a superb piece from what most people regard as serious journal, Foreign Policy Magazine.
I would recommend reading this:
Why Negotiating With Our Enemies Is Not a Sin
The Taliban swap for Sgt. Bergdahl is just the latest in a long line of occasions when America willingly dealt with bad guys. And like it or not, this is how wars end.
Why Negotiating With Our Enemies Is Not a Sin Foreign Policy
<snip >
"Finally, the claim that the release of five Taliban in exchange for one American soldier has hurt our combat operations in Afghanistan or that it will lead other groups to seize U.S. prisoners for leverage is simply spurious.
It ignores the fact that while these five Afghans, who have been in U.S. custody for over a decade, could eventually return to the battlefield after their year under house arrest in Qatar, the U.S. military will have ended combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
It also ignores the fact that these instances are exceedingly rare: Bergdahl was the only American prisoner of war in Afghanistan, despite over 13 years of conflict. With U.S. forces set to draw down to 9,800 troops by the end of 2014, even if the Taliban were to dramatically change its tactics, it will have very limited opportunities to capture American soldiers.
...
Moreover, critics of the Bergdahl prisoner release deal ignore the fact that at some point, the United States and its Afghan partners will have to negotiate with the Taliban as the war in Afghanistan concludes. Indeed, as Obama has said: "This is what happens at the end of wars."
This has ample historical precedent. By July 1951, the United States recognized that a stalemate in the Korean War was the least-bad option and began negotiating with the communist government of China to end the war and return to the status quo ante. Washington didn’t recognize the communist government of China as legitimate, but negotiated with them anyway. The negotiations lasted from July 1951 to July 1953, while bullets were still flying in Korea, and produced an armistice that persists to this day. Similarly, Washington negotiated with the communist North Vietnamese for almost five years to end the American involvement in the war in Vietnam, while the fighting still raged. And a major issue in negotiations to end both of these wars was the release of prisoners in exchange for the release of American prisoners.
....
In addition, this argument overlooks the fact that Bergdahl could provide us with a good deal of information about the Taliban, potentially including actionable intelligence."
Wished I could have included more here, - however that last sentence is something I wonder if the people who wanted him "to rot" there had considered.
Do you think it is possible we could gain potential
actionable intelligence from Bergdahl? I'm still waiting for more information to shake out -- and I'm glad an investigation will be done, as it should be.
Anyway, if you can, the Foreign Policy piece is a good one. Check it out.
