You can argue that it was a legitimate price to pay for Bergdahl but very few will/should argue that it is a good thing that these assholes are out and about...

This is not a good thing...

"Yay... Murdering Uncle Joey is back with us after his most recent stint in the big house!"

Do you consider it unfair to consider the fact that these are not nice people and the world at large would likely be better off if they couldn't plan and enact methods of killing people?

that they've been released to Qatar where they remain under supervision and detention.

That even at the end of the year when they can leave Qatar, they aren't free to go as free men back to Afghanistan...if they choose to return, they will likely be arrested by Afghan customs or law enforcement upon entry into Afghanistan. For what they're accused of, it's nearly-certain that at-least two of them would be facing the war-crimes tribunal of the Afghani regime and be executed upon conviction? (You don't really think Karzai is going to pardon genocidal enemies of the regime, do you?)

To put it another way, they were released from Gitmo to a likely life of exile from their homeland and detachment from their former political movement. Not really that terrifying.

Afghanistan will likely try and execute two of them as you say. They are no longer POW's. But they face justice just like Bergdahl may.

... To try and then punish what we would think of as negative influencers...

My first thought was to find an video of someone laughing themselves to death.

Then I realized that it is just a pure form of naivety....

These guys will be fine...

According to the link:

"The mostly mid- to high-level Taliban officials were detained early in the war in Afghanistan (2001-2003) because of their positions within the Taliban, not because of ties to al Qaeda"

with the new invading American army, same as some did switch when it was an old invading Russian army.

All of them were ministers or aides or some position in the Taliban government that ruled in 2001, full details in the article.

Looks like at least one of them could still be in trouble, too. I didn't realize they'd released so much info about them.

going to regret this is the issue they went fully crazy with.

McCain lied that they are AQ/Taliban, even used "slash", because he is being so clearly exposed as a hypocrite he has now resorted to simple lying.

What exactly is civilized about them? When they stone women for adultery?

Qatar is not going to transfer anyone anywhere. They have said the Five are free to travel. They will travel back to Afghanistan at a time of their choosing and join the fight. In the meantime they will help direct Taliban operations from Qatar. Your comment about the Afghan government is really funny. The Afghan government controls parts of Kabul and that is it.

with the release of a POW. Ironic is what it is.

Thanks for the thread, Fred Sanders.

Let them rot in the shithole they created.

... advanced explosives or participate at the international levels of diplomacy with the USA.

Anyone who thinks they are stupid will be proven wrong... quickly...

You can't be stupid and survive in that social and physical shithole...

They are ethically backwards by our standards but have layers of complexity and subtlety in their culture that we never even scratched the surface of....

Oversimplification and generalization to hatefully paint a broad brush across an entire ethnicity. claiming them to be sub-human, what would one call that.

Any group that perpetrates the level of violence directed at girls and women such as the Taliban do, cannot be called civilized in anyone's standards.

celebrate release of THEIR POW's, but America does not, that is the irony.