US releasing Taliban fighters

[Senator Clarence]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/07/us-secretly-releasing-taliban-fighters-report-says/

This makes me sick... these assholes not only attack our troops, not only are part of the group which executes attacks all over the world, but the Taliban govt oppresses women, gays, infidels- you name it!

Eric Cantor put it best about a different topic- "Peace at any price isn't peace- it's surrender." This may not be surrender in this war (though it's close to it) but it surrenders our values

[Grad Students are the Worst]

I don't know the specific details here, but every administration in modern history has done stuff like this.  They all negotiate with terrorists.  We're lying to ourselves if we think otherwise.

[pillage the village, trash the scene]

Disgusting.

[True Federalist]

It's a risky strategy, especially since the Taliban have not come to any sort of agreement with the Afghan government, but it is the essentially the same as the one Bush put in place to start getting us out of Iraq, and what's the alternative?  Hand them over to the Afghan government in 2014 or earlier so that Karzai releases them instead of us?

[Redalgo]

Not enough information is provided for me to develop a strong opinion on the matter. Some of the fighters are obviously hardcore idealists committed to the Jihadist cause. Yet one would do well to also bear in mind some members of the organization are opportunistic criminals who are profiting from the war economy, while many others are strongly convinced the U.S. is just another imperial power that has come to dominate their people and destroy their ways of life (i.e. crush Islam in all of its forms to be replaced with Western secularism, as a suspected initial step in a greater plot to impose Christianity). It would not surprise me if some actors within the Taliban were now ready to negotiate peace, or at least if many of their fighters just want Western forces out of Afghanistan and would leave us alone once we get out of their country. Without an explanation of what kind of prisoners are being released, how, for what purposes, and without having a clear overview of all the options put on the table I cannot confidently decide on if the releases are a good or bad idea.

One way or another though, in the long-term we can't effectively fight terrorism just by killing and incarcerating people. It's a conflict with many fronts, not all of which involve the use of hard power.

[Insula Dei]

I must confess I'm starting to get confused by the logic/rhetoric here. We're 'at war' with terrorism, yet we're also expected to indefinitely detain our POW's?