Toe, may I paraphrase you?
"It always amazes me how many experts come out of
the woodwork, after watching a few 15 second videos,
or reading an article online. Judge, jury, and
executioner? "Just leave the bastard behind."
let's change "Just leave the bastard behind" to
" no matter how many more military and civilian lives will be lost"
or some such.
Katiebee is correct.
" Let's face facts. The Taliban etc, have held far fewer
of our people than we do of theirs. That they tend to
kill them rather than keep prisoners is a fact of their
screwed up values and beliefs. So any prisoner
exchange would of course be asymmetrical."
seems some military theorist once said " know your enemy". theoretically this means not playing up to his strengths. now they have one less prisoner and five more upper echelon "heroes" to pursue their objectives.
perhaps our purpose is not to win this war, but to waste lives.
now that's a political reason.
seems we have really learned nothing from our experiences in Nam.