The Taliban are not the ruling Authority
And how is that relevant? What is yer response to my question about men taken prisoner by the Viet Cong and other forces not part of a "ruling Authority"?
>>Go read the NY Times and they will aptly point that out to ya.
I read the
NYT on a regular basis. Do you? What information published in that newspaper would you have me address?
>>Taliban NON-Combatants With a Designation of Terrorists
I think you mean "unlawful" combatants. I expect those killed and wounded by Taliban forces would be surprised to discover that they were attacked by "non-combatants."
>>He is a Deserter
That is something to be determined in a legal proceeding.
>>BO set this up. To try and gain Kudos with closing out the Afghanistan war. It has backfired in his face now.
That is yer partisan judgement. Republicans have been calling for the President to act to have Bergdahl returned. Our involvement in the war in Afghanistan
is coming to an end. In what way are Republicans in Congress calling for it to continue? Some say they want additional US forces kept there. Is there a call for a continuation of extensive combat operations?
Yeah back in 2001.....since then they haven't ruled anything but their tribes.
We've been fighting a war against the Taliban. They had an American POW. Seems rather simple to understand.
>>Plus what do you have to say about BO not telling the New Afghan Government with their New President about this exchange. The one that signed the agreement to allow us to keep 9800 there and the US for another decade?
I say the government it Kabul has been calling for the release of those men. They want to end the war against the Taliban if they can. The political leadership of the Taliban will be required to have that happen.
U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham, speaking to reporters in Kabul, said the Karzai administration had been made aware of the impending prisoners' swap.
"It's not behind the government's back. The government's known that we're trying to (do) this for a long time, and they agreed to it and they supported it," he said.
"The only thing that was not transparent to anybody was the actual timing – the fact that there was an agreement and the timing. It certainly doesn't undermine the government and they never expressed any concern to us that it would undermine the government." —
Reuters, June 3, 2014
>>Then what would you say about BO initiating contact with the Taliban.....who had walked away from Peace talks? Oh Talks..... and without the Ruling government of Afghanistan.
Are you claiming that the Karzai administration hasn't been seeking to negotiate a peace settlement with the Taliban?
Karzai has backed peace talks with the hardline Islamist Taliban movement, which ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 and has fought a bloody insurgency since then against U.S.-led forces in the country. — from that Reuters article
You might even find reporting about this in the
NYT.
>>Can you say Bush did anything like this?
I figure he was busy in Iraq.
>>As Feinstein the Democrat set him out.
I don't know what you mean by "set him out." The administration's position is clear.
In December, Obama issued a signing statement that said the executive branch should have the flexibility "to act swiftly in conducting negotiations with foreign countries regarding the circumstances of detainee transfers."
The administration has defended the prisoner swap, pointing to the signing statement as a clear indication that Congress was put on notice, and that lawmakers knew for a long time about the possibility of such a swap.
"We have consulted with Congress for quite some time about the possibility that we might need to execute a prisoner exchange in order to recover Sergeant Bergdahl," Obama said in Poland on Tuesday morning. "We saw an opportunity. We were concerned about Sergeant Bergdahl's health. We had the cooperation of the Qataris to execute an exchange, and we seized that opportunity. And the process was truncated because we wanted to make sure that we did not miss that window." —
Dianne Feinstein Disappointed Lawmakers Not Given 30-Day Notice on Bergdahl Swap,
National Journal, June 3, 2014
Feinstein has been critical of the administration's actions, but she's quoted in that article saying that "the president certainly has an executive authority that he can use."
In my view, the errors in this affair have been political rather than legal, as outlined in this article:
Explaining The Bergdahl Swap Hasn't Been Obama's Finest Hour,"
NPR, June 5, 2014.
Infractions have been handed out. If you want to attack each other instead of addressing the OP, you know the proper place to do that. Stick to the topic.
