Deal doesn’t make sense on the face of it and it really looks like someone f’d up. But, I am taking a few things into account (one question).
The US can easily take these guys out just by knowing where they are.
Who are the Taliban guys that were released? I haven’t been following this very closely. It is entirely possible that one of these guys is being run by the US, which would make this a win-win for the US.
By negotiating this release it can be argued that the US won simply by preventing another terrorist incident (beheading of a US soldier on live internet stream, or some such thing). There are places in the world were the US has killed a lot of people and destroyed their homes and families. The people there hate the US. There is no shortage of terrorist recruits, so maybe releasing these five guys (I don’t know who they are) is not as big a deal as it first appears. Value is more important than numbers.
That’s impossible. Everyone knows dwarves are incorruptible. You can give them rings of power to try to enslave them, but you’ll just magnify their lust for gold (which can indirectly bring about evil events) but they can’t be turned by the enemy.
I think it’d send a real message to get him back, and then put him on trial for desertion and costing all those lives because he didn’t want to play soldier anymore.
Then put him in front of a televised firing squad. But Obama doesn’t have the stones to do that. He tried to do a ‘no man left behind’ PR stunt and it backfired horribly because they chose the wrong guy to repatriate.
Maybe one of the terrorists (or all five)? are undercover agents, or turned by the CIA. You would figure one would want to trade them for a higher value prisoner though. Perhaps this guy was all that was available.