Racing for the exits in Afghanistan, the White House is floating trial balloons about winning the good faith of the Taliban by releasing some of its most important figures now being held at Guantanamo, according to the editors at the WSJ:
Mohammad Fazl, around age 45, was the senior-most Taliban commander in northern Afghanistan and their deputy defense minister when captured in November 2001. He was at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress, outside the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, when hundreds of Taliban prisoners revolted against their captors in the Northern Alliance. CIA operative Johnny Michael Spann died in the melee, becoming the first American casualty of the Afghan war. A confidential annex of the Administration’s 2010 review suggests that Fazl may be responsible for Spann’s death.
According to his secret 2008 Gitmo file, which was published by WikiLeaks, Fazl also commanded foreign fighters in Afghanistan and “possessed vast power and financial resources.”
He was close to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Before 9/11, Fazl commanded troops in central Afghanistan who massacred hundreds of Hazaras, a Shiite Muslim ethnic minority. His Gitmo file also says the Iranian government suspects him of “being connected” to the killing of its diplomats in Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998.
There are four more just as worthy of release. If by release you mean, from the back end of a C-17, over the open ocean, sans parachute.
There is defeat, and there is disgrace. The president appears to be going for both.
“There are four more just as worth of release. If by release you mean, from the back end of a C-17, over the open ocean, sans parachute.”
AG-REED.
Enough already.
No, we need to strap them to the 2000lb. Bunker Busters we send into the next places we have to bomb. That way we can show we will send them home to their friends just as we promised.
I miss shah mashood, the lion of the north. I’d happily turn this trash over to him. Killed just days before 9/11 by a ‘french’ TV crew.
no no, give them parachutes. Let them swim ashore from 500 miles out.
Naah. We shouldn’t waste our parachutes like that.
” There is defeat, and there is disgrace. The president appears to be going for both.”
Cap, you left out the third component, cowardice. He is a coward, a uninspired delusion mediocrity advocate. Having never served his country, he is clueless about the meaning of selfless service as in his feckless world, it is all about him. Don’t even start me about his wife, Ms. Never-been-proud-of-my-country.
History will place him as the worst choice made by the American electorate ever. He has to go if we are to save our country.
Never served his country? He never even “liked” his country.
Yet ANOTHER reason in A LONG LINE of reasons (the third one this week) to consider re-locating the Duck-Blind..
all this would be solved with the expenditure of 38 cents of lead in the back of said C-17. i volunteer to fund.
We find ourselves on the horns of dilemma. These men have not been convicted of any crime. They are enemy combatants and as such are subject to detention for the duration. Unfortunately what everybody views as the war is coming to an end. As such we must either try these men, release them, or accept that our government can indefinitely detain anyone it deems an enemy. I find the latter option more dangerous than Fazi running around the Hindu Kush.
You think the war is coming to an end? It depends on how you define “the war”…
I don’t think the war is coming to an end. We may be seeing the end of the beginning. However, I think that most people, and certainly this administration, think the war is coming to an end.
I’ve always liked the old pic of the Cat Shot-ted Ford sedan. Sometimes of late labelled “Terrorist catch and release.”
Raghead to the ‘stockade’ at Bragg to be replaced by B. Hussain O. at Gitmo for treason during ‘War’.
Holder, H. Clinton, Big Sis, et. al to the Hague.
‘Course that’s just me…or maybe some other folks.
This is the sort of solution that comes from men without principle, without a plan, without honor. I hate to say that about our CinC, but he’s a man without guidance other than the political winds.
– Max
Let’s walk this forward.
Recall the “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, that they found hiding in Qala-i-Jangi after Mssr Spann was dispatched? This poor misfit from that poverty pocket in NorCal called Marin County found himself enamored by turbans and, well, dirt. Tried and convicted he is presently serving a 20 year sentence. One of his defense team was an attorney from Oakland California named Tony West. Who? Tony West was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Division on January 22, 2009. Rumor has it Mr. West is the top name to replace Eric Holder when he gets flushed from office.
Oh, it get’s better. Mr. West’s sister in law is Kamala Harris, the present Attorney General of California. I’ll stop there….
Pardon me.
“Pardon me.”
You got THAT right. Double entendre indeed. Holder et al know the word “pardon” very well, don’t they? Especially when it applies to terrorists–be they of the Puerto Rican or Weatherman variety.., so why not add the Taliban to the list? Holder has LOTS of practice..
Indeed!
I really don’t understand the left-wing liberal mindset when it comes to things like terrorists and vicious dogs. If one of these folks had a need to walk through a junkyard at night with a friend, and the junkyard dog was barking and growling, effectively saying “I am going to rip your throat out”, the person’s idea of a solution is to let the dog off the leash expecting it to be so grateful it turns into a friendly puppy who wants to lick their face. “See, he wants to lick your face!”
Then their surprise is immense when their friend’s throat is ripped out, and they are so, so saddened and can’t imagine what their friend did to draw such enmity from the friendly dog.
It’s like they live in a fantasy world.
George V.
And, tragically, we can’t just keep them there. They have to come into the real world with their delusions and negatively affect us all.
Speaking of pulling out of Afghanistan, how many are aware that there is an Army sergeant there that DOD has classified as a Prisoner Of War? PFC Bowe Bergdahl was captured in 2009, presently whereabouts unknown (promoted to Sergeant in absentia in 2011). So, when we pull out in 2013, what’s to become of him? And I will tell you what’s NOT going on. I visited the site of the Defense POW and Missing Personnel Office. There is NO MENTION of Sgt Bergdahl on that site, other than a line in a speech by Undersecretary Flournoy in 2009. I’d also bet that whatever covert negotiations with the Taliban are going on do not include the fate of SGT Bergdahl.
Hmm. A gal who used to be a neighbor said that the only way to get away with murder these days is to push the guy out of an airplane over the middle of the ocean, according to her Forensic Anthropology prof. One also has to have good liar skills too, of course.
If yer gonna kill ‘em , and it’s the right thing to do, own up to it. Tell the truth and shame the devil, as the saying goes.