as bad as the Republican presidents I've loathed.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[ordnance11]

If you really want to notify Congress (whose members think black is white and you could not trust to keep their mouths shut) about it? I might trust Boehmer to keep quiet about it, but the rest?

The 5 are going to be "guests" of the Quatar government for a year. I would not be surprised if the 5 are going be tailed. And whoever they meet. The timing is interesting. Line troops are no longer going to patrolling. Only SF forces. So anyone being snatched by Al Queda is going to be on the low end.

This was the President who ordered the raid on Bin Laden when a drone strike would had been the safer method. This would had been discussed between the alphabets before POTUS approved it. I'm betting there is more in play here than just a prisoner swap.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Rajvik]

Oh for certain. However, they talk about the inability to find the soldier, maybe that would be because he was in the tribal region of Pakistan and someone has an inability to send any troops anywhere. I only posted this little rant here because anywhere else is singing Obama's praises for "Having the courage to do this" and damming the republicans for complaining about little things like "violating the law".

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the guy is home and wish him a full recovery. However, this was so wrong its not funny.
 

[Logan Darklighter]

Oh it's MUCH worse than that... 
The prisoner exchange which brought back the only known American alive in Taliban custody did not get a ringing endorsement from the men who served with him in Afghanistan. While Obama celebrated Bowe Bergdahl’s release with Bergdahl’s father in the Rose Garden, other soldiers lifted their voices in outrage over the high cost of the swap and called Bergdahl a deserter. Those protests have grown loud enough to grab the attention of CNN’s Jake Tapper:

The sense of pride expressed by officials of the Obama administration at the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is not shared by many of those who served with him — veterans and soldiers who call him a deserter whose “selfish act” ended up costing the lives of better men.
“I was pissed off then and I am even more so now with everything going on,” said former Sgt. Matt Vierkant, a member of Bergdahl’s platoon when he went missing on June 30, 2009. “Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching for him.”
Vierkant said Bergdahl needs to not only acknowledge his actions publicly but face a military trial for desertion under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The Washington Post also reported on the growing controversy and the claims that the US traded five high-profile detainees for a man who may have gone willingly into Taliban custody:

Disappearing from a military post in a war zone without authorization commonly results in one of two criminal charges in the Army: desertion or going absent without leave, or AWOL. Desertion is the more serious one, and usually arises in cases where an individual intends to remain away from the military or to “shirk important duty,” including a combat deployment such as Bergdahl’s.
Javier Ortiz, a former combat medic in the Army, said he is frustrated with Bergdahl’s actions and thinks he should be tried for desertion, even after five years in captivity in Pakistan. Many U.S. troops had misgivings about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while they were deployed but did not act on them as Bergdahl did, said Ortiz, of Lawton, Okla.
“I had a responsibility while I was there to the guys I was with, and that’s why this hits the hardest,” said Ortiz, who was in Iraq from March 2003 to March 2004 with the 101st Airborne Division. “Regardless of what you learned while being there, we still have a responsibility to the men to our left and right. It’s terrible, what he did.”
After he went missing, the military conducted an extensive search for Bergdahl. The plan was to create a blockade that would prevent his captors from taking him far from Paktika province, especially into Pakistan. The bulk of other operations were halted to focus on finding Bergdahl.
One Afghan special operations commander in eastern Afghanistan remembers being dispatched.
“Along with the American Special Forces, we set up checkpoints everywhere. For 14 days we were outside of our base trying to find him,” he told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is a member of a secretive military unit.
But U.S. troops said they were aware of the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance — that he left the base of his own volition — and with that awareness, many grew angry.

The Obama administration seemed caught off guard by the questions about Bergdahl’s disappearance, even though Rolling Stone had raised them two years ago in an article by the recently-deceased Michael Hastings. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel dodged the question yesterday, as did Susan Rice:

A reporter asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Sunday whether Bergdahl had left his post without permission or deserted — and, if so, whether he would be punished. Hagel didn’t answer directly. “Our first priority is assuring his well-being and his health and getting him reunited with his family,” he said. “Other circumstances that may develop and questions, those will be dealt with later.”

The White House appears to have been caught flat-footed about the response of other soldiers to the Bergdahl trade. Perhaps they expected kudos for leaving no man behind.

[ordnance11]

The White House appears to have been caught flat-footed about the
response of other soldiers to the Bergdahl trade. Perhaps they expected
kudos for leaving no man behind.

If you were ever an active duty soldier, airman, sailor or marine, the answer to that would be yes. Even if the guy is a scumbag. He may end up getting court martialed for desertion, but right now to me since we're packing up and going home over there, it's a moot point. Besides, the Senate GOP (including McCain) was well aware this was going to happen back in 2011. I don't see him raising holy hell about it.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Rajvik]

Why? Not about getting him back but how it was done. What you do is pull out the stops on interrogation and get the necessary information like you did with Bin Laden and then go in and get him. You don't give a non nation their people back, thats not a POW exchange, its bowing to a terrorist demand.
 

[robkelk]

This was also the lead story on yesterday's As It Happens, the CBC's nationwide evening radio interview show. Here's the podcast, on the off-chance you're interested in an outsider's perspective.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[LilFluff]

Ignoring for the moment whether the trade was a good idea or bad I'm not really impressed with the screaming of the politicians and talking heads. I have zero doubt that if Bergdahl died while a prisoner and it came out that the trade could have been made, the same politicians screaming about the trade having been made would instead be screaming about it not having been made. I can easily picture them instead yelling, "This hero's blood is on the president's hands."
-----

Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.

[Rajvik]

You are probably right but then the president would have two things in his favor not zero.
 

[Rajvik]

A note: it seems that I have started a fight in the velocity forums on this subject. Interesting but not surprising being that most of SVs membership were on SB which is still backing the president and damming the republicans.
 

[robkelk]

Heard on the news today that the Afghans aren't happy about this, either.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[LilFluff]

Also food for thought, this might be the first prisoner exchange, but it's not the first time there have been deals made. Considering I watched some of the hearings on TV I'm a bit embarrassed that someone else had to remind me of that little thing called the Iran Contra scandal. Or as someone on twitter put it: exchange prisoners with terrorists, never! For shame! Trading weapons for prisoners in complicated secret deals if the terrorists might be politically useful on the other hand...
-----

Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.

[Black Aeronaut]

eeeyyaahhh, pretty sure the politicians learned their lesson there and swore it off for good. Last I heard of American weapons being in terrorist hands was either because they picked them up where we dumped them or a military aid shipment got intercepted.

I think one of the things that brings it home about just how resourceful these bastards can be is when I heard that soldiers had to start destroying expended LAWs because the insurgents were picking them up and using them as mortar launchers.

We shouldn't make deals with these people, period. The only deal we should offer them is "Stop forcing people to do what you want them to do or else we'll put a round through your head from a mile away."

[Rod.H]

We shouldn't make deals with these people, period. The only deal we should offer them is "Stop forcing people to do what you want them to do or else we'll put a round through your head from a mile away."

While that should be the case, the political will turns that into "a Paveway/Hellfire through your window" on the proviso that a platform capable of doing that's in the area and hasn't been pre-tasked with a more pressing need.

[Black Aeronaut]

All the more reason to pick our battles more carefully.

I understand that this hasn't been so over the last decade. Things went more than a little haywire in the wake of 9/11. Really, it was worse than Pearl Harbor because most of the victims had been every day average janes and joes, gearing up for another daily grind in the office. And PH had incensed our nation to the point where Congress saw no need to enact the draft. For me, it comes as no surprise our nation, very nearly as a whole, went out for blood in the short years after 9/11.

I only wish that it had been with a much steadier hand on the tiller.

Regardless, though, we're trying to get ourselves out of the morass, but it's like being stuck up to our knees in thick, sucking mud. That mud being the politics engendered by this Administration's dealings with Al Qaeda.

As much as I have supported Obama in the past, this is simply beyond me. I can understand the short-term goals, but it's going to hurt us in the long run. Just wait and see - before long we'll have a resurgence in piracy, much like the Somali Pirates... only these people will be Al Qaeda affiliated and trained, which means they're dangerous and fanatical. And it won't stop at getting their brethren freed from Guantanamo. They will begin demanding concessions. Rights. Territories. Etcetera.
We're already starting to see signs of this with Boko Haram.  200 girls kidnapped, hidden away, and held for ransom.  (And given how Islamic Extremists view women as essentially nothing more than livestock, I shudder at the though of how those girls are being treated.)  How long until this sort of thing happens with US Citizens being kidnapped in broad daylight, on American soil no less, and dragged off someplace unseen?

I can only hope that we will not continue down the road of appeasement. The only people we need to worry about appeasing are the Chinese, and even then only in the sense that we're getting our heads out of our asses and working towards an even and cooperative footing with them.

PS: I think Paveways and Hellfires are a little overkill. Why the hell haven't they fitted a Predator Drone out with a remote operated gyro-stabilized sniper rifle? Not only does it deliver a far more succinct message, but the camera resolution that would require will go a long ways to preventing things like grandmothers with children being targeted by mistake.

[Rajvik]

Partially i think because someone realized that the culture over there respects the user and weapon more for taking out an entire family than just one person in a shot. Its a strange (to us) dichotomy of middle eastern culture that the family is as responsible for the person's actions as the person is. Leaving their family or tribe behind just breeds contempt and belief in how weak we are.
 

[Black Aeronaut]

No, that's just radicalism. The culture itself, as far as I know... Well, they're very much about how one person's actions reflects on their family, because over there it does. If your cousin does the shop keeper down the road a bad turn, you're definitely gonna hear about it if you try to buy something from the man. In fact, if you were to ask around some of these families where one of their household became a member of the terrorists, they will probably do one of two things: tell you that person doesn't exist, or say every horrible thing of that person they can think of and that they're no longer welcome in their house.

However, a good number of these radicals are people who have lost their families one way or another. Naturally, they look for someone to blame. And the local terrorist cell leaders, being the opportunistic bastards they are, will gladly point out Western Civilization as being the reason for their downfall. It won't matter what really happened, these guys come up with some sort of cockamamie reason that is hardly even rational. And chances are they'll buy into it because they don't know who and what we really are. No, I mean they really don't! All they know is crap that comes out of a TV they may have seen sometimes along with whatever that recruiter pours in their unwitting heads.

(This is why the Taliban destroyed as much radio, television, and other sundry A/V and broadcasting equipment as they could without crippling their own operations - they wanted to make certain that their 'truth' was the only one available.)

[khagler]

I guess that "support our troops" slogan that conservatives like so much is actually short for "support our troops as long as doing so doesn't benefit a politician from the other team and the troops in question aren't suspected of having developed a conscience."

[Rajvik]

No I just feel that instead of just handing over what they want you beat the shit out of them until they learn to act like civilized human beings. There is a reason why "people sleep soundly in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do harm on their behalf."

Quite frankly it comes down to three choices:
Run like deer
Die like sheep

Or fight like wolves

I know what my choice is.
 

[khagler]

I guess we can call that the Stephen King foreign policy: "Give me what I want and I'll go away."

[Rajvik]

i disagree Khagler, but that is a personal perspective that i dont think i will argue.
 

[CattyNebulart]

He also blew off a law requiring that Congress be informed of this kind of thing. I haven't been happy with Obama since the NSA revelations; I am positively furious with him now. The man I thought would bring a new respect for civil and individual rights to the government is turning out to be at least as bad as the Republican presidents I've loathed.

I really wish America would get some electoral reform, that would stop parties form chasing each other into absurd extreme positions. At this point zombie Hitler would get my vote over the democrat as long as he said he was sorry.... But I would still vote democrat over republican

However in this particular case I find no fault with what Obama has done, this same deal was floated in 2011, involving the same people, and most of congress is on the record that they would broadly support such a deal. The soldier was not looking well and the taliban wanted the negotiations done in secret since they have their own internal factions to deal with too. And for a very long time America has held to the ideal that they won't leave anyone behind.

As for the US not negotiating with terrorists... that comes from holywood, not reality.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[khagler]

Especially when you consider the way the US government has redefined "terrorist" to mean "anybody who doesn't do what we tell them, regardless of what actual tactics they use" in recent years. Since doing what you're told is not a negotiation, by their own current definition, the US government only negotiates with terrorists.

[ECSNorway]

khagler wrote:

---

I guess we can call that the Stephen King foreign policy: "Give me what I want and I'll go away."

Bwahahahahahaha.
Let me give you a more relevant quote:

"Once you have paid the Danegeld, you will never be rid of the Dane."

Giving the Tangoes what they want just tells them that we can be intimidated into doing it again. And they -will- do it again.
The only proper response to terrorism is to kill the terrorists.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.