by David Harris Gershon

I don't want to hear another word about GOP lawmakers chest-thumping and foaming-at-the-mouth about the fact that Obama traded, without the requisite 30-day notice to Congress, five indefinitely detained prisoners for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

You know why? Because history:

So GOP lawmakers are apoplectic about Obama not giving Congress the 30-day notice required by law before transferring any detainee from Guantanamo Bay, men who have mostly been detained without charge?

But will raise President Reagan upon a pillar, a man who (gave) sold Iran over 1,500 missiles for the release of U.S. hostages?

I have one response: shut up and sit down. Class is in session.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/31/1303494/-GOP-Hero-Reagan-Gave-Iran-1-500-Missiles-for-Hostages-Obama-Trades-Five-Guys-GOP-Heads-Explode#

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025036431#post29

Paris Accords

. . . provided for the POW exchange of 'Communist' enemy combatants that led to his release, along with hundreds of others.

At the end of combat operations, deals are normally made to exchange prisoners, often as part of confidence-building reconciliation. As you know, last week the President announced that combat operations would be ending in Afghanistan this year. The WH and Pentagon clearly stated this release and exchange was part of those broader reconciliation efforts. Same as with McCain and his fellow POWs.
____________________________________

The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 included provisions for exchanging prisoners of war. The plan to bring American prisoners home was called OPERATION HOMECOMING. Prisoners were to be returned to U.S. control during February and March 1973, with the longest-held generally returning first.

OPERATION HOMECOMING returned 591 POWs: 325 Air Force personnel, 77 Army, 138 Navy, 26 Marines and 25 civilians. Those who were not freed at Hanoi--POWs held in South Vietnam by the Viet Cong, mostly Army and civilians--left from Loc Ninh, the scene of the North Vietnam-South Vietnam prisoner exchange.

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet_print.asp?fsID=14412



President Nixon shakes hands with Lieutenant John McCain in the receiving line at a welcome home ceremony for returned POW's in the State Department Auditorium.

nt

The 1500 missiles part is accurate...but as soon as we got the three hostages back, the Iranian terrorists went out and kidnapped three new ones. The net result: Reagan gave Iran 1500 missiles for free.

And it's just an unfortunate coincidence that Operation Urgent Fury kicked off two days after the Beirut bombing.

https://www.facebook.com/ConservativesAreDestroyingOurFuture

Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Joan Walsh

Of course Republicans are going to compare the prisoner swap that won the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to Benghazi. They both start with B. It leads to their favorite words that start with I: investigation, and possibly impeachment.

-snip-

Other Republicans accuse the president of breaking the long-standing rule against “negotiating with terrorists” to free hostages. They’re wrong on two counts: The U.S. has frequently negotiated with “terrorists,” to free hostages and for other reasons. President Carter negotiated with the Iranians who held Americans in the Tehran embassy in 1979, unsuccessfully. President Reagan famously traded arms to Iran for hostages. The entire surge in Iraq was predicated on negotiating with Sunni “terrorists” who had killed American soldiers to bring them into the government and stop sectarian violence.

Besides, this isn’t a terrorist-hostage situation, it’s a prisoner of war swap, and those are even more common: President Nixon freed some North Vietnamese prisoners at the same time former POW Sen. John McCain came home from Hanoi. Even hawkish Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit last year. Such prisoner exchanges are particularly frequent when wars are winding down, as Ken Gude explains on Think Progress.

It’s true that Bergdahl was never officially categorized as a “prisoner of war,” since the Pentagon apparently stopped using that designation years ago. But he was defined as “missing/captured,” which is essentially the same thing. And while the Taliban fighters who were released were likewise not formally designated prisoners of war, either, because of the odd, formally undeclared status of the war with Afghanistan, that’s what they were. As President Obama said Tuesday morning, “This is what happens at the end of wars.” Imagine the outrage if the president brought the troops home from Afghanistan but left Bergdahl behind.

read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/the_right%E2%80%99s_unhinged_bergdahl_hypocrisy_the_ultimate_way_to_savage_obama/

Former Bush Official Blasts GOP On Bergdahl: Bush Would Have Done The Same Thing

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/06/03/3444366/former-bush-official-blasts-gop-bush-would-have-agreed-to-bergdahl-swap/

Why The Five Taliban Detainees Had To Be Released Soon, No Matter What

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/06/02/3443719/the-case-for-negotiating-for-bergdahls-release/

nt

End of discussion PERIOD

nt

Are you saying they got a pass for doing something wrong because they were white and Obama won't get a pass for doing something similar because he is black?

Or are you saying none of them did anything wrong but Obama will catch heat anyway because he is black.


This whole it is just peachy cause two corrupt administration s did similar things is very hard for me to wrap my head around.

It implies we should be just fine with Iran contra cause Obama traded prisoners for this guy.

Reagan was criminal in those trades comparing the two implies what Obama did is criminal as well.

all they care about is their own power - and they are mad they don't have the WH.

June 3, 2014
by Olivia Marshall

Fox News host Megyn Kelly endorsed the canard that President George W. Bush never negotiated with terrorists, an attempt to criticize Obama for negotiations that led to the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Taliban captivity. The reality is that Obama's negotiation is fully consistent with recent American history, including negotiations conducted by President Bush during the Iraq War.

On the June 2 edition of Fox News' The Kelly File, host Kelly asked former Vice President Dick Cheney whether the U.S. negotiated with terrorists in order to secure the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from the Taliban in an exchange for five Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Kelly used a 2008 speech from former President Bush in Israel where she claimed he "shared this powerful history lesson on the danger of trying to deal with the devil":

Kelly, following the lead of many in the media, ignored the fact that Bergdahl's release mirrors similar negotiations throughout U.S. history. In fact, Time magazine pointed out that President Bush, whom Kelly touted as having warned against negotiating with terrorists, "cut deals with Sunni insurgents in Iraq's Anbar province -- working with and even paying people who had been killing American soldiers" during the Iraq War. On June 1, PolitiFact wrote that Mitchell Reiss, who worked under Bush and presidential candidate Mitt Romney, explained that "There's little that's actually new here," "noting Bush engaged in negotiations with Iran and North Korea even after decreeing them part of the 'Axis of Evil.'"

read more: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/06/03/foxs-selective-amnesia-megyn-kelly-forgets-pres/199554

June 2, 2014
By jasdye

Fox News personality Todd Starnes is a plucky little duck. He likes to tweet dubious and outright false claims while frothing at the mouth. Which make his tweets actually both funny and bowel-irritating. How much barely disguised racism, chickenhawkery, lying lies, and blutherisms can one fit in under 140 characters? I would like to look at a week’s worth of Todd Starnes’ tweets to give you a taste of banana pudding-infused rightwingery. Put on your hazmat outfit, we’re going in.

How dare he speak so lowly of Ronald Reagan!



Three words: George, W, and Bush.


read more: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/todd-starnes-tweets-forget-reagan-bush-decency/

think girls should be educated.'

(My mother, expressing a very unpopular opinion in 1981; I still remember the indignant responses she got.)