re: #273 Justanotherhuman

There was a provision in the recent defense authorization bill that required a notification of Congress before a prisoner release. The administration says that they’ve let Congress know that talks had been pursued, but that the time of the essence prevented the 30 day notification as required.

Let the GOP hold their hearings. They’re going to get their soundbites, and it will come off as though the GOP doesn’t care about the troops - the optics will be pretty bad for slamming the president for making the deal to get Bergdahl home.

Where the GOP might have traction - is why Hagel was sounding a victory lap when the Army might be pursuing desertion charges against Bergdahl. There’s still a lot that has to be determined before we know what really happened and why. Do we really want to do a prisoner swap to get a guy we want to charge with desertion anyways? Could there have been fewer or less dangerous detainees that could have been swapped? Those are relevant questions, but also suppose that there was another alternative in the release.

We saw that with the Shalit exchange too - releasing hundreds of Palestinians, including those convicted of terrorism against Israel, in exchange for a single Israeli soldier. It’s a lopsided exchange, and the optics don’t look great, but it means the soldier comes home and the military gets to leave no one behind - as true for the US as for Israel.

After all, the whole POW/MIA effort in the US is to make sure all the service members return home. That’s true here as well.