Posted on 05/31/2014 6:22:07 PM PDT by LeoWindhorse
He was picked up in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border, by a Navy SEAL team, composed of a few dozen men and supported by multiple helicopters and overhead drones, another Defense official said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
And now the Taliban et.al knows that ONE American soldier captured will get 5 or more fellow terrorists freed. How does our military feel about that?
” How does our military feel about that?”
why they continue to follow the orders of the current crew I cannot understand .
Take a look at Thailand right now ; finally their military had enough of the civilian disorder and ineptitude . We are a 1000 times worse off .
Something stinks here indeed. This sounds like a total wackjob family, from the nutty father to the alleged deserter son. And we allowed 5 murderers to be released to exchange for THIS?
Ping to post #6.
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‘Working to free all Guantanamo prisoners’ tweet from account of released soldier’s father deleted
Posted at 11:26 pm on May 31, 2014 by Twitchy Staff
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http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/31/world/asia/afghanistan-bergdahl-release/
A senior administration official told CNN, “With regard to whether or not we’re negotiating with terrorists: Sergeant Bergdahl is a member of the military who was detained during the course of an armed conflict. The transfer of these individuals is not a concession — it is fully in line with the President’s goal of closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.”
The Taliban had long demanded the release of five detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But U.S. officials said that releasing them would be difficult because Congress would have to be notified in advance, and lawmakers have previously resisted releasing them.
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Congress was not told about the military operation to free Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from the Taliban ahead of time because officials believed the soldier’s life was in danger, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sunday.
Intelligence gathered suggested that Bergdahl’s “safety and health were both in jeopardy, and in particular his health was deteriorating,” he said in his first extensive public comments about Saturday’s operation.
The Pentagon did not give Congress the required 30-day notice for the release of detainees.
(snip)
Hagel did not respond to questions on whether he believed Bergdahl was trying to desert the Army or go absent without leave when he walked away from his unit in Afghanistan five years ago.
June 22, 2013
At the end of the week, James R. Dobbins, President Obama’s newly named special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, arrived to head the U.S. negotiating team.
U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters, were encouraged when Taliban spokesman Shaheed Suhail, in Doha, told Radio Free Europe and later the Associated Press on Saturday that the insurgents were untroubled by the Islamic Emirate flap.
(snip)
Arrangements for the Doha office were tortured long before last week’s upheaval. They were first discussed at eight informal meetings between Taliban representatives and U.S. officials in late 2011 and early 2012, as part of a series of arrangements that included the exchange of five Afghan Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for Sgt. Bowe Berghdahl, the American serviceman held prisoner by the Taliban in Pakistan since 2009.
In January 2012, the Taliban walked out of those talks and then canceled them altogether two months later, charging U.S. bad faith over the terms of the prisoner exchange and demands that the insurgents first issue two public statements — one forswearing any international terrorism and another supporting the Afghan political process.
Near the end of 2012, new, indirect overtures were made. Eventually, after a string of objections from Karzai were at least temporarily overcome, planning began to restart the process. The Taliban, which had long refused to engage in talks with Karzai, agreed it would hold discussions on reconciliation with Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, as well as with the Americans.
Arrangements on what to call the Taliban office and restrictions on what it could be used for — no fundraising, for example — were already in place from the year before. The outlines of the prisoner exchange were set to be revived, and the administration had made a political decision to take the inevitable heat from Congress when it was announced.
Then came Tuesday and the Islamic Emirate.
Thank you, Maggief!
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