natedagg
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Fuck LeBron James.
Bro, stay on topic.:chuckles:
Fuck LeBron James.
Oasis could definitely be a game changer in here.
Tornicade is like a human IED, so his involvement could be helpful as well.
^great eulogy. Gave me the chills...
I spoke to a colleague of mine who is a marine, and we talked about all of the facts that might never be known:
1. Bergdahl might have intelligence and it's being utilized right now.
2. There might be some other unspoken agreements between the "bad guys" and the US, not just the prison exchanges. E.g. - we release these 5 guys, then you keep attacks from your people off of our soil.
3. The 5 released guys aren't necessarily safe. They might meet a fate far worse than Gitmo, and they might not be "released" totally, per se.
I haven't had the time to read the ins-and-outs, but there's quite a few possibilities out there to consider. I think it's fair to say that, on the surface, this is a real head scratcher, so my next line of thought isn't "what a blunder?!?" but more "what else don't we know?"
Talks a few years ago, because we had what amounts to a date certain for pulling out, might have had some value. Now, when they know they'll have forced us out and be able to claim victory in only a year or so....why would they give up anything of substance in any talks?
The talks wouldn't be about us actually obtaining peace. They'd be about us wanting a piece of paper we can wave around, and so claim that our withdrawal was negotiated, rather than unilateral. It'd be worth a hell of a lot less than the Vietnam treaty that ended in disaster, because at least that had a promise of significant U.S. military force behind it. This will have...essentially nothing.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/04/analysis-bergdahl-talks-with-taliban-had-wider-goal/
Analysis: Bergdahl talks with Taliban had wider goal
Published June 04, 2014Associated PressFacebook5 Twitter10 Gplus0
The announcement that the U.S. government had secured the release of missing U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and that it was freeing five senior Taliban figures from Guantanamo Bay has been portrayed first and foremost as a prisoner exchange. But the four-year history of secret dialogue that led to Saturday's release suggests that the main goal of each side may have been far more sweeping.
It was about setting the stage for larger discussions on a future peaceful Afghanistan.
As The Associated Press first reported in 2011, talks about releasing the five senior Taliban reach back to at least late 2010, following nearly a decade of war. In the beginning, the name of Bergdahl, who was captured in mid-2009, was not even part of the equation.
The Taliban have sought a prisoner release from the beginning of their contacts with U.S. negotiators, while the U.S. side was looking for confidence-building gestures to keep the conversation going, with the ultimate aim of bringing hostilities in Afghanistan to an end.
In recent days, Republicans and some Democrats have been incensed about the release of the Guantanamo Five, warning that this will inspire other militants to target more Americans for abduction. They say the exchange was too hasty, without even a month's warning to Congress as the law requires. They also imply that the five are dangerous leaders who will quickly return to the battlefield and that it was too high a price to pay for a soldier who may have abandoned his post willfully and wandered into Taliban hands.
The Obama administration has justified its decision by saying there was an urgent need to retrieve Bergdahl from captivity and ensure his safety before most U.S. forces leave Afghanistan this year. Judging from the earlier stages of negotiations, the Guantanamo prisoners were not seen as critically important in their own right to retain as prisoners.
In the context of today's Afghanistan, the Guantanamo Five, while important figures, are not likely to change the balance of the war in any significant way. Although they held leadership positions, they weren't pivotal in policy decisions. And after having been away from Afghanistan for more than a decade, they are not likely to secure the loyalty of broad numbers of Taliban foot soldiers.
The five are Abdul Haq Wasiq, once the Taliban's deputy minister of intelligence, Mullah Norullah Nori, a former senior military commander, Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former governor of Herat, Mohammed Nabi, a former local security chief, and Mohamad Fazl, who allegedly presided over the mass killing of Shiite Muslims in 2000-2001. While some indeed were ruthless when in power, they were by no means considered the worst of the Taliban
As part of the deal, the emir of Qatar has guaranteed that all will be kept and monitored inside the small Gulf emirate for at least a year, meaning that they will be essentially isolated until after the bulk of U.S. forces have left Afghanistan.
For the U.S. side, getting Bergdahl back was hardly the main aim when the Obama administration first opened the door to negotiations with the Taliban.
In those early talks, the U.S. was seeking gestures of goodwill from the Taliban, such as a public declaration of the wish for peace. The talks, which went through Germany with help from Norway, appeared to be the first sign of forward movement.
In 2011, the names of the five detainees the Taliban wanted freed were already known, and the U.S. seemed amenable. U.S. officials were cautious, however, about bringing up Bergdahl's name.
But when Afghan President Hamid Karzai found out about the talks, he was furious, and they fell apart.
U.S.-Taliban talks began again in earnest as the Taliban prepared to open a representative office in Qatar in 2013. The plan at the time was that the discussions would be followed by talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The five prisoners were the first item on the agenda.
The process of swapping them for Bergdahl was meant to take two months, giving time for Congress to be notified. Halfway through the process, the Taliban would be required to give proof that he was alive. Then the five detainees would be released to Qatar, and Bergdahl too would be released.
However, the Taliban office was shut down within days of opening in June 2013, amid another uproar from the Afghan government. The Taliban then struggled to re-sell the talks to their foot soldiers, young fighters who felt they were winning and didn't need to give anything away.
In January of this year, it became clear that the U.S. and the Taliban had begun talking again. A new video of Bergdahl surfaced, and Bergdahl's statement referenced the death of Nelson Mandela, who had died in December.
That seemed to be the proof of life that the U.S. had been looking for.
Why did the Taliban go for the exchange now? One possibility is that the older generation of Taliban, which has been more interested in negotiations, wanted to show that there was an upside to talking to the United States by getting its prisoners back. In other words, it was a way of proving to a younger, more skeptical generation of Taliban fighters that talks with the U.S. and the Afghan government are worth pursuing.
The U.S. wants out of Afghanistan, but it doesn't want to leave behind complete chaos. In the past, it at least wanted to start a process of talks that could have some traction.
As the Taliban insurgency rages on, the question is whether the next Kabul government will risk talks with the militants, and whether the Taliban themselves may wish to negotiate for a share in power or will stay on the course of war.
In either case, the deal that came about this week after such a long gestation was about more than six men and their respective paths toward captivity and now freedom.
Talks a few years ago, because we had what amounts to a date certain for pulling out, might have had some value. Now, when they know they'll have forced us out and be able to claim victory in only a year or so....why would they give up anything of substance in any talks?
The talks wouldn't be about us actually obtaining peace. They'd be about us wanting a piece of paper we can wave around, and so claim that our withdrawal was negotiated, rather than unilateral. It'd be worth a hell of a lot less than the Vietnam treaty that ended in disaster, because at least that had a promise of significant U.S. military force behind it. This will have...essentially nothing.
This about pakhistan trying to make things worse in afghanistan than they already are.. Hey taliban. we pakis are an organized military and we can really wreak havoc on your little civil were why not go fight it out in afghanistan for a bit.
US responds to assist afghan in keeping out those guys diplomatically.
We are withdrawing from Afghanistan because the American people are opposed to the conflict there. It serves no purpose, thus why continue it? Our incursion into Afghanistan accomplished next to nothing, and the Taliban still control large areas of the country's territory, let alone politics.
Again, while not defeated militarily; the previous administration simply did not have any realistic end-game planned, so we leave as we entered - with the Taliban and Al Qaeda still a force in that region of the world. One has to question the geopolitical philosophy that evolved from our Cold War worldviews, from the likes of Allen Dulles, Dick Helms and James Angleton to the neoconservative movement of Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and John Bolton among others. In essence, all the aforementioned firmly believed in a policy of nation-building; a.k.a. "regime change."
And with regards to Vietnam and the Paris Peace Accords, one must understand that the entire war from it's opening moves, it's very long duration, and the final withdrawal of American forces were all politically motivated. This was not simply a civil war between the North and South, two supposedly equal sides of equal opinion. This was a proxy war between the communist bloc and the Western world. America simply had no business getting involved in the first place, as we had relatively no interest there and it was an unmaintainable situation.
Again, our involvement in Vietnam was brought about entirely by the exact same thinking that got us involved in Afghanistan for 13+ years, not to mention the Iraq War.
I'm not making a pacifist argument, or an isolationist argument. I'm neither of those things. My point is that it's important to understand the history behind these events so that we don't get trapped in talking points of any single ideology. We withdraw from Afghanistan because we have no need to be there. We withdraw from Iraq because we never should have been there, and our continued presence there does more harm than good.
The Paris Peace Accords were hollow, as every actor involved knew the United States once withdrawn could not successfully defend Saigon. The South Vietnamese lacked resources and capital to sustain their military - many of their soldiers walked around barefoot in the streets, disorganized and disheveled. There was no will to fight from the "South Vietnamese People," and thus there was no 'organic' counter-revolutionary force. The South Vietnamese government was just a propped up puppet regime, like many the CIA put into place during this era.
Maybe you don't know this or don't care Torn, but "Paki" is a very offense remark, it's no different than "N*****" or "chink" or "kyke." Not just to Pakistanis, but to pretty many Muslims in general who are called "Pakis" by Whites who don't give a damn where they're from.
Well, it's different to me, and likely to some other Americans as well. "Paki" is easier to say than "Pakistani". Like saying "yank" instead of "American." It's not calling them a raghead, towel jockey, or haji.
If "Paki" is used by some other folks elsewhere -- like in Britain -- with a different, more perjorative meaning, and not just as shorthand for "Pakistani", that ain't our problem.
'Merica
What does that mean?