@Advocate,
Advocate wrote:
We are well rid of the five Afghans, who were captured in 2002. They are not terrorists as the Reps like to say. They are militants who were running the country when we invaded it.
Well, it's not just Republicans who are saying this and the Administration disagrees with you:
Quote:But Tuesday White House National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden noted that the Taliban was added to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) by executive order in July 2002, even if it is not listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Department. Either designation triggers asset freezes, according to the State Department, though they can differ on other restrictions imposed on the target organization. The Treasury Department told ABC News the Taliban is still on their SDGT list.
The U.S. is offering $10 million for information leading to the capture of the Taliban's leader, Mullah Omar, through the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program, an effort designed to “fight against international terrorism.” The National Counterterrorism Center also lists “Taliban Presence in Afghanistan” on its global map of “Terrorist Groups.”
Though the State Department has not designated the Afghan Taliban as an FTO, it has designated the group’s sister network, the Pakistani Taliban, as well as the Haqqani Network, a group closely associated with the Taliban that was believed to have been actually holding Bergdahl for most of his captivity.
They were "running the country" because they had engineered a brutally violent take-over, killing tens of thousands of civilian men, women and children. Only three nations throughout the entire world recognized them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Their "running of the country" consisted in large measure of campaigns of terror against Afghan civilians;
their citizens. The examples of their brutal acts of oppression and sadistic displays of evil are horrendous and legion.
While they were "running the country" they not only gave safe harbor and material support to al Qaeda, al Qaeda's 055 Brigade conducted civilian massacres on their behalf. Given the chance to preserve their hold on the country by agreeing to turn over bin-Laden and all of his followers, they basically gave the finger to the US and invited the war.
Once they were overthrown, they immediately transformed into an insurgency against a democratically elected Afghan government; employing terrorism as a major component of their strategy and tactics.
Quote:The United Nations reported that the number of civilians killed by both the Taliban and pro-government forces in the war rose nearly 50% between 2007 and 2009. The high number of civilians killed by the Taliban is blamed in part on their increasing use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), "for instance, 16 IEDs have been planted in girls' schools" by the Taliban.
In 2009, Colonel Richard Kemp, formerly Commander of British forces in Afghanistan and the intelligence coordinator for the British government, drew parallels between the tactics and strategy of Hamas in Gaza to those of the Taliban. Kemp wrote:
Like Hamas in Gaza, the Taliban in southern Afghanistan are masters at shielding themselves behind the civilian population and then melting in among them for protection. Women and children are trained and equipped to fight, collect intelligence, and ferry arms and ammunition between battles. Female suicide bombers are increasingly common. The use of women to shield gunmen as they engage NATO forces is now so normal it is deemed barely worthy of comment. Schools and houses are routinely booby-trapped. Snipers shelter in houses deliberately filled with women and children.
—Richard Kemp, Commander of British forces in Afghanistan
The Taliban has often targeted health officials that work to immunise children against polio due to fears of the vaccine, including the fear that it is used to gather intelligence about their organisation. Polio vaccines were banned in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan in June 2012 and in December 2012, Taliban assassins killed four female UN polio-workers in Pakistan because they were thought to be spies. The Afghan government was forced to suspend vaccination efforts to eliminate polio from the Nuristan province in March 2013 because of a large Taliban influence in the province.
Anyone who has been awake during the years since 1996 know what the Taliban are capable of, but if it somehow passed you by, you can learn the horrific details with only a little bit of effort and Google search.
Quote:I don't see where they pose any special danger to the USA.
Why? Because you have heard Republicans say they do?
These five men held leadership positions in the Taliban. They were
officers, not
foot soldiers. Having survived American captivity in Gitmo, and been central to an exchange which, make no mistake, Islamists around the world see as a Taliban victory and American defeat, these men are living legends. It is agreed by experts that at least four of the five will return to top leadership positions, and they will be able to go a long way in solidifying their positions while they are in Qatar, as there will be zero restrictions on their communications.
It's highly unlikely that their hatred for America and Americans diminished while they were in Gitmo, and it has been argued (with some evidence already evident) that their release will lead to increased efforts by the Taliban (not to mention other Islamists) to capture American military members and civilians. They will be back in Afghanistan before the last US soldier withdraws.
When, after our withdrawal, the Taliban retake the government there is every reason to believe that they will return to supporting Islamist terrorist groups. Less blatantly perhaps, but they will.
Combine all this and it's clear that they present a threat to our national security. Will they be instrumental in the destruction of the United States? Hardly likely, but, obviously, threats to our security need not be existential in nature to be real and serious.
And of course, let's ignore what their release means to the Afghan people. Whether we should have or not, we decided to help them build their nation, to establish a democratic government and prevent the Taliban from again imposing their brand of theocratic terrorism on them.
Apparently our leaders felt this mission was worth the lives of thousands of American soldiers and marines, but not the continued captivity of one soldier. I'm having trouble squaring the fact that a goal so important that it was worth thousands of American lives and billions of American dollars could be willingly so compromised for the release of one soldier. Yes, we will be withdrawing our troops very soon, and "the war" will be over for us, but when we leave, it will truly begin in earnest for the Afghans. If the Taliban take back power, (and the release of these five terrorists increases that possibility) hundreds of thousands of men, women and children will be slaughtered for working with Americans to keep them out all these years, not to mentions for the horrible sins of kissing one another in public, being a member of any faith other than Islam, or being homosexual.
If I'm not mistaken Advocate, you are one of the many who like to say that conservatives have the attitude of "I got mine, the hell with the rest of you." You don't see this playing out in this situation?
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