The United States is considering the release of five high-level Taliban prisoners from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to reciprocate for the Taliban’s announcement recently that it is prepared to open a political office in Qatar to conduct negotiations “with the international community.” Controversy has centered on the fact that we would release not only two former Taliban provincial governors, a former top Taliban intelligence official, and a major Taliban financier, but also former Taliban Deputy Defense Minister Mohammed Fazl, a “high-risk detainee” alleged to have killed thousands of innocent Afghan Shiite Muslims between 1998 and 2001.
However, another reason that this exchange should cause dyspepsia is because John Walker Lindh, a low-level foot soldier in the Taliban — and an American no less — is serving a stiff 20-year sentence for two relatively minor charges because he had the misfortune of being a defendant in the first terrorism prosecution in the United States after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
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