Patterico's Pontifications

6/5/2014

A Lost Opportunity?

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:29 pm



[guest post by Dana]

The Military Times is reporting that according to a top congressional aide, the deal to release Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for the five Taliban detainees nixed a wider effort by the Department of Defense to include other U.S. citizens held by the Taliban and its allies.

The Department of Defense had a “broader goal” of including Caitlan Coleman of York , Pa., her baby who was born in captivity and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, in a deal to free Bergdahl, said Joe Kasper, chief of staff to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

Among Americans held captive is Warren Weinstein, a contractor from Rockville, Md., who was abducted in 2011 in Pakistan and is detained by al-Qaida militants aligned with the Taliban.

“The DoD was looking at this in the whole scope of things, to deal with these people as well,” Kasper said. “Instead of five for one, why not five for five?”

“I don’t know how far they’d gotten in pursuing this broader goal,” Kasper said.

n a June 2 letter to President Obama, Hunter said the Defense Department plan, which Hunter said did not have time to materialize before negotiations headed by the State Department gained Bergdahl’s release, did not include a prisoner exchange.

“Now a situation has been created whereby prisoner exchanges – specifically disproportionate exchanges – are viewed by the Taliban and other aligned forces as achievable,” Hunter said.

As a reminder, Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman claimed that the deal for Bergdahl’s release “was the best, probably last chance to get him home.”

Bergdahl’s release has resulted in renewed pleas from the families of other U.S. detainees in Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and Cuba questioning why their loved ones’ freedom has not yet been secured as well.

–Dana

26 Responses to “A Lost Opportunity?”

  1. Ding. Maybe not going to Harvard is a good thing.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  2. I’m sure food stamp has a brilliant scheme in mind to free all the other hostages

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  3. Seriously, though, we are almost six years into the best and brightest in the forefront of leadership. Quite frankly, things are not too good. I guess it could be because we, as a people, are just not smart enough to understand how or why things should be better. It could be because of racism. It could be because of George W. Bush.

    At some point, though, you just have to say that maybe the problems we face, endure and live are our fate because we put our future in the hands of an inexperienced Chicago pol who looked good on TV.

    By saying that, I challenge the GOP, conservatives and the public to come up with something better if they can. Granny Clinton will be more of the same and not because she’s just the same old tired lefty, but because she is another tired old lefty.

    The right needs to come up with a new message of pride and inclusion that makes everyone sure of a brighter future. I doubt my wish.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  4. I’m sure food stamp has a brilliant scheme in mind to free all the other hostagesIf he gives them 5 top terrorists for one collaborator ahole, he’ll give them nukes for the civilians.

    Kevin M (131754)

  5. Ooops. Still waiting for that edit function.

    Kevin M (131754)

  6. “was the best, probably last chance to get him home.”

    I fail to see how that justifies making a crappy deal.

    Blacque Jacques Shellacque (d3cdd0)

  7. It was the best deal because everyone knows they’re going to release everyone from Guantanamo before the election. Obama thinks it will put teh Dems on top.

    Kevin M (131754)

  8. The theory which makes the most sense is the one Harf actually confirmed – that they were going to release them anyway, so getting Bergdahl for them was viewed as a bonus (as well as cover for the release, since they expected ticker-tape parades).

    The timing, of course, was finally urgent when the VA scandal began worrying Democrats in the Senate and House. And it did bump the VA off the Sunday talk shows.

    There are 78 Gitmo inmates who have been “cleared” for release, many since the Bush Administration, but the law forbids releasing them unless another country agrees to accept them, and so far no one will. But Qatar seems ready now.

    Six years of a weakening America, and a former ally slips further into the depths of jihad.

    Estragon (ada867)

  9. Of course, releasing five of the worst, makes a mockery of everything that has been done in nearly 13 years,

    narciso (3fec35)

  10. The right needs to come up with a new message of pride and inclusion that makes everyone sure of a brighter future. I doubt my wish.

    I doubt it too a lot

    as long as the right remains infected with the suppurating bigotry of the social conservatives it will never be seen as inclusive Mr. 80

    we’re talking about a very strange political party here – one what will roll out the red carpet and make sorbet for illegal immigrants while passing laws to treat american born and bred gay peoples like second class trash, a party what extolls the virtue of freedom for men but wants the freedom of women to be severely circumscribed, a party what purports to stand opposed to the whorish kind of populism represented by a clown like elizabeth warren but what has a bizarre obsession with means testing anything and everything

    kooky lil monkies, these republicans

    I don’t think they actually stand for anything but perpetuating their own power structure.

    You can tell this by how boehnerpoofter lets us have an inquiry into Behghazi but not the far larger scandal at the IRS.

    You can tell an awful lot from that actually.

    And it should make you sick and afraid.

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  11. *Benghazi* I mean

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  12. unexpectedly!

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  13. We have ourselves the first real-world application of common core math, y’all.

    1>5 if you need it to be. Oh. This is true only if you chip in an additional $1+ millin for the one.

    Ed from SFV (3400a5)

  14. Mr. Feets – Good thing you are a staunch conservative, otherwise I would confuse your homofascism, misogyny, anti-religious bigotry and desire for unlimited fetus flensing as belonging among the worst fever swamps of progressivism.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  15. yes my staunchitude is auspicious indeed as a warrant against your potential confuzzlement good sir

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  16. I wish Monte Hall was alive.
    He was a deal maker.

    mg (31009b)

  17. Monty Hall

    mg (31009b)

  18. So Bergdahl was right in not letting the Taliban know at first he’d deserted.

    There’s a lot more to say about all of this.

    Sammy Finkelman (8ab807)

  19. Just tell the those held to convert to Islam and Barracky the good little Sunni will let more GITMO guys go back to doing their job: killing cause allah said so!

    highpockets (81f1e3)

  20. Since the same round-heeled pushovers from Obama’s White House gang of gullible neophytes holding the keys to the GITMO lockup are the same two-faced twits guarding the people’s piggy bank, it’s a wonder every Green Energy and/or Climate Change scam artist slippery enough to dodge indictment last time around or happens to be currently out on parole hasn’t been inspired by the lopsided 5 for 1 deal to cook up a few Rube Goldberg contraptions and run ’em up the flagpole for fun and profit.

    Perpetual motion, oil from sewer sludge, champagne from chickpeas, transporter beams, gasoline from seawater, beer from horse piss, you name it, nothing is too far fetched as long as gratitude for the people’s largess is returned in the form of something like say 25% or so in contributions to Democrat Congressional Campaign Committees.

    ropelight (ef693f)

  21. That’s what happens when you open pandora’s box and let the genie out. You can’t get it back in!

    The Emperor (72bb0c)

  22. The Bolsheviks are accustomed to controlling the narrative while the sh!tstorm blows over.

    The Mensheviks are getting tired of the parade.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  23. Parse the Presidents words carefully, he always uses the term men or women in “UNIFORM” will not be left behind.

    phaedruscj (dc2574)

  24. Empty Chair shoots himself in a swiveling wheel.

    htom (412a17)

  25. The fact that there are civilian prisoners held by the Taliban/Haqqani network/ISi was totally missed by the comentators on Fox News Sunday.

    I suspect that President Barack Obama knew about them, but he thought the only person he might be blamed for leaving behind was someone from the U.S. military.

    Warren Weinstein and Caitlan Coleman are just like several other prisoners held by governments or subnational groups in other countries, and he wouldn’t be blamed for not successfully freeing them.

    Sammy Finkelman (8ab807)

  26. Mad Magazine movie poster parody:

    Trading Private Bergdahl

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0725 secs.