The Bergdahl Swap Did Permanent Damage
Four of the five high-level Taliban prisoners Obama traded for an Army deserter have leading roles in Afghanistan’s government.
On July 8, 2009, U.S. Army Master Sergeant Mark Allen was shot in the head by a Taliban sniper while on a mission to find Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl. Allen, who died in 2019 at age 46 due to complications from his injuries, spent the remainder of his life largely paralyzed and unable to speak to his wife or his two children. Allen and his family, according to the father of a fallen soldier who served under him, are “the best America has to offer.”
Bowe Bergdahl, on the other hand, is the sniveling son of hard-left parents and the worst America has to offer. “I am ashamed to even be American,” he wrote in an email to them on June 27, 2009, just before he deserted. “The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is all revolting. … I am ashamed to be an american [sic]. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools. … The US army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at. It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools, and bullies. The horror that is america [sic] is disgusting.”
And this is the guy Barack Obama traded for five high-level Taliban detainees in 2014. This is the guy the Obama administration lauded as some sort of hero; the guy whom Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, ridiculously said was “captured on the battlefield” and “served the United States with honor and distinction.”
As our Mark Alexander made clear at the time, Bergdahl was a traitor who got American killed. Only the Taliban terrorists would assert he “served the United States with honor and distinction.”
In addition to Master Sergeant Allen, six other warriors lost their lives in the search for this dirtbag: PFC Matthew Michael Martinek, Staff Sergeant Kurt Robert Curtiss, Staff Sergeant Clayton Bowen, PFC Morris Walker, Staff Sergeant Michael Chance Murphrey, and Second Lieutenant Darryn Andrews.
Say their names.
It was, to be sure, one of the most appallingly anti-American actions ever taken by a U.S. president, that swap by Obama of Bergdahl for those senior Taliban detainees. It was also illegal, according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office. And the rotten fruit of it is still being reaped. Now, in the wake of Joe Biden’s surrender to the Taliban and retreat four of these five former Gitmo detainees now hold senior positions in the interim government of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
According to the Afghan television network TOLOnews, the Taliban-formed government gave leadership positions to Khairullah Khairkhwa, Norullah Noori, Abdul Haq Wasiq, and Mohammad Fazl. Khairkhwa will serve as acting minister for information and culture, Noori as acting minister of borders and tribal affairs, Wasiq as acting director of intelligence, and Fazl as deputy defense minister.
“President Biden still clings to an insane fantasy that the Taliban is kinder and gentler,” said Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse. “It’s nonsense. [Sirajuddin] Haqqani is the Taliban’s new interior minister for precisely the same reason the FBI’s got a $5 million bounty on his head: he’s a bloodthirsty terrorist. He’s armed, dangerous, and running a country we just abandoned.” That bounty is actually up to $10 million.
“Americans are still trapped behind Taliban lines,” Sasse continued, “the Biden Administration is still refusing to disclose how many of our people they left behind, and the State Department keeps talking about how they really hope the Taliban ‘will live up to their commitments.’ Pathetic.”
“Pathetic.” That pretty much sums it up.
