WE DID BIZ WTH THE TALIBAN

[HairOfTheDog]

If we are bringing troops home by 2016 and phasing out the prison for detainees, we have to start thinking about what to do with these guys. We don't want to keep them so they are going to have to go home anyway and they probably will continue to rebel against their Gov't but they had nothing to do with ⁹⁄₁₁ and it is Al-Qaeda who want to kill us all.

Exactly. Those Taliban POWs would need to be transferred somewhere soon anyway with the official end of the "conflict" approaching and the planned closure of Gitmo. I think if the US would have been able to successfully prosecute them for any legitimate crimes, we'd have done so in the 12 years that we had them in our custody.

Plus, Obama reportedly wants to proceed with peace talks between the US, the Taliban and Afghanistan. The last two attempts didn't progress too far and the Taliban detainees/POWs were one of the major sticking points. Enter Qatar.

Anyway, we took those five key Taliban figures outta the mix for over a decade to increase our chances of success in Afghanistan. The Taliban kept what appears to me to be a mixed-up low-ranking kid from Idaho captive. The "conflict" couldn't be officially ended without addressing those POWs from both sides.

At any rate, Fox News is now equating wearing a beard to being a terrorist (this according to CNN).

Craziness. I associate with several terrorists, according to Fox News.

I'd like to see a news source dive a little more into Mr. Bergdahl's motives in modifying his appearance and language to be more similar to that of his son's captors. Guessing he wanted the captors to identify more with him so they'd be more inclined to consider his pleas; perhaps that was effective?. Anyway, I think there's an interesting possible back-story beyond the beard -- maybe later it'll be covered.