re: a good laugh about a traitor.

Of one of the guys we set free gets droned, no one will negotiate with us again.

We spread information that he's working for us then let the Taliban do our dirty work.

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Of one of the guys we set free gets droned, no one will negotiate with us again.

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If he gets droned in the mountains of Pakistan they'll consider it "par for course."

And like Patton said: The only thing this ensures is that they don't saw their head off.

If you've ever seen the videos like "Dagestan 6" you'd understand that them keeping Americans alive does two things:

Gives hope to the families.

Gives us a chance to rescue the captive (like Jessica Lynch).

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No, they won't consider it "par for the course."

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Have you seen the LINK of "List of Drone Attacks In Pakistan"? If he were to be killed in the North of Pakistan, South of Afghanistan by a drone? Or even in the rest of the country? No one would ask questions at all. Maybe some conspiracy theorists, but many would say: That's the price paid for participating in combat.

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I'm not saying there's any easy answers here. But you're making a facile defense of an obvious blunder.

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I think you may be underestimating our intelligence capacity quite a bit.

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They're not tagged.

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See: Above.

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It does encourage future kidnappings. It does not advance our foreign policy interests in the region.

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I'mma let you in on a little secret: Al-Qaeda and other Islamic militants will kidnap people whether or not we negotiate.

Al-Qaeda doesn't negotiate at all and ISIS has no qualms kidnapping them to make sacrifices on camera.

What's facile is pretending like you have a better idea of the world than the CIA does.

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Good god man. I didn't suggest I did. And there's nothing to suggest the CIA signed off on this.

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Eli Lake reports in the Daily Beast that "leaders of the U.S. intelligence community and military were opposed to freeing five senior Taliban commanders in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl" in 2011 and in 2012 when Obama first explored the idea.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper "flat out rejected the release of the five detainees, saying there was too high a risk these Taliban commanders would return to the battlefield and orchestrate attacks against Americans," three U.S. intelligence officials told Lake. Then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was against it too.

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LINK

"As for the circumstances of his capture, when he is able to provide them, we'll learn the facts," Dempsey wrote. 'Like any American, he is innocent until proven guilty.'" -- I'd like to add,

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Dagestan 6

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frick Chechnya. They're animals. The don't deserve to live on this earth.

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The chief points of your "arguments" seem to consist of emoticons.

I'm not sure why you're emotionally invested in defending this, but I'll let you sort it out.

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Because you're cherry to politics. Hillary Clinton was also "very skeptical" afterwards, but to think that Clapper was completely anti-trade is silly.

"The first was evidence that Sergeant Bergdahl's health was deteriorating and that he may be in need of medical attention," spokesman Shawn Turner said. "Second was the fact that, as we draw down our forces in Afghanistan, we will have fewer resources available to dedicate to his recovery. Lastly, that the DNI (James Clapper) was satisfied with the assurances from the Qatari government that these five individuals will be closely monitored and subject to travel restrictions."

Did you really fricking think that President Obama would act without the Intelligence Community? Stop reading Fox News, man.

Read more: LINK -- Source is Politico.

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Leon Panetta came out this week saying he had serious reservations. What was his job title? This isn't just a partisan attack on Obama. If you stop approaching it from that vantage, it will be helpful. Probably mostly to you.

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'Panetta repeated Obama's defense of the exchange by noting a longtime principle in the American military: “You don't leave anybody behind,” said Panetta, an Army intelligence officer in the 1960s.

The circumstances of Bergdahl's 2009 capture don't appear to be an issue for Panetta, who noted a long history of negotiating prisoner swaps.

“Sometimes people do stupid things. You still go after them,” he said.'

Yeah, he may have disagreed with the prisoner swap to some extent, but he has the same idea in mind.

How much further back you wanna move the goalposts?