WSJ: Release of Taliban Detainees Alarms Afghan Villagers

SHEYKHAN, Afghanistan—Taliban forces led by Mohammed Fazl swept through this village on the Shomali plain north of Kabul in 1999 in a scorched-earth offensive that prompted some 300,000 people to flee for their lives.

Fifteen years later, local residents here are responding with fear and dismay to the U.S. release of the notorious commander, along with four other Taliban leaders in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American prisoner of war who was held by the Taliban. The group released a video on Wednesday showing the hurried handover a few days earlier of the American captive, looking gaunt and dazed.

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Round Two: Airing Prisoner Abuse

WASHINGTON POST, 4/25/2009 by Ann Scott Tyson - Pentagon to Release Prisoner Abuse Photos

The Pentagon, in response to a lawsuit, will end a Bush administration legal battle and release "hundreds" of photos showing abuse or alleged abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan by U.S. personnel, according to defense officials and civil liberties advocates. ∴ The photographs, to be released by May 28, include 21 images depicting detainee abuse in facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan other than the Abu Ghraib prison, as well as 23 other detainee abuse photos, according to the American Civil Liberties Union and a letter from the Justice Department sent to a federal court in New York yesterday. ∴ In addition, the Justice Department letter said "the government is also processing for release a substantial number of other images" contained in dozens of Army Criminal Investigation Division reports on the abuse. Read more at the Washington Post...

And this will accomplish... what? Read More......