Reason infiltrated Bulls and Bears as a few panelists conclude it is economically feasible to release Gitmo detainees, but a few crazies loudly object.

January 31, 2015

The release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has caused a couple of the fear-addicted pundits on Bulls and Bears to lose their minds. In exchange for the captured American soldier, we released five detainees who have been reported to have contacted their former Taliban associates. The token liberal, Emily Tisch Sussman, provided the voice of sanity while the visibly disturbed Tracy Byrnes could not understand the whole concept of a prisoner swap.

Byrnes chimed in about how foolish the Obama Administration must be to think these released Gitmo detainees wouldn't reestablish ties with their own people (aka The Taliban) She is a fearmonger who believes we were letting people in through our southern border while secretly helping ISIS recruit new terrorists.

It's really serious and this has been something that has been bothering me for a while now. We are not taking it serious enough. ISIS is here. I don't care what anybody says. They're here

.
I sincerely doubt the Obama Administration is surprised that a member of the Taliban would reestablish contact with his own people. She's positively certain that this contact took the State Department completely by surprise. She said,

"this went wrong, this shouldn't have happened the way it did."

She has absolutely no knowledge of how we track and monitor these released prisoners, but she's already assumed that the Obama Administration, filled with careless, capricious officials who are perfectly happy with groups like the Taliban and ISIS, is botching this whole deal.

For the most part, the panel realizes that the Guantanamo Bay facility is bad for America with respect to our economy and national security. Layfield doesn't understand that we do have several super max facilities, one in Colorado actually, as Sussman explains, so he is incensed over the thought of transferring inmates. Sussman, along with Jonas Ferris and Gary Smith, see the logic in closing that costly facility in Cuba. The costs of housing a prisoner at Gitmo amounts to roughly $2.6 million per year. Compared this to the $70,000 it costs to keep the same prisoner at a super max facility, it is really not debatable.

Host, Brenda Buttner doesn't really understand that we have to release prisoners at some point, but this is also a woman who doesn't think government sector jobs are as important as jobs in the private sector. But Tracy Byrnes doesn't care about costs, because she's a "fiscal conservative." She doesn't want those criminals to be housed with our prisoners in a super max facility, because they are somehow worse than other convicted murderers. (?)

John Layfield believes that the Obama foreign policy has been a disaster. He has a big problem with the use of drones, but took no issue with the invasion of a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. He was the most vocal about the disastrous nature of all Obama foreign policy decisions.

The majority of Gitmo detainees who are released are transferred to prisons in other countries. They are not sent back out on the streets and we can all be damned sure the government is keeping close tabs on these folks. Had Bush secured the release of a captured American soldier, no matter what, he would be lauded as a hero. Since it is the black president, this can only be panned as a national security disaster.

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