We didn’t use to do this sort of thing:
Only hours before a British hostage was released, the American military turned over to Iraqi authorities one of the suspected leaders of a Shiite insurgent group believed to be behind the kidnapping, Iraqi officials said Thursday.
Both the Iraqi government and United States military officials in Iraq on Thursday denied that the British hostage, Peter Moore, had been freed after more than two years in captivity in exchange for the transfer of the suspected insurgent leader from American to Iraqi custody.
No, of course not. Especially when the terrorist has American blood on his hands. It only has the appearance of being a quid pro quo that would be viciously contrary to self-interest.
The man suspected of being an insurgent leader, Qais al-Khazali, has been accused by the United States military of being a mastermind behind the 2007 slayings of five American soldiers in Karbala, in central Iraq. He was captured by American forces two months after the killings.
On Thursday, Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said that Mr. Khazali was still in Iraqi custody and that court officials were trying to determine whether Iraqi authorities could legally continue to hold him.
“We are checking his file to see if there is anything criminal against him,” Mr. Dabbagh said. “If there is nothing, he will be released.”
Where, no doubt, he will join Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi at a Libyan sanitarium. This is just another one of those seemingly random coincidences.
American military officials have said that Mr. Moore and the others may have been kidnapped to try to win the release of Mr. Khazali and his brother, Laith al-Khazali, who were arrested by the American military in March 2007, two months before the hostage-taking.
In June, the American military released Laith al-Khazali in a move that appeared to be part of an exchange for the British hostages. Several days later, the bodies of two of the hostages were turned over to British authorities in Baghdad.
2010 is just a number. Nothing else has changed.
Update: Some folks are still fighting the terror fight, even at the risk of their lives. Others seem to have changed sides, like the UK Times.
CIA caught in dirty and secretive war against al-Qaeda on Afghan border
The deaths of seven CIA agents in Khost province have brought into the limelight the secretive and dirty war being fought by America’s intelligence agencies — and the Taleban and al-Qaeda — in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Prolly if I went back through their archives, I’d find something in there about the OSS fighting a dirty and secretive fight against the Nazis.
(Admin note: I used to use the tag “GWOT” as marker on posts related to the Global War on Terror. I’ve been thinking about retiring it, but now I just sort of enjoy the irony. Using the word “enjoy” ironically.)
On your ADMIN NOTE: Ain’t it the truth…..
Why is it that when we (the world outside radical Islam) fight against Al Qaeda the same way they fight us (especially in the UK and the US), it’s dirty? Yet when they fight us in the mentioned M.O.’s they call them plots or attacks?
Just read the dirty and secretive war article in the Telegraph, and, like you, thought of the OSS and all the other agency fought dirty wars.
Ironic that Coghland omitted the dirty and secretive war involving Pan Am 103, Madrid 2004, 9/11/2001, et al. Perhaps those were wars cleansed and sanctified by Allah, and I should just keep my mouth shut.
Re. G-what: FWIW, I’m all for keeping it.
GWO-
Terror
Tyranny
Turpitude
Tomfoolery
Trainwrecks
Anyone else?
It’s always helpful to have some liberal pompous a$$ give us lessons about waging “dirty” war. I’ve been immeasurably impressed with the “clean” wars waged by the SOE and SAS in WW II, and by the British Army in Malaya and Northern Ireland.
Churchill, who had some first hand experience during the Boer War in “clean” warfare,” would be appalled.
Keep it…you’ve always called ‘em like you see ‘em, why stop now?
Common sense says: You can’t return something if you don’t have it; and it’s not worth returning when it’s dead. Time for common sense to rule.
This is one of the reasons I decided years ago that if I were ever captured like that and forced to give my name on camera, I would claim that my passport was false and my real name was Lewis Washington. You know, the guy at Harper’s Ferry?
Hope I’d be brave enough to follow through.
Whatever happened to clear cut diplomacy like “Perdicarius alive, or Raisouli dead!” That was easily understood, and when quickly followed through upon (one way or the other), our enemies decided to leave Americans alone.
Negotiating with terrorists is dealing with the devil, and we will never win anything.
To lie about doing so is intended only to fool Americans, as the enemy clearly knows exactly what was done, by whom, and the cost-benefit analysis of the operation. This foolish trade just endangered the lives of more westerners and gave a propaganda boost to the jihadists.
Nice work, Obama, Ms. Clinton, et al.
Um, John, read what I wrote just above, and read your history on what happened during John Brown’s raid, and what various people said, and what I hope I’d have the courage to say in a similar situation. Didn’t any of you people go to school?
Just, I doubt they even teach of Harper’s Ferry or the Raisouli Incident in school these days. There was a time when men learned Greek and Roman in order to read the Classics. There was a time when men stood on principles, knowing their personal honor and good standing were the only credit available, redeemable against friends in times of want and against their Creator in the end.
Today? I believe the acts of our own Congress show there are few left who will stand on principle, and instead we’ve become a nation of cowards and whores selling out to whomever offers the best price or the easiest path. At least, those who are covered by the media seem to be of this stripe.
Col. Cooper wrote a book once, “To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth.” It’s a fascinating read, one of the more treasured possessions in my library. I also have collections from Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. I find that reading their works, then contrasting with the words of modern political writers, is a breath-taking exercise in how far we have devolved in the past century. Not suprisingly our host comes fairly close to their level of ability, while the codswallop to be found at certain leftist blogs indicates their relative lack of merit.
I am of the firm belief that a well-stocked library is as necessary as a well-stocked larder, that to raise a child properly requires food for the mind as well as the body, and that independence of thought and of the need for others is the best gift one can bestow upon another or gain for oneself.
Start with the library, my friend. Better men than you and I have walked this earth and it’s only right and proper we should learn from them.
Until we can once again build men like these, I do so fear for our Republic.
– Max
I trust we all do realize that one cannot negotiate with a non-entity like terrorism, or with the specter of other repulsive tactics. But we can and we often do negotiate with the perpetrators of terrorism. It is a powerful and necessary if not distasteful tool, one of many in our country’s toolbox.
There is a very long history of the US negotiating with tyrants, terrorists, and mega-criminals and organizations. To not acknowledge that is to not have been paying attention. And to remove the powerful weapon of negotiations from our quiver severely limits our ability to influence a favorable outcome to a bad situation. It may not always work, but it is a tool that should always be at the ready and used when applicable… which it most often is.
Pick a decade from this link to see how often we have attempted negotiations with some truly bad guys.
When one restricts the toolbox, one limits their own potential, and therefore one’s potential success.
Also we do not use in-kind, the methods and tactics of terrorists because we (I hope) are far better than terrorists. We believe in, and are to be held to much higher standards. To abandon that is to abandon who we are as a civilized and respected nation and a beacon to the world.
I’ll save my related comments about US not only negotiating with the Iranian Revolutionaries, but also actually supporting them in the Iran-Contra debacle; supporting our ‘buddy’ Sadam Hussein with weapons and intelligence against Iran, or our support of the Taliban and Bin Laden against the Russians. Were they any less ‘terrorististic’ years ago as our ‘freinds’ and US ‘allies’ then, as they were later as our enemies?
All wars are dirty. But reciprocal and extreme dirty fighting beyond certrain conventional – even if distasteful for some – limits will never absolve our repeated major flaws of intelligence and foreign policy, nor failures of our national morality