And Furthermore...

Controversy has arisen over the U.S. government deal that released five Taliban prisoners held for years in Guantánamo Bay in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier captured and held in Afghanistan since June 2009. Critics have called the decision hypocritical.

There is a case that can be made for the allegation. The five Taliban were arguably among those who had actually committed crimes, if fighting foreign troops who invaded their country could be deemed an offense. At the very least, they had taken part in hostilities and might, originally, have been legitimately detained as bona fide prisoners of war — a position that would be more defensible if only the U.S. respected the Geneva Conventions.

Compare those five men to the 78 detainees remaining in Guantánamo Bay who have been held there for 12 years or more and yet have been cleared for release for half that time. With the Taliban five headed for freedom, the cleared prisoners now make up more than 52 percent of the 149 detainees left there.

  alJazeera

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

As I’ve documented many times, even the promise itself was misleading, as it became quickly apparent that Obama — even in the absence of congressional obstruction — did not intend to “close GITMO” at all but rather to re-locate it, maintaining its defining injustice of indefinite detention.

But the events of the last three days have obliterated the last remaining excuse. In order to secure the release of American POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the Obama administration agreed to release from Guantanamo five detainees allegedly affiliated with the Taliban. But as even stalwart Obama defenders such as Jeffery Toobin admit, Obama “clearly broke the law” by releasing those detainees without providing Congress the 30-day notice required by the 2014 defense authorization statute (law professor Jonathan Turley similarly observed that Obama’s lawbreaking here was clear and virtually undebatable).

  Glenn Greenwald

Oh, but there are “signing statements.”

[O]nce you take the position that Obama can override — i.e., ignore — Congressional restrictions on his power to release Guantanamo detainees, then what possible excuse is left for his failure to close the camp?

He needs an excuse?

As Jason Leopold notes in an astute article at Al Jazeera, this week’s episode “has led one human rights organization to question why the Obama administration has not acted to transfer dozens of other detainees who have been cleared for release for many years.”

The White House has apologized to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for failing to alert her in advance of a decision to release Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay.

  The Hill

Oh, well, that’s okay then.

Administration officials have said in public that they did not have time to inform Congress of the prisoner swap because Bergdahl’s life was in danger and they did not know how long the Taliban would be willing to wait to finalize the deal.

They’ve been negotiating the deal for at least two years. A few minutes to inform Congress would have been too much. Riiiiight.