Taliban Terrorist / American Soldier Swap

Thanks Obama

DonDiego has an amazing grasp of the obvious!

But equally obvious, those here who accused Obama of illegality should have the minimal class to admit they were wrong.

This really is an interesting situation.

So let's assume a soldier deserts and is captured on the battlefield by the enemy. Now we're five years on, and the President has credible evidence that the soldier's health is in serious peril. Let's also assume that the enemy is seeking the release of five of its most significant combatants in exchange for the soldier, and that they're held at Gitmo. And let's also assume that a federal statute says that the President must notify Congress at least 30 days before releasing anyone from Gitmo, including these five.

What should the President do? I think the President should secretly inform key Congressional leaders of what's afoot., but not let an opportunity to get our soldier out die simply because of the 30 day rule. That rule seems inconsistent with a President's responsibilities as Comander in Chief; it's unreasonable to expect him or her to prosecute a war while being micromanaged by the Congress like this.

Thoughts?

I retired from the US Army a few years back. I honestly think it was a bad decision regardless of his health. We should always try to get our Soldiers back,,,we should never swap a thing. I think the President has done a lot of good, but I disagree with this one. Then again, I'm not sure I have rubber stamped 100 percent of any other decisions made by former Presidents.

The white house is slowly dropping the health story. Nobody in Congress has stepped forward to say that any time they were consulted, publicly or privately.

There was no reason to trade 5 high level terrorists for 1 soldier

Trading their prisoners for our prisoners has been done in pretty much every war of significance since, well, the dawn of war. Heck, Gen. George Washington did it during our Revolutionary War, trading captured British troops for captured American troops. Why this new rule now?

It's not like we're going to encourage enemies to take prisoners. They've always had that incentive.

Thanks Washington!

We traded 5 generals for 1 disgraced sgt

I'm not playing the blame game on this one. I am just saying I don't like it, never will in the future regardless of who is in office. Did you like it. If so, really?

Well, you're saying that we should now do something new that we've never been willing to do before in prior wars. Just flat determine that we'll never exchange prisoners again.

You can take that position. But don't pretend it's not a radical departure from our history.