he served in afghanistan as adviser to general david petraeus. mark, i ll begin with you. you worked on some of these issues with petraeus in the bush administration. in iraq, let s just take the example of iraq, not even talking about taliban. in iraq, all of that was conducted under the normal laws of war. there were insurgents who tried to kill american troops, who blue up marines with ieds who were released back, am i correct? if you take a look back at the arguments during the early phase of the iraq war, there are going to be people in conflict who do bad things. look even further back, this is when larry was at the state department, take a look at the arguments over the taliban and al qaeda. there were nazi ss officers during the second world war who were treated as prisoners of war. if they were war criminals, tried and in many cases executed.
let s be very clear. he was negotiating and talking through our allies in the country of qatar and the qataris. secondly, they want to have selective amnesia, when the fact is the bush administration literally, not just negotiated, but paid the sons of iraq in the anbar province, ones responsible for killing american soldiers, to get a strangle hold and force al qaeda in iraq. so that is what is so infuriating here. let s bring this american g.i. home. let s heal him up, and let s if he desertsed, if that s the facts, let s court-martial here and bring him to justice. but to say the commander in chief did the wrong thing and to attack him way is conflating the issues, like they did by the way, as you know, as you pointed out, with jessica lynch. jessica lynch, great soldier, not a rambo.
about to take credit for something that i didn t do. jessica lynch was the first american prisoner of war rescued since world war ii. she was grievously injured in that ambush. 11 members of her company died in that ambush, including jessica lynch s best friend, who died next to her in that iraqi hospital in the next bed over. but jessica lynch did not go down shooting. there was not a bloody firefight and stabbing. she was not fighting to the death like that headline said in the washington post. incidentally, that article has disappeared from the archives. now you can t find it anywhere. it turns out that the group of vehicles that jessica lynch and her company were in, they were supposed to take a detour around the city of nasiriyah, but they didn t. they took a wrong turn or more likely a few wrong turns. and they ended up right in the city center. they were supposed to go around
jessica lynch was the first american prisoner of war rescued since world war ii. she was grievously injured in that ambush. 11 members of her company died in that ambush, including jessica lynch s best friend, who died next to her in that iraqi hospital in the next bed over. but jessica lynch did not go down shooting. there was not a bloody firefight and stabbing. she was not fighting to the death like that headline said in the washington post. incidentally, that article has disappeared from the archives. now you can t find it anywhere. it turns out that the group of vehicles that jessica lynch and her company were in, they were supposed to take a detour around the city of nasiriyah, but they didn t. they took a wrong turn or more likely a few wrong turns. and they ended up right in the city center. they were supposed to go around the city and not go through it at all. they ended up right in the city center, undefended, and they
exchange? one of the remarks the president made is this is part of what happens when wars end and cited presidents going back to lincoln in terms of the way other countries have arranged prisoner exchanges at the end of long conflicts. is the way the president approached this in keeping with that history, as well? it s keeping with the finest military tradition of our commander in chief, rachel. the republicans criticism, saying that barack obama s negotiating with terrorists, let s be very clear. he was negotiating and talking through our allies in the country of qatar and the qataris. secondly, they want to have selective amnesia, when the fact is the bush administration literally, not just negotiated, but paid the sons of iraq in the anbar province, ones responsible for killing american soldiers,