[waps]

> What I find more outrageous was that the reporter apparently was held captive for 2 years... without anyone (in the public) knowing. Bergdahl was held captive for 5 years and luckily was returned in a controversial exchange. What is going on that we are not able to protect and/or recover our people?

I feel like I'm stating the obvious, but here goes : the US cannot protect every one of it's citizens from every external force. Not abroad, and not in America. Terrorist forces who recruit out of a near-global pool of 1 billion muslims, who effectively have presence everywhere, there's no way. If you think about this for 5 minutes, you'd realize that even a genocidal police state wouldn't be able to do that.

> Seems to send a clear message that if you get captured by an extremists group like ISIS, the government won't come running in to save you, nor will the public even know you are missing -- fore the government doesn't want to stir public opinion into favoring some sort of military action. So, in essence -- you are all alone out there, potentially for years, or worse. -- That is outrageous to me.

That's the message islam wants to spread, yes. Of course, the opposite is true [1]. The US military tried to rescue him (and others) and failed due to lacking intelligence.

[1] http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-syria-hosta...

[Alupis]

> Terrorist forces who recruit out of a near-global pool of 1 billion muslims, who effectively have presence everywhere

Just want us to be careful here -- you don't have to be a Muslim to be a terrorist -- and not all terrorist's are Muslims.

[waps]

I'm not arguing otherwise. I fear though, that that distinction only matters as long as the number of terrorists is small enough. Evidently, that number has been growing by a lot. So while I believe that every person has the right to be judged on his own, I fear that we will not realistically have that choice for much longer.