Taliban: 1 missing US trooper dead, other captured

[unhappycamper]

Source: Associated Press

Taliban: 1 missing US trooper dead, other captured
By RAHIM FAIEZ
Associated Press Writer
Jul 25, 7:13 AM EDT

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Taliban have offered to exchange the body of a U.S. Navy member they said was killed in an ambush two days ago in exchange for insurgent prisoners, an Afghan official said Sunday.

U.S. and NATO officials confirmed that two American Navy personnel went missing Friday in the eastern province of Logar, after an armored sports utility vehicle was seen driving into a Taliban-held area.

In a telephone interview Sunday with The Associated Press, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the pair drove into an area under insurgent control, prompting a brief gunfight in which one American was killed and the other was captured. He said both were taken to a "safe area" and "are in the hands of the Taliban."

Mujahid made no mention of any offer to exchange the pair for Taliban prisoners. A local Afghan officials said the Taliban sent a message through intermediaries offering to hand over the body in exchange for jailed insurgents.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_AFGHANISTAN?SITE=DCSAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[DemReadingDU]

1. evening kick

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Aaaachooodrugdealing

Gezundheit.

[moksha]

3. Oh, no.

That couldn't be!
:sarcasm:

They got caught doing something that is not uncommon. I feel for their families and the one still alive.

[Hubert Flottz]

4. Hopefully the Taliban will treat their prisoners better than the

Bush gang did.

Bush and Cheney opened the door to Hell for American POWs.

[proteus_lives]

5. I hate what Bush and Cheney did but let's be honest.

Do you really think a gang like the Taliban would have played square anyway?

[madokie]

6. Have you read about any torture at the hands of the taliban yet

I haven't but maybe I'm so far back here in the sticks that info hasn't made it back here yet, who know.

[proteus_lives]

7. Really? How deep in OK are you?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3070111

http://www.rawa.org/yakw-r.htm

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2008/03/12/Troops-uncover-Taliban-torture-chamber/UPI-44921205376244/

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/TEN+KILLED+IN+AMBUSH%3B+Taliban+torture+four+before+they+died-a0183341148

http://www.minaret.org/iol/afghantorture.htm

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2009/04/17/4376383-taliban-style-justice-for-alleged-us-spies

[madokie]

9. I just checked out one of your links but fighting and dying is not torture, sorry

It's what happens in war, you kill and or be killed. Torture is a whole different ball game

Back in the sticks where they pipe the sunshine in is where I am, well not quite that far but back here a ways.

Edit to add: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4478014
No mention of torture here.

[Hubert Flottz]

12. I checked out all of those links and saw nothing about American POWs being tortured.

Not saying that it hasn't happened. But America can no longer bragg about being a great protector of human rights, since some of the truth came out about what Bush and Cheney and Rummy had done in their prisons.

[madokie]

13. Exactly

[USArmyParatrooper]

18. That's the dumbest thing I ever heard

Can you show a case of them even having American prisoners before? If so, did they come back alive?

The Taliban are famous for torture and beheadings. But yeah, doing it to Americans offends their morals.

[Hubert Flottz]

19. And thanks to the neocons America is also...

"famous for torture"

[proteus_lives]

15. Obviously you didn't check that hard.

"Taliban Torture, Execute 5 Afghan Police"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3070111

[madokie]

16. sorry but not our troops

you fail again

[Hubert Flottz]

17. Some folks still just can't grasp the fact that the neocons are probably

as ruthless, hate based and ignorant as the people they were using to scare the American people for eight years. Now that we are in the quagmire, getting out is not going to be easy of pretty. Backing the big oily puppet Bush set up in Afghanistan is pissing up the wrong stump, IMHO. I guess the Afghani people saw how the GOP ran elections in Florida and Ohio and decided it would work for their despotic gangsters in their country too.

[Hubert Flottz]

11. I haven't heard of American soldiers being tortured in Afghanistan

here either, but I live in West Virginia. Still haven't read about it...but I saw lots of pictures of Abu Ghraib though and I'm betting the people in the Middle East saw those pictures too. I'll bet they watched Bush lie us into invading Iraq in his SOTU speech. And heard about Bush bragging about having ordered the torturing prisoners only a couple of weeks ago on TV.

I guess if you're a draft dodger or an AWOL you wouldn't worry much about what might happen to the troops, other than claiming that you support them as a political tool.

[Hubert Flottz]

8. I wouldn't bet on it, but it's even more of a long shot now.

The neocons thumbed their noses at international humanitarian law. They made the world a more dangerous place for the troops.

[madokie]

10. No doubt about that

I'd be really pissed if this neocon bullshit would have happened when I was in the jungle

[Selatius]

14. At the very least, the Taliban could never claim to have tortured prisoners out of revenge.

Since the US has been using interrogation tactics that many would say is a form of torture, it gives license to the Taliban to push out the bogus claim that it's OK to do the same thing because the US government is guilty of similar atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, especially prisoners in US custody who died under unknown circumstances. Of course, this does not justify torture by any side, but it does tend to muddy the water as far as finding moral superiority goes.