Serious Question

Why am I not surprised that four of the five Taliban members who were released from the prison in Guantanamo Bay are not the “worst-of-the-worst” hard core terrorist killers they’ve been portrayed as being?

10 Comments

boran2 on June 8, 2014 at 5:57 pm

Perception trumps reality every time.

VinnieSaltine on June 8, 2014 at 8:28 pm

Perception IS reality.

seabe on June 8, 2014 at 7:00 pm

Because Obama has no intention of releasing prisoners he should release — knowing that there is a possibility they’ll be involved with terrorism, but they can’t be charged due to tainted and/or lack of evidence.

And if that’s the case, he wouldn’t risk trading such people at all.

Sure enough, not only can they not be charged, they’re not even on the prosecution’s radar:

Retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who was the former top prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, told MSNBC on Saturday that the prisoners released in exchanged for Bergdahl were so inconsequential that he did not even know who they were.

“My role as chief prosecutor was to review the information we had on the detainees to determine which ones we could potentially bring war crimes charges against,” Davis recalled. “When I saw the names of the five individuals, when they were reported last weekend, my first reaction was, `Who are they?'”

“I never saw the names before, which means there was not enough information to even make it on our list of potential prosecution,” he explained. “To trade five of them for a U.S. service member, in my estimation, and I’m often critical of President [Barack] Obama, I think they struck a pretty good deal.”

MikeInOhio on June 8, 2014 at 7:43 pm

At this point, it almost seems as if nothing like that really even matters. The media has already convicted Bergdahl of the most heinous offenses they can possibly conjure up. You have his parents getting death threats. A large percentage of people are already convinced that he is a jihadist and was sympathetic to the Taliban and actually participated in their activities. Chris Wallace is publicly speculating whether he should be executed. The die is cast. This guys life is fucked up forever, regardless of what the truth is in this matter. And even if a military investigation completely exonerates him, he is toast. His life is ruined. All in the continuing service of Obama Derangement.

This whole thing is so predictable. It is a repeat of the media lynching of Richard Jewell. It is way too fucking late for him to enjoy that quaint notion of “innocent until proven guilty”.

priscianus jr on June 8, 2014 at 7:44 pm

Because

“… the Taliban are not terrorists the way al-Qaida is. America has always tried to reach a negotiated arrangement with the Taliban, and this agreement may be a piece of that.” David “Fucking” Brooks.
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2023787719_davidbrookscolumn08xml.html