U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl: the 28-year-old is free after spending
much of his adult life in
Taliban custody. Did the U.S. side pay too high a
price? This editorial
from the Afghanistan Times is in complete agreement
with President Obama's
Republican adversaries: yes.
Gitmo Prisoner
Exchange an 'Absurd Act of Deception' (Afghanistan Times, Afghanistan)
"The Taliban kill and get away with it, but some are
arrested. The Americans then knowingly set them free. The stark reality is that
the Taliban and their al-Qaeda fellows are likely mocking Americans for committing
this outrageous mistake. They are taking advantage of U.S. leniency and
unnecessary compassion, and have embarked on retrieving their imprisoned comrades
- gory masterminds of terror who shed the blood of our brothers - in a bid to
wage a yet fiercer war. ... Saving hundreds of lives outweighs saving one
soldier."
Four of the five senior Taliban detainees exchanged for the release of U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl: Has the United States crossed a Rubicon on negotiating with terrorists?
The
exchange of five high-profile and notorious terrorists from the U.S. prison in
Guantanamo Bay for a U.S. Army Sergeant [Bowe Bergdahl]
strikes us as a rather absurd and illogical act of deception. The U.S.
leadership is sticking to its guns that the move will bring forward a political
dialogue with the Taliban. The release of a few fanatical fundamentalist
guerillas cannot be construed as a stride toward reconciliation. Reconciliation
is the persuasion, or if necessary the coercive manipulation, of a belligerent
force, to get it to renounce war and concede to a mutual treaty. Let us not
misconstrue this flaccid one-for-five swap as an efficacious start to
convincing the Taliban to lay down their arms. Let us instead take umbrage at
this false pretense put forward by the unwise Americans who have greatly disappointed
us.
The
Taliban kill and get away with it, but some are arrested. The Americans then knowingly
set them free. The stark reality is that the Taliban and their al-Qaeda fellows
are likely mocking Americans for committing this outrageous mistake. They are
taking advantage of U.S. leniency and unnecessary compassion, and have embarked
on retrieving their imprisoned comrades - gory masterminds of terror who shed
the blood of our brothers - in a bid to wage a yet fiercer war.
Saving
hundreds of lives outweighs saving one soldier. The Obama Administration is
ignoring the facts. The U.S. doesn't want to leave its soldiers behind as it is
drawing down from Afghanistan, with a full troops departure planned for 2016. To
accomplish that inclination, the White House is resorting to any act, whether
sloppy or shrewd, to rescue its servicemen from the terrorists' clutches. As
the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan is at its end, Washington is
miscalculating the consequences of its faulty decisions. This should serve as
an eye-opener or wake-up call for Afghan leaders. The pseudo war on terror and
faltering negotiations with terrorists have taken a toll on Afghans. but not on
the Taliban. We bear the brunt of their blunders. The Afghan authorities should
realize that the U.S. is not in a position to steer the Afghan-led peace drive.
The
five released detainees were identified as Khair Ulla
Said WaliKhairkhwa, Mullah
Mohammad Fazl, Mullah NorullahNoori, Abdul HaqWasiq, and Mohammad NabiOmari. They were mid- to high-level officials in the
Taliban regime and because of their positions, had been detained early in the
war. All held prominent positions during the 1990s and were involved in
massacres and genocides in Afghanistan.
WaliKhairkhwa was
the Taliban interior minister and directly associated with Osama bin Laden. He
is one of the major opium drug lords in western Afghanistan. Mullah Mohammad Fazl commanded the main force fighting the U.S.-backed
Northern Alliance in 2001, and served as Taliban chief of army staff. He is
wanted by the U.N. in connection with the massacre of thousands of Afghan
Shiites. Mullah NorullahNoori
served as Taliban governor of Balkh and coordinated the fight against the
Northern Alliance. Abdul HaqWasiq
was deputy chief of the Taliban intelligence service, an al-Qaeda intelligence
member, and had links with Hezb-e-IslamiGulbuddin. Mohammad NabiOmari was a Taliban official
in Khost Province, associated with al-Qaeda and Hezb-e-IslamiGulbuddin.
The
five have been transferred to Qatar. Having brokered the exchange, Qatar has
agreed to take custody and has provided assurances they wouldn't pose a threat
to the United States, including a one-year ban on travel out of Qatar. The U.S.
also says it wouldn't have set the Gitmo detainees
free if they weren't sure about this. They claim they will no longer pose a
threat to the world and are now peaceful people. Terrorists, however, boast
psychopathic mindsets, are tenacious, and have firm convictions to kill. Once
they are unshackled, they will be unleashed to the world to keep up their vice,
and relieve their comrades in the battlefield.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
Certainly,
the released terrorists will be grateful to their leaders and be right back in
the saddle. Their evil designs are massive and the outcome will be the massacre
of hundreds of innocent people.
It
can be inferred that the release of these infamous Gitmo
detainees is the outcome of America's flawed war on terror policy, which will
have enormous ramifications that may be impossible to address.
It
is now evident that with a U.S. soldier in custody, the White House won't flinch at freeing
dangerous terrorists. This obnoxious trend will jeopardize U.S. and Afghan
interests alike.
