But, would the GOP praise Obama if he illegally sold US Weapons to the Taliban as they praise Reagan who illegally sold US weapons to Iran ... weapons that in turn were used to kill US soldiers. And yes, they still praise Oliver North who is a criminal who works at, and is praised at Fox.
. Flattering Time Magazine covers (snark)
Oh, and, Ronald Reagan was great friends with the Taliban. Such great friends that Ronald Reagan dedicate the Space Shuttle Columbia to the Taliban in 1982.
It should be noted here that when President Ronald Reagan was great friends with the, now Taliban, President Reagan used U.S taxpayer money to fund, train and arm the Mujahideen, Islamic Jihadists, in their fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
The word Mujahideen is a term Islams use to describe "people doing jihad."
Today, we call Reagan's Islamic Jihadists the Taliban, back then, Reagan just called them to hang out in the Oval Office with him.
Fast forward to present day, June 2014, and you'll hear the GOP saying President Obama broke the law when he negotiated with Ronald Reagan's good friends, the Taliban in the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
MIKE ROGERS (R-MI) "[W]e have other means to use, and remember, they came to Congress about a year ago and we're thinking about doing these negotiations. And by the way, they didn't get a very warm reception from either party in the national security committees. They said this is fraught with trouble. So this all of a sudden comes a year later. They didn't notify Congress. I think they violated the law in two different places here. Why is because this is a -- this is morphing into different places. So, an al Qaeda affiliate in now Africa looks a lot and functions a lot like the al Qaeda affiliates operating out of the tribal areas in Pakistan. If you negotiate here, you've sent a message to every al Qaeda group in the world that says, and by the way some holding U.S. hostages today, that there is some value now in that hostage in a way they didn't have before. That is dangerous. And so, our argument is, listen, we don't fight this like we would fight a nation-state war. You can't, and you shouldn't negotiate with terrorists.”
~House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) on CNN June 1, 2014
Wow! "
Violated the law in two different places here" because ... um ... you know ... um ... the Taliban -- who we're gonna call "
Al Quada" for fearmongering purposes -- is ummm ... in ... you know "
Africa" and that's a "
different place" and umm ... they're "
morphing" all over the place so yeah you know ... we can't fight this long ass Afghan war as if we're fighting an actual authorized war with real "
nation-state" ... um ... even though we Declared war on Afghanistan and we kicked Taliban out of Afghanistan long ago & Obama had Bin Laden killed long ago ... and ... um ... the war is almost over anyway ... you know ... cuz it's all about "morphing"... morphing wars, morphing groups, morphing people, morphing place and all that stuff ... so ... you know, our new policy .. um ... because of "
Al Quada" and "
Africa" and "
places" and "
morphing" .... is to um ... let our POWs die in captivity.
I am so sick of these Republican warmongerers chanting "Support our Troops" and then being willing to let them die as prisoners of war in a war that is damn near over.
And, what is Mike Rogers going to say or do when the war in Afghanistan is over and by law, the United States will be legally compelled to release all the prisoners at Gitmo as per the Third Geneva Convention, which the United States ratified in 1955, that mandates all POWs and detainees held by the United States be released and repatriated quickly after conflicts end?
In my opinion, Mike Rogers and his ilk are not "patriots" but are as despicable as Henry Kissinger who once demeaned our sons and daughters fighting 'their' wars:
KISSINGER: "Military men are 'dumb, stupid animals to be used' as pawns for foreign policy."
~Henry Kissinger in "The Final Days" written by: Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
Poor Mike Rogers always the partisan BSer.
One person posted a comment below: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and that sums up today's Republican Party. The enemy of the United States is who the Republicans embrace as their friend.
Here's a two year timeline of a few events that happened to spur the release of prisoner of war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl:
2012:
In May 2012, the New York Times reported:
Last week his anguished family broke a yearlong silence and announced that their son had become the centerpiece in secret but stalled negotiations between the Obama administration and the Taliban over a proposed prisoner exchange. The deal, which would trade five Taliban prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay for Sergeant Bergdahl, is considered a crucial first step toward striking a broader political settlement with the Taliban to bring the decade-long war to an end.
In August 2012
NBC News released four, of the five, the names of the Gitmo detainees who were being negotiated:
Of the five senior Taliban figures, many officials and lawmakers are particularly nervous about transferring Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a "high-risk detainee" who was in the first group sent to Guantanamo in early 2002, under what could be only loose security and travel restrictions.
... The group also includes Noorullah Noori, a former top military commander; former deputy intelligence minister Abdul Haq Wasiq; and Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former interior minister.
2014:
On February 17, 2014 the Washingpost printed an article titled discussing the negotiations.
"U.S. seeks prisoner swap with Taliban to free Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl"
By Anne Gearan and Ernesto Londoño, Published: February 17
In an effort to free American captive Bowe Bergdahl before the bulk of U.S. forces leave Afghanistan this year, the Obama administration has decided to try to resume talks with the Taliban and sweeten an offer to trade Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the Army sergeant, current and former officials said.
Five members of the Afghan Taliban who have been held at Guantanamo for years would be released to protective custody in Qatar in exchange for the release of Bergdahl, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2009 and is thought to be held in Pakistan by the Haqqani network, an allied insurgent group.
The Post goes on to say:
To refresh the American offer, which has been on the table for more than two years, senior officials from the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies decided within the past month to allow the simultaneous release of all five men.
hmmmm .... how about that. Negotiations have been going on since 2012.
On February 23, 2014 Fox reported:
The five Taliban detainees at the heart of the proposal are the most senior Afghans still held at the prison at the U.S. base in Cuba. Each has been held since 2002.
They include:
-- Mohammad Fazl, whom Human Rights Watch says could be prosecuted for war crimes for presiding over the mass killing of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001 as the Taliban sought to consolidate their control over the country.
-- Abdul Haq Wasiq, who served as the Taliban deputy minister of intelligence and was in direct contact with supreme leader Mullah Omar as well as other senior Taliban figures, according to military documents. Under Wasiq, there were widespread accounts of killings, torture and mistreatment.
-- Mullah Norullah Nori, who was a senior Taliban commander in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif when the Taliban fought U.S. forces in late 2001. He previously served as a Taliban governor in two northern provinces, where he has been accused of ordering the massacre of thousands of Shiites.
-- Khairullah Khairkhwa, who served in various Taliban positions including interior minister and as a military commander and had direct ties to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, according to U.S. military documents. His U.S. lawyers have argued that his affiliation with the Taliban was a matter of circumstance, rather than ideology, and that he had backed away from them by the time of his capture. His lawyers also have argued that he was merely a civil servant and had no military role, though a judge said there was enough evidence to justify holding him at Guantanamo. His lawyers have appealed.
-- Mohammed Nabi, who served as chief of security for the Taliban in Qalat, Afghanistan, and later worked as a radio operator for the Taliban's communications office in Kabul and as an office manager in the border department, according to U.S. military documents. In the spring of 2002, he told interrogators that he received about $500 from a CIA operative as part of the unsuccessful effort to track down Mullah Omar. When that didn't pan out, he says he ended up helping the agency locate al-Qaida members.
February 2014 from CNN:
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said Bergdahl's release is "the highest priority that I have in my office," and said he's confident it's at the top of other government officials' lists as well.
"Frankly, a lot of what's going on is confidential and cannot be discussed. And I'm not familiar with exactly what details are going on right now in terms of any negotiations," Crapo told CNN. "What I can assure you is I've met with our military and diplomatic and intelligence authorities, both in the United States and in Afghanistan and Pakistan, about this, and I'm convinced that they are making this a very high priority."
April 2014:
Fox News reported
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., wrote earlier this year to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, saying it was critical that efforts to free Bergdahl are not overcome by bureaucracy.
"Given the significance and necessity for centralized command and control, which I have been informed is little to nonexistent, I urge you to seriously consider the idea of directing an individual to organize, manage and coordinate activity that involves multiple elements of the federal government working toward Bergdahl's release," wrote Hunter, a Marine veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
In late February, the Taliban said it had suspended "mediation" with the United States about swapping Bergdahl for the five Taliban detainees, blaming the "current complex political situation" in Afghanistan. There also is some congressional opposition to the prisoner swap. According to military documents, one of the five served as interior minister during the Taliban's five-year rule of Afghanistan and had direct ties to Osama bin Laden.
Regarding the unsubstantiated claim that Bergdahl went OWAL Fox
reported:
Rep. Duncan Hunter, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and former Marine who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, agreed.
"It's hard to imagine any circumstance where his captivity won't be viewed as time served," said Hunter, R-Calif. "The first order of business is securing his release and I don't think it does an ounce of good to begin contemplating that far ahead when the focus is on getting him home."
So, the next time you hear someone accuse Bergdahl of going AWOL, remind that person that in America, we have something called a Constitutional right to Due Process and ... regardless of whether he went AWOL or not, the US Military pledges to never leave a man behind.
Oh, and remember ... BENGHAAAAZIIIII!!!!!!!