I don't think this country can stand
two more years of this POTUS...
He is doing
everything he can to ruin our country...domestically and internationally.
And now this:
http://news.msn.com/us/hagel-soldiers-health-required-urgent-action
Officials did not offer details about Bergdahl's health. National security adviser Susan Rice said he had lost considerable weight and faced an "acute" situation. Yet she said he appeared to be "in
good physical condition" and "is said to be
walking."
Questions persisted, too, about the circumstances of Bergdahl's capture; Hagel declined to comment on earlier reports that
the sergeant had walked away from his unit, disillusioned with the war. Such matters "will be dealt with later," Hagel said.
Hagel was
met with silence when he told troops in a Bagram hangar: "This is a happy day. We got one of our own back." It was unclear whether the absence of cheers and applause came from a reluctance to display emotion in front of the Pentagon chief or from any doubts among the troops about Bergdahl.
In weighing the swap, U.S. officials decided that it could help the effort to reach reconciliation with the Taliban, which the U.S. sees as key to more security in Afghanistan. But they acknowledged the risk that the deal would embolden insurgents, perhaps encouraging them to grab U.S. troops or citizens as bargaining chips for the release of others in U.S. custody.
Republicans pressed that point. "Have we just put a price on other U.S. soldiers?," asked Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
"What does this tell terrorists, that if you capture a U.S. soldier, you can trade that soldier for five terrorists?"
President Barack Obama, joined in the Rose Garden on Saturday by Bergdahl's parents, said the deal was struck because the U.S. "does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind."
Also Saturday, the five detainees left Guantanamo aboard a U.S. military aircraft flying to Qatar, which served as go-between in the negotiations. They are to be banned from leaving Qatar for at least a year.
Among the five: a Taliban deputy intelligence minister, a former Taliban interior minister with ties to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and a figure linked by human rights monitors to mass killings of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001.
Administration officials and lawmakers pressed their points on the Sunday television news shows. Republicans said the deal violated requirements that Congress be given 30 days' notice before any exchange of captives at Guantanamo.
Rice said "an urgent and an acute situation," which she did not specify, did not allow that time. "We did not have 30 days to wait," she said. "And had we waited and lost him, I don't think anybody would have forgiven the United States government."
Several dozen U.S. special operations forces, backed by multiple helicopters and surveillance aircraft, secured Bergdahl's transfer from about 18 Taliban members. He is believed to have been held by the Haqqani network since June 30, 2009. Haqqani operates in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and claims allegiance to the Afghan Taliban but operates with some degree of autonomy.
"I'm going to celebrate him coming home," said Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. But the release of "five mid- to high-level Taliban is shocking to me, especially without coming to Congress."
The circumstances surrounding Bergdahl's capture remain murky.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine quoted emails Bergdahl is said to have sent to his parents that suggest he was disillusioned with America's mission in Afghanistan, had lost faith in the U.S. Army and was considering desertion. Bergdahl told his parents he was "ashamed to even be American."
The U.S. has long sought Bergdahl's release, but there was renewed interest in his case as Obama completed plans to pull nearly all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016.
