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The US has been secretly holding talks with Hamas for months Buzzfeed reported Thursday, despite its official stance that it would (not?) negotiate with the terrorist organization. “Our administration needed to hear from them that this unity government would move toward democratic elections, and toward a more peaceful resolution with the entire region,” a US official stated to the “social news” site, on condition of anonymity. “It was important to have that line of communication.” US officials have publicly denied the charges, however, leading to confusion over the report’s veracity. …

US Ambassador Robert Ford resigned from his State Department post a month ago, after a long and difficult time as the envoy to Syria. Ford showed great personal courage in his service while Bashar al-Assad instigated attacks on Western embassies and eventually provoked a massive civil war which has turned into a regional threat, thanks to the collapse of his power in large regions of Syria. The collapse of American policy in Syria over the past year was presumed to have prompted Ford’s departure, which he confirms with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview today.This is interesting for more...

If the Bergdahl uproar feels creepily reminiscent of the Benghazi uproar, or the Syrian "red line" uproar, or the choose-your-own- Obama -foreign-adventure uproar, it's because they all have a common denominator. This is what happens when political hacks formally take over foreign policy. It's the "formal" point that bears some meditation. Barack Obama isn't the first president to make foreign-policy decisions on the basis of domestic political calculations. He does, however, win the distinction of being the first president to utterly disregard—to treat with contempt—the institutions and procedures that were designed to help the commander in chief insulate the serious...

Just Breaking on AP wires.......I have heard it all now.......lies lies and more lies.

An Obama administration official has floated the idea that Bowe Bergdahl was justified in deserting his platoon in Afghanistan and joining the Taliban over disagreements with the platoon's leadership. Brandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Housing and Urban Development posted a series of tweets Wednesday evening in which he speculated that Bergdahl deserted over bad leadership of his platoon and that is why his fellow soldiers were smearing him."Here's the thing about Bergdahl and the Jump-to-Conclusions mats: What if his platoon was long on psychopaths and short on leadership? (1/5)"" What if he grew...

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Wednesday evening lashed out at “un-American” rush to judgment over the military record of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, following an all-senators briefing on the prisoner swap that led to the soldier’s release. One of the last senators to leave the two-hour meeting with administration officials, McCaskill said she hopes that eventually all the facts surrounding Bergdahl’s service are declassified “in fairness to the soldier and his family.” “What’s unfortunate is that many people have spoken out about this episode without having all the facts,” McCaskill said in an interview. “I’m not going to make a judgment....

(CNSNews.com) – Amid reports that Qatar will allow five senior Taliban terrorists freed from Guantanamo Bay in the controversial Bergdahl exchange to move around freely, a State Department spokeswoman on Tuesday repeatedly declined to discuss “specifics” of the agreement struck with Qatar. Marie Harf said the deal involved “very sensitive diplomatic negotiations” involving the Gulf state and there were “probably very good reasons” not to make the details public.

Family members of an American woman and Canadian man who went missing in Afghanistan in 2012 have released videos showing the couple captive. Caitlan Coleman, sat next to Joshua Boyle, appeals to "my president, Barack Obama" for help. The videos were emailed to Ms Coleman's family by an Afghan man months after she and Mr Boyle went missing. The families of the captive couple said they decided to make the videos public because of Bowe Bergdahl's release. They said their were disappointed the two were not freed as part of a prisoner swap deal that led to US soldier, Sgt...

Time magazine is rushing to President Obama´s side to defend him against the charge that he negotiated with terrorists to secure the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The magazine tells readers that the maxim that America doesn´t negotiate with terrorists is more of a general ideal than a hard-bound policy and cites several other presidents who, the magazine claims, did negotiate with terrorists. Time notes that during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis Jimmy Carter negotiated with the Iranian Mullahs who took over Iran after deposing the Shah. Reagan also negotiated with the Mullahs, Time notes. Of course, in both cases

Just when it seemed like the outrage on the political right over Benghazi had subsided to the point where only the announcement of House hearings put it back in the headlines, the exchange of captive U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl for five senior Taliban fighters at Guantanamo Bay came along. Now President Obama finds himself amid another foreign policy and national security controversy with fresh legs that even features Susan Rice — the White House official who played a prominent early role in the Benghazi controversy — making an encore. While it's still too soon to know whether the trade for...

Congratulations, Mr. President! And identical congrats to your sorcerer’s apprentice, National Security Adviser Susan Rice. By trying to sell him as an American hero, you’ve turned a deserter already despised by soldiers in the know into quite possibly the most-hated individual soldier in the history of our military. I have never witnessed such outrage from our troops. Exhibit A: Ms. Rice. In one of the most tone-deaf statements in White House history (we’re making a lot of history here), the national-security advisor, on a Sunday talk show, described Bergdahl as having served “with honor and distinction.” Those serving in uniform...

Chuck Todd told Matt Lauer on Wednesday that the White House was “caught flat-footed” on the backlash against the prisoner swap for Sergeant Bergdahl. “I’ve had a few aides describe it to me as ‘we didn’t know that they were going to Swift Boat Bergdahl’,” Todd said, “And Matt, of course, that’s a reference to that political fight back in 2004 over John Kerry’s military service which became so controversial in that campaign. So there’s some fighting words there.”

State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf engaged in a heated exchange Tuesday with a reporter over the circumstances surrounding Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl’s capture five years ago, saying she does not think his squad mates have the best idea of what happened when he disappeared. When Fox News reporter Lucas Tomlinson asked, “Does the State Department consider Sergeant Bergdahl to be a deserter?” Harf replied, “The State Department — no, Lucas. Look, what we’ve said is we are going to learn the facts about what happened here.” “He’s been in captivity, Lucas. I think he’s probably the person who knows...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — White House aides are accusing soldiers who served with Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl are “swift boating” him following his release over the weekend after five years in captivity. NBC News’ Chuck Todd reported Monday that the White House did not expect this sort of vitriolic backlash exchanging five high-level Taliban members held at Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl, who left his Army post in 2009 in Afghanistan and was subsequently taken captive. “They did not expect this backlash on Bergdahl himself,” Todd reported on NBC’s “Today.” I’ve had a few aides describe it to me as we didn’t...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Todd: White House was 'caught off guard' MSNBC’S Chuck Todd observed Tuesday that the White House was “caught off guard” by the disastrous public roll out of their prisoner exchange for Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Todd and Andrea Mitchell agreed that the White House had likely thought there would be “some euphoria around this, the only POW that was remaining in Afghanistan, that there would be a rally around the flag. That didn’t happen.” “They were expecting criticisms of Gitmo, criticisms of the detainees that were chosen,” Todd said. “They did not expect this criticism of the attempt to...

@daqeqa Agree! "Democracy" is a cult in the West. I think most of afgs see law in terms of sharia not secular democracy, man centric laws.

This morning on WMALs “Morning on the Mall” radio show with hosts Brian and Larry I was asked a simple question relating to the Taliban prisoner release and impeachment of the president. I responded yes that in this current case, the U.S. House of Representatives should file articles of impeachment against Barack Hussein Obama.

The governing theory of President Barack Obama's foreign policy swung into full view today - after a number of out-of-town tryouts - when Pulitzer Prize winning writer Thomas Freidman wrote in his Sunday New York Times Column: "When President Obama sits down to write his foreign policy memoir he may be tempted to use as his book title the four words he reportedly uses privately to summarize the Obama doctrine: 'Don't Do Stupid Stuff' (with 'stuff' sometimes defined more spicily)." · The reason Friedman was so circumspect about the quote ("? he reportedly uses ?") is because Obama has been...

THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya. Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison. The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer. The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens...

1.) If they believe that the Taliban aren't terrorists, then is this behind their reasoning that no negotiations took place with terrorists in the release of Bowe Bergdahl for 5 GITMO detainees? 2.) If they state that there was a third party involved (Qatar) and thus neither side (the WH or the Taliban) spoke directly with each other, then does that constitute their position that no negotiations took place with terrorists? The problem with #1 is that when the WH slammed Karzai over some of his statements concerning joining the Taliban, what could/can the WH say to Karzai now? Breitbart.com...