Bergdahl Prisoner Swap:Obama Obeys ONLY the Laws He Wants To.

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.

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.

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.

I don't see where they pose any special danger to the USA.

At least one of them has been released from the service on less than honorable discharge.

In any case, in the report which was given, he was not charged with desertion. I will wait until the final investigation and report comes out before coming to any conclusions.

...it was criminal how Bush lied us into invading Iraq. Seeing Bush show up at VA hospitals makes me want to barf. The man is a war criminal.

Obviously it didn't work.

Advocate wrote:

...it was criminal how Bush lied us into invading Iraq. Seeing Bush show up at VA hospitals makes me want to barf. The man is a war criminal.

Thanks for proving the point I previously made. I knew I wouldn't have to wait long for someone to go off on Bush being a war criminal.

Bush is absolutely a war criminal. He went to war with Iraq to steal its oil. His people even drafted a map dividing up the oil areas among the American companies. Do a little research for once in your life.

The oil money was not supposed to go into the general fund, it was to reimburse the USA for the cost of saving them from Suddam.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Thursday the Geneva Convention applies to Taliban prisoners but not to captured al-Qaida terrorists as he sought to quell international outcry without changing the way Afghan war detainees are treated.

"They have always been treated consistent with the principles of the Geneva Convention, which means they will be treated well," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

The Bush administration, pledging to abide by the "values and principles" of the 1949 Geneva Convention, took the largely symbolic step in part to ease international complaints about the imprisonment of more than 180 fighters at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

But Bush refused to consider classifying al-Qaida or Taliban fighters as prisoners of war, denying them a wide range of rights and privileges afforded to POWs under the Geneva Convention.

The president settled that key POW issue weeks ago, leaving a the question of whether the conflict in Afghanistan and the detainees fall under the Geneva pacts.

In saying the conflict did apply, Bush sought to preserve protections afforded U.S. troops if they are captured in Afghanistan or elsewhere during the war on terrorism, administration officials said.

But Hawk, the iraq government dident ask us in

but a good approximation is that approximately 87-89% of the world's Muslims are Sunni[1] and approximately 11-12% are Shia,[2][3] with most Shias belonging to the Twelver tradition and the rest divided between several other groups.[2]

Top 8 lies about Bergdahl from the White House

#1: Bergdahl was very sick – no he just had poor hygiene.

#2: The Taliban threatened to kill Bergdahl – even Sen. Dianne Feinstein said there was no credible intel on that.

#3: The administration informed Congress about the swap – well, if you count the discussion about prisoner transfer several years ago.

#4: The U.S. didn’t negotiate with terrorists – Ambassador Susan Rice said by negotiating through the government of Qatar, they weren’t negotiating with terrorists — except Qatar wasn’t holding Bergdahl captive, the Haqqani Network was. The Obama administration officially designated the Haqqani Network a terrorist group in 2012.

#5: Berghdal served with honor and distinction – if you count the distinction of being the only American soldier to desert his post in Afghanistan and walk into the arms of the enemy.

#6: The release of the terrorists poses little to no risk to the U.S. – Just days after being released from GITMO, family members of one of the five detainees released by the United States told NBC news that the former Taliban commander, Mullah Norullah Nori, planned to return to the fight in Afghanistan.

#7: The five terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay will be under U.S. monitoring – Qatari government officials would beg to differ and said the deal that was reached did not allow for U.S. monitoring of the detainees, and that they would be free to move about the country while they remained in Qatar.

#8: This was the “last, best chance” to bring Bergdahl home – Maybe, but to date, the Taliban have failed to engage in any meaningful peace talks with the U.S. or the government of Afghanistan. So why this time?

I think after reading in Wikipedia the reason the 500 something detainees were released or transferred to their country was something to do with the Supreme court rulings and Habeas corpus. Its all a little complicated, however right before Obama became President, the Bush administration won a court ruling which made it harder to release detainees.