A Pathetic Prisoner Exchange - The Patriot Post

While Americans were busy with the weekend, a hopelessly corrupt Obama administration did a Saturday news dump that can be summed up in one succinct phrase: America now negotiates with terrorists. Five high-level Taliban thugs were swapped for American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held by the Taliban for several years.

And as sure as night follows day, the rule of law was once again kicked to the curb in the process. Current law requires the Secretary of Defense to notify Congress 30 days prior to any prisoner transfer. Moreover, they must provide Congress with the reasons for doing so, along with assurances that those released will be incapable of resuming activities that could endanger the United States and its interests. This law was enacted at the end of last year, replacing one that was even stricter. When Obama signed it, he contended it was an unconstitutional infringement on his power as as commander in chief, and that he could override it, if necessary.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel took a different tack. “We believed that the information we had, the intelligence we had, was such that Sgt. Bergdahl’s safety and health were both in jeopardy and in particular his health deteriorating,” Hagel told reports en route to Bagram Air Field. “It was our judgement that if we could find an opening and move very quickly with that opening, that we needed to get him out of there essentially to save his life.”

Move quickly. Find an opening. Save a life. While I’m glad for Bergdahl and his family, who is Hagel kidding? Or the president too, for that matter? Try this from Obama. “Sergeant Bergdahl’s recovery is a reminder of America’s unwavering commitment to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield,” the president contended in a White House press release.

Really? Try getting that despicable whopper past the families of Ambassador Chris Stevens, diplomat Sean Smith and Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. No one has ever disputed the fact the Woods and Doherty were killed by mortar fire in the midst of painting those mortars with a laser. Somehow the significance of that has been lost: one paints a target – at considerable risk, since it gives away one’s position – in anticipation of air support. That would be air support that never came, buttressed by the feeble excuse offered by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who contended that “you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on; without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.” Apparently radio contact with forces on the ground, as well as visual contact provided by drones – for more than six hours prior to these heroes getting killed – was insufficient reason to exercise America’s unwavering commitment to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield.

In other words, some unwavering commitments are more equal than others – especially for a president desperate to once again change the conversation from the VA scandal, and the creation of a Select Committee investigating Benghazi.

Adding to the current insult are reports that Sgt. Bergdahl may have been on the verge of desertion at the time of his capture. According to the New York Post, he first tried to enlist in the French Foreign Legion and was rejected. He also considered moving to Uganda to aid villagers terrorized by militias. When he signed up for his tour of duty in Afghanistan, it was ostensibly to help the natives rebuild their lives. He became disillusioned with the military’s strategy for doing so, relaying his reservations to his father in an email three days before he went missing, and bashing America in the process:

“I am sorry for everything here,” he wrote. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid.”

Bergdahl also complained about fellow soldiers. The battalion commander was a “conceited old fool,” he said, and the only “decent” sergeants, planning to leave the platoon “as soon as they can,” told the privates – Bergdahl then among them – “to do the same.”

“I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools,” he concluded. “I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”

Bob Bergdahl [his father] responded in an e-mail: “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!”

One night, after finishing a guard-duty shift Bowe Bergdahl asked his team leader whether there would be a problem if he left camp with his rifle and night-vision goggles – to which the team leader replied “yes.”

Bergdahl then returned to his bunker, picked up a knife, water, his diary and a camera, and left camp, according to Rolling Stone.“

After he went missing, the military went into CYA mode, pushing his family and fellow soldiers to sign nondisclosure agreements – but not before one of his fellow soldiers took to Facebook and posted a statement calling for Bergdahl’s execution as a deserter.

It remains to been seen how such realities will be "adjusted” by the administration and their court eunuchs in the media. On the other hand, what can’t be adjusted are the resumes of the five barbarians for whom he was swapped. You know, the guys who will no longer be capable of inflicting more harm on America or its interests. A big hat tip to the Weekly Standard for doing the work most of the mainstream media refuses to do:

Mullah Mohammad Fazl (Taliban army chief of staff): Fazl is “wanted by the UN for possible war crimes including the murder of thousands of Shiites.” Fazl “was associated with terrorist groups currently opposing U.S. and Coalition forces including al Qaeda, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), and an Anti-Coalition Militia group known as Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami.” In addition to being one of the Taliban’s most experienced military commanders, Fazl worked closely with a top al Qaeda commander named Abdul Hadi al Iraqi, who headed al Qaeda’s main fighting unit in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 and is currently detained at Guantanamo.

“Mullah Norullah Noori (senior Taliban military commander): Like Fazl, Noori is "wanted by the United Nations (UN) for possible war crimes including the murder of thousands of Shiite Muslims.” Beginning in the mid-1990s, Noori “fought alongside al Qaeda as a Taliban military general, against the Northern alliance.” He continued to work closely with al Qaeda in the years that followed.

Abdul Haq Wasiq (Taliban deputy minister of intelligence): Wasiq arranged for al Qaeda members to provide crucial intelligence training prior to 9/11. The training was headed by Hamza Zubayr, an al Qaeda instructor who was killed during the same September 2002 raid that netted Ramzi Binalshibh, the point man for the 9/11 operation. Wasiq “was central to the Taliban’s efforts to form alliances with other Islamic fundamentalist groups to fight alongside the Taliban against U.S. and Coalition forces after the 11 September 2001 attacks,” according to a leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment.

Khairullah Khairkhwa (Taliban governor of the Herat province and former interior minister): Khairkhwa was the governor of Afghanistan’s westernmost province prior to 9/11. In that capacity, he executed sensitive missions for Mullah Omar, including helping to broker a secret deal with the Iranians. For much of the pre-9/11 period, Iran and the Taliban were bitter foes. But a Taliban delegation that included Kharikhwa helped secure Iran’s support for the Taliban’s efforts against the American-led coalition in late 2001. JTF-GTMO found that Khairkhwa was likely a major drug trafficker and deeply in bed with al Qaeda. He allegedly oversaw one of Osama bin Laden’s training facilities in Herat.

Mohammed Nabi (senior Taliban figure and security official): Nabi “was a senior Taliban official who served in multiple leadership roles.” Nabi “had strong operational ties to Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) groups including al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), some of whom remain active in ACM activities.” Intelligence cited in the JTF-GTMO files indicates that Nabi held weekly meetings with al Qaeda operatives to coordinate attacks against U.S.-led forces.“

So how is the administration keeping these thugs from attacking American interests? They are being transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Qatar, where they must remain for at least a year. A 2008 Pentagon dossier characterizing them as "high risk to launch attacks against the United States and its allies if they were liberated?” No biggie, when the plethora of bad news preceding the mid-term elections must be offset.

Hagel was particularly effusive, contending that such an exchange “could provide some possible new bridge for new negotiations” with the Taliban. That would be the same Taliban who tried to execute 14 year old Malala Yousafzai for daring to get an education. Hagel acknowledged that reality, but only in response to a question about whether such a prisoner exchange would embolden the Taliban to capture more American soldiers. He contended they were already kidnapping young school girls and other innocent people. Thus, one is left to conclude no effort will be made to disabuse them of those inclinations.

Apparently you can’t teach an old terrorist new tricks – especially if you have a highly publicized, scheduled departure from Afghanistan to maintain.

“Trading five senior Taliban leaders from detention in Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl’s release may have consequences for the rest of our forces and all Americans. Our terrorist adversaries now have a strong incentive to capture Americans. That incentive will put our forces in Afghanistan and around the world at even greater risk,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. McKeon (R-CA) and the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, James M. Inhofe (R-OK), said in a joint statement.

So what? When everything the Obama administration does is politically motivated, American men and women in harm’s way should expect nothing less. How far we have come from the Democrat party’s and the president’s contention that Afghanistan was the “good war.” Who could have imagined they meant good for Democrats first, and America second – assuming Americans matter at all?

The Patriot Post® · A Pathetic Prisoner Exchange