Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may have been an American soldier but he objected to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. His capture was either the result of extreme negligence or willful abandonment of his position. There is nothing honorable in the way he was captured.
“He deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 full of idealistic conviction that he and his comrades could push back the Taliban and improve life in the long-subjugated country. But hopefulness soon gave way to despair after his unit began to take casualties and he saw how US troops treated the Afghans they were supposed to be saving.
“'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,' he wrote in an email to his parents on June 27, 2009.
“Three days later, according to Rolling Stone, the 23-year-old soldier simply walked off his base in Patika province, carrying a knife, his diary and a small camera.”
Bowe Bergdahl: a darker story behind the release of America's last prisoner of war - Telegraph
The five prisoners that were released in exchange for Bergdahl are not low level minions. They are men of power and influence and are considered to be extremely dangerous to US interests.. According to The Weekly Standard published June, 2014, two of the prisoners, Mullah Mohammad Fazl (Taliban army chief of staff) and Mullah Norullah Noori (senior Taliban military commander) are wanted by the UN for possible war crimes including the murder of thousands of shiites. Additionally, “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” and “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.”
The third prisoner was Abdul Haq Wasiq (Taliban deputy minister of intelligence). “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.”
The fourth prisoner was Khairullah Khairkhwa (Taliban governor of the Herat province and former interior minister). “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.”
The fifth was Mohammed Nabi (senior Taliban figure and security official). According to the Weekly Standard, “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.”
Five of the Most Dangerous Taliban Commanders in U.S. Custody Exchanged for American Captive | The Weekly Standard (details about released prisoners on page 2)
Some USMB posters believe the alleged terrorists should have been released years ago because they were never convicted of any crime. That is a fair observation and I am also against the indefinite detention of any person regardless of the accusations against them. I believe that everyone is entitled to a timely and fair trial; therefore, we should either try or release every one of the GTMO detainees. However, it is the official policy of the Obama administration that a person can be killed without going through a formal judicial process when necessary to protect the interest of the US. I suggest that if a person can be killed without judicial process they can certainly be detained – even indefinitely – for the same purpose and using the same criteria. If Obama kept them imprisoned without compelling cause he is heartless and if these men are truly a danger to the US, as I believe they are, their release will come back to haunt us.
My question is: Why now? Why not years ago? Did it really take this long to cut such a deal? I can't be sure but it sure sounds like pure politics.
