(CNN) -- Last weekend's release and the now imminent homecoming of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, held prisoner by the Taliban or its allies for nearly five years, are cause for celebration. Bergdahl was the only U.S. soldier being held in the Afghan war. The U.S. military does not abandon its own. Bergdahl's release is nonetheless controversial because of the price paid for it: our release of five former Taliban leaders from Guantanamo to Qatar, where, we are told, they will be monitored and barred from leaving that small Gulf Emirate for one year. There is no denying that the release of Taliban murderers was a stiff price to pay. Letting them go (albeit after a dozen years of incarceration at Guantanamo) was necessary, the administration says, because otherwise Sgt. Bergdahl's life was in danger. If Washington, knowing of an imminent threat to his life, had chosen simply to let one of our soldiers die, how would the American public react?
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Douglass Cassel: The objections to the Bergdahl deal raise serious issues
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He says negotiating with the Taliban, which was holding Bergdahl, made sense
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Cassel: Administration was justified in not complying with requirement to notify Congress
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He says Guantanamo remains a gaping wound in U.S. credibility internationally
One objection is that the released Taliban prisoners, who have killed before, are likely to kill again, once they return to Afghanistan in one year (assuming they do not slip away from @placeholder even sooner).