Page 28 - John Bellinger News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Many conflicts that involve living with our former enemies. not vanquishing every last one of them. even fox news viewers reminded of that basic historical fact when a former national security counsel from the bush administration was asked about this transfer deal. >> i do think this is a defensible deal. this is not an easy decision. and, and, the national security world often for government, you are caught between hard choices like this. so, certainly this deal can be criticized. but, you know, sometime in the next couple of years, perhaps as early as 2015, we would be required to return the...

Not releasing terrorists. interesting debate. >> in the "crossfire" bill richardson, and frank gaffney, deputy assistant secretary for defense under ronald reagan. frank? >> thank you. >> welcome. first question goes to you. the war in afghanistan is about to end. toward the end of the year. here's what john bellinger who served under president bush as counsel and the state department said about the end of the war and what it means for these prisoners and reiterated this on "the situation room." "the u.s. would be required as a matter of international law to release them shortly after the end ...

We got a deal. i think what john bellinger is saying, international law matters. and the further prosecution of the issues matters. one of the thing that's been missing is what are we going to do in afghanistan? the taliban is not al qaeda. they are a very large incumbent force that we are going to have to deal with even after we leave afghanistan. we need new look at the strategic context of bergdahl, not the narrow sense of one guy for five taliban commanders. >> those five taliban commanders, come out of a larger number of 600 people at guantanamo who have been released. most have not retur...

Out war crimes that could be tried by military commission. certainly couldn't have been tried in federal court. this is where, you know, i think the obama administration is a little bit hypocritical about this thing, oh, guantanamo could have been avoided, we would have tried all these people in federal court in new york. we were not going to be able to try the leader of the afghan army in the southern district of new york. and this is really the conundrum for both administrations of guantanamo. we're holding a lot of people, taliban and al qaeda, who indisputably have done bad things but coul...

I think what john bellinger is saying, international law matters. and the further prosecution of the issues matters. one of the thing that's been missing is what are we going to do in afghanistan? the taliban is not al qaeda. they are a very large incumbent force that we are going to have to deal with even after we leave afghanistan. we need new look at the strategic context of bergdahl, not the narrow sense of one guy for five taliban commanders. >> those five taliban commanders, come out of a larger number of 600 people at guantanamo who have been released. most have not returned to the batt...