http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...r-swap/372111/



What does everyone think?

 

I think the President knowingly* skirted the law, to trade a deserter (and possibly traitor) who needs to a court martial and possibly hanged, for five extremely-dangerous high-level terrorists, knowing* that they would be headed straight back into the war on modern civilization.



*knowing, of course, requires competence at his job. It is still hard to tell if he is a huge anti-american-exceptionalism lefty, humongously incompetent at running the country well, or merely evil. I'm hoping for incompetence at this point, but



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If he DID know this is what he was doing, it's a treasonous and impeachable offense - that would never see a conviction in this Senate, even if the House were to impeach him.

 

I'm bookmarking this page to throw it back in your face when a GOP pres does the exact same thing (as has been done since this country was founded).

 

$5 says they've got some sort of way to track the terrorists they've released so it's a win-win. If you just let them go they would never go back to the "nest", but in this case they might believe they've been truly released.

 

he said a priority was shutting down gitmo if elected, within the first days.



I'm sure it has happened and will happen. I would think "not negotiating with terrorists" is a public position meant to deter people from performing acts with that as the result.



I'm sure we have plenty of people being held right now as prisoners. Was this dude some super human robot assassin that was so valuable that it was worthwhile to make it public news? I really haven't read anything more than news headlines, so I'm posting this without much insight on this particular story.

 

R or D doesn't matter. Being incompetent and/or evil seems to happen in both parties these days. Recall especially the last couple years of Bush II for example.

 

Even General George Washington swapped prisoners.

 

...back when they said "I promise not to return to the battlefield" and meant it, because people still cherished their honor, right.



P.S. our current to-remain-unspecified enemy is officially authorized to lie if it promotes their cause.

 

Citation?



Your statement doesn't jibe with what I learned in my AP American History class.

 

Giving our president the benefit of the doubt, from what I understand these are political prisoner and POWs that we're trading. Despite the affiliation with a terror group, there is no specific act of terror associated with the people in question. Trading 5 for one is a total piece of sh*t though. Either we have lost our ability to bargain or there's some kind of deal going on that we don't and won't see. Either way it looks weak on our administration, and those people have no respect for weakness.



However, none of that make up for the overlaying issue here of this president repeatedly overstepping the checks and balances. I know many do it from time to time, but in the past week this is minimum the 3rd occasion he's done this (for another famous instance look at the changes in EPA regulations on coal.) It's a dangerous precedent. We're already border-lining the edge or aristocracy, adding totalitarianism to the mix isn't doing this country any good. Like him or not, the frequency at which this is happening will make it very difficult to punish presidents down the road, regardless of party, for doing the exact same thing. This is exactly what we were warned would happen. Sadly as a lame duck this is only bound to get worse. And he knows so long as he XO's some politically or popularly significant ruling (see again EPA regs) he's going to remain the Teflon Pres.