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Good.....U.S. soldier held in Afghanistan is released

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Seriously? They let these guys out?
Those are some fine looking men. Although, I think they all would look a lot better with a beard trim, and a bullet hole in their foreheads.
 
The incentive to capture Americans is now in place. Obama working with his Muslim brothers to make it so. Now all Americans are at risk anywhere in the world. Obama and his Taliban freinds will now proceed to use this new found rewarding tactic to their advantage.
 
Those are some fine looking men.

Yeah, they're the worst of the worst. And sodom hussein sets them free to resume their rape and destruction of whatever poor souls they come across.

Meanwhile, Fallujah's in the hands of their cousins, and gagillions of illegals are pouring across the border. And nobody seems to give a ****.

"Education" has done its job well.
 
posted by a woman and friend on Facebook today. Not even a soldier or politician..

I'm sure I'm going to get backlash for this commentary but I'm ok with that. Here goes..I am so disgusted with our President that it sickens me. He has just given carte blanche for any enemy of the US to plot, scheme, kidnap, murder, etc. against US soldiers or civilians abroad to use as negiotiation leverage. Coming from a large military family, the impact of that feels magnified & outright angers me. Not to mention the servicemen who were hurt or killed during the capture of those 5 men. Flat out, there was a reason they were at Gitmo, these were peaceful pacifists. Just wait, those 5 men now have an even larger bone to pick with the US. How long before a terrorist plot occurs somewhere in the world, or hopefully is prevented, and we find out 1 or more of those men are involved. And lets not forget to mention that the soldier was kidnapped because he was a deserter. Now for those of you who want to feel bad for him and say he left because he couldn't handle the psychological aspect of war, well, there are shrinks and chaplains that could have helped him, possibly if he was that bad, sending him home. But no, he left voluntarily.
This was not a standard POW swap, like in WWII. Different times, different rules of engagement & sure as heck different enemy mentality. Thank you, my rant is done.

I am impressed with her.
 
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...-guy-who-walked-off-in-the-dead-of-night.html
06.02.14
We Lost Soldiers in the Hunt for Bergdahl, a Guy Who Walked Off in the Dead of Night
For five years, soldiers have been forced to stay silent about the disappearance and search for Bergdahl. Now we can talk about what really happened.

It was June 30, 2009, and I was in the city of Sharana, the capitol of Paktika province in Afghanistan. As I stepped out of a decrepit office building into a perfect sunny day, a member of my team started talking into his radio. “Say that again,” he said. “There’s an American soldier missing?”

There was. His name was Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, the only prisoner of war in the Afghan theater of operations. His release from Taliban custody on May 31 marks the end of a nearly five-year-old story for the soldiers of his unit, the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. I served in the same battalion in Afghanistan and participated in the attempts to retrieve him throughout the summer of 2009. After we redeployed, every member of my brigade combat team received an order that we were not allowed to discuss what happened to Bergdahl for fear of endangering him. He is safe, and now it is time to speak the truth.

And that the truth is: Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down.


On the night prior to his capture, Bergdahl pulled guard duty at OP Mest, a small outpost about two hours south of the provincial capitol. The base resembled a wagon circle of armored vehicles with some razor wire strung around them. A guard tower sat high up on a nearby hill, but the outpost itself was no fortress. Besides the tower, the only hard structure that I saw in July 2009 was a plywood shed filled with bottled water. Soldiers either slept in poncho tents or inside their vehicles.

The next morning, Bergdahl failed to show for the morning roll call. The soldiers in 2nd Platoon, Blackfoot Company discovered his rifle, helmet, body armor and web gear in a neat stack. He had, however, taken his compass. His fellow soldiers later mentioned his stated desire to walk from Afghanistan to India.

The Daily Beast’s Christopher Dickey later wrote that "[w]hether Bergdahl…just walked away from his base or was lagging behind on a patrol at the time of his capture remains an open and fiercely debated question.” Not to me and the members of my unit. Make no mistake: Bergdahl did not "lag behind on a patrol,” as was cited in news reports at the time. There was no patrol that night. Bergdahl was relieved from guard duty, and instead of going to sleep, he fled the outpost on foot. He deserted. I’ve talked to members of Bergdahl’s platoon—including the last Americans to see him before his capture. I’ve reviewed the relevant documents. That’s what happened.

Our deployment was hectic and intense in the initial months, but no one could have predicted that a soldier would simply wander off. Looking back on those first 12 weeks, our slice of the war in the vicinity of Sharana resembles a perfectly still snow-globe—a diorama in miniature of all the dust-coated outposts, treeless brown mountains and adobe castles in Paktika province—and between June 25 and June 30, all the forces of nature conspired to turn it over and shake it. On June 25, we suffered our battalion’s first fatality, a platoon leader named First Lieutenant Brian Bradshaw. Five days later, Bergdahl walked away.

His disappearance translated into daily search missions across the entire Afghanistan theater of operations, particularly ours. The combat platoons in our battalion spent the next month on daily helicopter-insertion search missions (called "air assaults”) trying to scour villages for signs of him. Each operations would send multiple platoons and every enabler available in pursuit: radio intercept teams, military working dogs, professional anthropologists used as intelligence gathering teams, Afghan sources in disguise. They would be out for at least 24 hours. I know of some who were on mission for 10 days at a stretch. In July, the temperature was well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit each day.

These cobbled-together units’ task was to search villages one after another. They often took rifle and mortar fire from insurgents, or perhaps just angry locals. They intermittently received resupply from soot-coated Mi-17s piloted by Russian contractors, many of whom were Soviet veterans of Afghanistan. It was hard, dirty and dangerous work. The searches enraged the local civilian population and derailed the counterinsurgency operations taking place at the time. At every juncture I remember the soldiers involved asking why we were burning so much gasoline trying to find a guy who had abandoned his unit in the first place. The war was already absurd and quixotic, but the hunt for Bergdahl was even more infuriating because it was all the result of some kid doing something unnecessary by his own volition.

On July 4, 2009, a human wave of insurgents attacked the joint U.S./Afghan outpost at Zerok. It was in east Paktika province, the domain of our sister infantry battalion (3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry). Two Americans died and many more received wounds. Hundreds of insurgents attacked and were only repelled by teams of Apache helicopters. Zerok was very close to the Pakistan border, which put it into the same category as outposts now infamous—places like COP Keating or Wanat, places where insurgents could mass on the Pakistani side and then try to overwhelm the outnumbered defenders.

One of my close friends was the company executive officer for the unit at Zerok. He is a mild-mannered and generous guy, not the kind of person prone to fits of pique or rage. But, in his opinion, the attack would not have happened had his company received its normal complement of intelligence aircraft: drones, planes, and the like. Instead, every intelligence aircraft available in theater had received new instructions: find Bergdahl. My friend blames Bergdahl for his soldiers’ deaths. I know that he is not alone, and that this was not the only instance of it. His soldiers’ names were Private First Class Aaron Fairbairn and Private First Class Justin Casillas.

Though the 2009 Afghan presidential election slowed the search for Bergdahl, it did not stop it. Our battalion suffered six fatalities in a three-week period. On August 18, an IED killed Private First Class Morris Walker and Staff Sergeant Clayton Bowen during a reconnaissance mission. On August 26, while conducting a search for a Taliban shadow sub-governor supposedly affiliated with Bergdahl’s captors, Staff Sergeant Kurt Curtiss was shot in the face and killed. On September 4, during a patrol to a village near the area in which Bergdahl vanished, an insurgent ambush killed Second Lieutenant Darryn Andrews and gravely wounded Private First Class Matthew Martinek, who died of his wounds a week later. On September 5, while conducting a foot movement toward a village also thought affiliated with Bergdahl’s captors, Staff Sergeant Michael Murphrey stepped on an improvised land mine. He died the next day.

It is important to name all these names. For the veterans of the units that lost these men, Bergdahl’s capture and the subsequent hunt for him will forever tie to their memories, and to a time in their lives that will define them as people. He has finally returned. Those men will never have the opportunity.

Bergdahl was not the first American soldier in modern history to walk away blindly. As I write this in Seoul, I'm about 40 miles from where an American sergeant defected to North Korea in 1965. Charles Robert Jenkins later admitted that he was terrified of being sent to Vietnam, so he got drunk and wandered off on a patrol. He was finally released in 2004, after almost 40 hellish years of brutal internment. The Army court-martialed him, sentencing him to 30 days' confinement and a dishonorable discharge. He now lives peacefully with his wife in Japan—they met in captivity in North Korea, where they were both forced to teach foreign languages to DPRK agents. His desertion barely warranted a comment, but he was not hailed as a hero. He was met with sympathy and humanity, and he was allowed to live his life, but he had to answer for what he did.

The war was already absurd and quixotic, but the hunt for Bergdahl was even more infuriating because it was the result of some kid doing something unnecessary by his own volition.

I believe that Bergdahl also deserves sympathy, but he has much to answer for, some of which is far more damning than simply having walked off. Many have suffered because of his actions: his fellow soldiers, their families, his family, the Afghan military, the unaffiliated Afghan civilians in Paktika, and none of this suffering was inevitable. None of it had to happen. Therefore, while I’m pleased that he’s safe, I believe there is an explanation due. Reprimanding him might yield horrible press for the Army, making our longest war even less popular than it is today. Retrieving him at least reminds soldiers that we will never abandon them to their fates, right or wrong. In light of the propaganda value, I do not expect the Department of Defense to punish Bergdahl.
 
....continued

He’s lucky to have survived. I once saw an insurgent cellphone video of an Afghan National Police enlistee. They had young boys hold him down, boys between the ages of 10 and 15, all of whom giggled like they were jumping on a trampoline. The prisoner screamed and pleaded for his life. The captors cut this poor man’s head off. That’s what the Taliban and their allies do to their captives who don’t have the bargaining value of an American soldier. That’s what they do to their fellow Afghans on a regular basis. No human being deserves that treatment, or to face the threat of that treatment every day for nearly five years.

But that certainly doesn’t make Bergdahl a hero, and that doesn’t mean that the soldiers he left behind have an obligation to forgive him. I just hope that, with this news, it marks a turning point for the veterans of that mad rescue attempt. It’s done. Many of the soldiers from our unit have left the Army, as I have. Many have struggled greatly with life on the outside, and the implicit threat of prosecution if they spoke about Bergdahl made it much harder to explain the absurdity of it all. Our families and friends wanted to understand what we had experienced, but the Army denied us that.

I forgave Bergdahl because it was the only way to move on. I wouldn’t wish his fate on anyone. I hope that, in time, my comrades can make peace with him, too. That peace will look different for every person. We may have all come home, but learning to leave the war behind is not a quick or easy thing. Some will struggle with it for the rest of their lives. Some will never have the opportunity.

And Bergdahl, all I can say is this: Welcome back. I’m glad it's over. There was a spot reserved for you on the return flight, but we had to leave without you, man. You’re probably going to have to find your own way home.
 
People killed looking for him already... how many more will be killed by the five whack jobs that were just released for his freedom
 
Doesn't the prisoner swap usually happen after the end of the war? Does this mean we're finished there? I must of been asleep, who won the war?
 
But Mr President.....what about Congressional oversight?

"**** 'em.....get me the EPA....I got some real work to do today shuttin' down some power plants."
 
the Bommapologists are in full choke down mode, too.

saying this happened before, not realizing exactly what they were stating
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McCain was classified as a POW. Bergdahl never was a POW.
 
even so...

McCain is shaking hands with a guy who was impeached.
just saying
 
One of my liberal friends essentially stated that it is OK for the president to break a law if it saves one american life. I don't know if he applies the same theory to other presidents. I think not.
 
What about the men in Benghazi? What about the American soldier being held in Mexico?

This reeks to high Heaven. There is NO answer that justifies doing this exchange. None. Even if this was my own brother out there. Under the circumstances I'd not be for this sort of exchange. Not with the hell Obama just re-released back into the wild.
 
McCain is shaking hands with a guy who was impeached.

A delicious symmetry indeed.

So, they out the CIA station chief AND release the braintrust for future taliban ops, all in a few days. Oh, and maybe the best part is that Mo Fasl is the tali army chief of staff, hisself a war criminal with the blood of thousands of Afghani Shia on his hands. Wasn't it the libs that got all wee-wee'd up over Ratko and Slobo killin all those muzloids in Bosnia?
 
yeah, may as well put my name on another list
 
yeah, may as well put my name on another list

IRS Audit list? My accountant is tight. Homeland Security? I've already met them. Besides this administration is too busy aiding the Taliban to worry about peons like us.
 
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but, we can rest assured that these raghead ***** won't try to attack us nor kill any more of our soldiers, right, Mr. President?

oh?

http://www.caintv.com/obama-admits-its-absolutely-po

'But I'm just like Washington, Lincoln, and FDR'

OK, sure. We released some really bad guys as part of President Obama's illegal deal with the Taliban. But, hey, don't worry. None of these guys will ever be rejoining their terrorist organizations, and none of them will ever pose a threat again. Right?

Wrong.

According to none other than President Obama, it's entirely possible that the five recently released prisoners will attack us again - once the homecoming parties die down, of course.

The President made the claimed this morning during a press conference in Poland:
TheGreatDivider said:
"In terms of potential threats, the release of the Taliban who were being held in Guantanamo was conditioned on the Qataris keeping eyes on them and creating a structure in which we can monitor their activities. We will be keeping eyes on them.

Is there the possibility of some of them trying to return to activities that are detrimental to us? Absolutely. That's been true of all the prisoners that were released from Guantanamo - there's a certain recidivism rate that takes place.

I wouldn't be doing it if I thought that it was contrary to American national security, and we have confidence that we will be in a position to go after them if in fact they are engaging in activities that threaten our defenses.

But this is what happens at the end of wars.

That was true for George Washington, that was true for Abraham Lincoln, that was true for FDR. That's been true of every combat situation. That at some point, you make sure that you try to get your folks back ...and that's the right thing to do."
That's very nice, but it doesn't really apply to the current situation, because this war hasn't ended.

Yes, we've announced that we're drawing down our forces. Taliban operatives are free to sit back and wait us out. But we still have 32,000 pairs of boots on the ground in Afghanistan. Even after this year's withdrawl, there will be just under ten thousand U.S. troops in the country - and they'll probably stay there until Obama leaves office.

Already we're seeing that Qatar is allowing these prisoners to move freely about the country - in violation of the terms of the "deal." There's simply no way to be 100% sure that these five prisoners won't be able to harm another U.S. soldier.

Obama may be "confident that we'll be able to go after them" should they step out of line (by which he probably means 'we can always drone them') but that's one heck of a gamble. If just one U.S. serviceman is injured or killed as a result of this deal, Obama will have directly aided our enemy's war effort - and he will have done so without the congressional notification required by a law he signed.

The complete video appears below - the relative segment begins at 2:30. Be sure to "like" Robert Laurie over on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. You'll be glad you did.
 
Now we're making deals with terrorists.

I long for 'The good ol' days' when conservatives like Reagan didn't....negotiate....ah....trade..................never mind.

Welcome home soldier.
 
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