"Bush Would Have Done The Same Thing" from Buzzfeed
"A former Bush administration official broke with Republicans on Tuesday to defend President Obama’s prisoner exchange, arguing that since “the war in Afghanistan is winding down,” the United States would be required to return prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay back to Afghanistan."
3 comments:
I had completely forgotten about this guy until last week. As bad as his death in captivity would have been for Obama, I’m beginning to think his rescue was worse. The deal makes sense in terms of winding down Gitmo and rescuing a soldier. But on its surface, it was a trade of five terrorists for one deserter, and the surface is the only thing most of the voting public will see. This doesn’t look like Big O’s most astute political move. Obama’s spin meisters must be working overtime on this one.
They are working hard, for sure. But my take is that this whole swap was not driven by political considerations in the first place. Something else was going on here. Some stories suggest that those Gitmo detainees were going to be released in the near future anyway. Other stories say that Obama was thinking longer term: he or some future US president will HAVE TO deal with the Taliban, and this was a low-cost way to test the com-links. One other note: given the initial GOP spin we saw on the IRS "scandal" and on Benghazi, I would keep your "assessment" powder dry for now. As I noted yesterday, given the GOP's criticism-for-all-contingencies mode with Obama, the president could have left him behind (and been reamed for it) or cut the deal (and been reamed for that). But as I say, I think there's more going on here than a simple prisoner swap.
Yes, I have considered that my assessment was rash. The man could not be left behind if there was any way possible to bring him back, and I think the public will side with O on that point.
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