Bowe Bergdahl Trade: The Law Is A Minor Annoyance To President Obama
The President traded FIVE high-level Taliban leaders for captured Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl like it was a trade between the Detroit Tigers and the Red Sox -- and never mind any of that federal law business. Mike Lupica writes in the NY Daily News about the sort of guys we just gave back:
To get one of our guys back, five very bad guys are released from Guantanamo. All of them are senior Taliban. All are labeled highly dangerous. One of them is a murderous thug named Mohammad Fazl, who was an associate of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the supreme Taliban commander. Fazl was wanted as a potential war criminal by the United Nations, mostly because of the murder of thousands of Shiites.This is from his Guantanamo case file:
"Detainee is ... likely to pose a threat to the U.S., its interests, and allies. If released, detainee would likely rejoin the Taliban and establish ties with ... elements participating in hostilities against U.S. and coalition forces... "...Momammed Nabi, another one released in this deal, worked with both the Taliban and Al Qaeda. So did Abdul Haq Wasiq. Khairullah Khairkhwa, according to a detainee file obtained by WikiLeaks, was a direct associate of Osama Bin Laden; Khairkhwa also pulls a get-out-of-jail-free card. They are not just bad guys, they are worst guys, which is why this isn't quite the feel-good story that Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel want it to be.
...Five of them for one of ours. This is the kind of deal that gets you fired if you make one like it in sports.
Jonathan Turley notes that the President broke federal law -- and practice (of not negotiating with terrorists) -- in making this trade:
The release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American soldier held captive in Afghanistan, has been a source of celebration but also concern in Washington. While the country has long insisted that it would not negotiate with terrorists, it seems like it has been doing precisely that for years in working out a trade that ultimately led to the release of five Taliban leaders. More importantly, federal law requires notice to Congress some 30 days before a release of a detainee from Guantanamo Bay -- another federal provision that the White House appears to have simply ignored in a unilateral act....The circumstances of Bergdahl's capture remain suspicious. He claimed in a videotape as a captive that he lagged behind a patrol and was captured. A friend who works closely with the military in Afghanistan says that that is highly unlikely given the protocols used on patrols. Fellow soldiers claim that Bergdahl was a deserter. My friend says that he was told that Bergdahl walked away from this base. He is quoted as saying that he was ashamed of being an American and disenchanted with the mission in Afghanistan. He was listed as missing in June 2009, three days after reportedly sending his parents an e-mail stating "I am ashamed to be an American" and "The horror that is America is disgusting." Those sources say that he voluntarily left the mountain base.
That could put the President in a rough position. He declared that
"Sergeant Bergdahl has missed birthdays, and holidays and simple moments with family and friends which all of us take for granted. But while Bowe was gone, he was never forgotten"-- not by his family or his hometown in Idaho, or the military. "And he wasn't forgotten by his country, because the United States of America does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind."If Bergdahl is a deserter, there will be pressure to charge him, but the trade may become even less popular if he is sitting in a brig. Critics are likely to demand answers about his actions and alleged dissection while detailing the threat of these five leaders as well as their alleged Al-Qaeda connections.
Even the moms of deserters and traitors don't forget them or their birthdays. Boo frigging hoo.
Also, Mike Lupica asks the right question:
By making a deal like this, how many bad guys will get their ticket out of Guantanamo the next time the Taliban grabs an American?
Five words: "Reagan/Bush: Arms for hostages."
And what do Amy and her blog commenters have to say?...
Oh, listen. I can hear the crickets chirping!
Patrick at June 2, 2014 6:21 AM
Sorry Patrick, but your comment is totally irrelevant to the current situation.
To justify today's dangerous actions by saying that someone else did it in the past is meaningless. There have been numerous bad/harmful decisions made by governments and rulers over eons. That does not legitimize present and future dangerous actions.
Jay at June 2, 2014 6:31 AM
I'm trying to figure out what motivated the Obama administration to make such a trade,
His fellow soldiers are hopping mad, because more than one of them lost their lives searching for him.
So, bad PR all the way around.
As for Patrick's analogy, I was shocked and appalled that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil war, so I guess, anything Obama does pales in comparison. .
Isab at June 2, 2014 6:40 AM
I don't recall Reagan trading any arms for a deserter. So Bergdahl is Von Hayes, except that the worst thing Hayes did was not being a very good baseball player. I wondered about all this when I first heard the story on Friday -- we've all heard it previously stated that it was ironclad policy in Washington not to negotiate with terrorists, because it just encourages them to take more hostages to milk the situation. Then I heard who we traded, and it got worse.
(And in terms of realpolitik, you can argue that Reagan made a very effective deal -- Iran used the arms to launch its half of the Iran/Iraq war, which kept both countries busy and off the radar for the next decade. That's setting aside the moral concerns, but strategically, it was a good move.)
Cousin Dave at June 2, 2014 6:45 AM
Hopefully we put a GPS tracker in each of these guys, so we can tell where they are. I don't particularly like the drone war, but I can see how we could use this to our advantage.
spqr2008 at June 2, 2014 7:11 AM
I approve of the trade. Retrieving our last POW brings us one step closer to ending this.
Governments have been trading for hostages forever. This isn't new. These particular hostages have been out of circulation for 10 years. In the meantime, others have taken their place. They might not be the super badasses they used to be. Even if they are, they might lead us to more badasses.
And it's not like the Taliban was the model of restraint and war-time etiquette before. It has always been open-season on Americans. This changes nothing.
It's not entirely clear what happened here. If he deserted, then I think 5 years as a Taliban prisoner is sufficient punishment. At the very least, our own military should be determining his punishment, not abdicating its justice system to the Taliban.
If a mental health issue caused him to leave base, then he deserves treatment, not punishment.
At any rate, now that he's free, the military can sort it out.
Bergdahl is more valuable than any 5 Taliban because he's one of ours, whatever he's done, and I'm glad we made the trade.
MonicaP at June 2, 2014 7:53 AM
90% of the things the feds have their hands in are unconstitutional but they aren't going to stop anytime soon. Obama is hardly some shocking new development in political history.
Pointing out that they're violating their own rules and expecting them to be persuaded by your logical argument and appeal to fairness is naive. They have the guns, they have the power, and they know it. If they violate their own rules, so what?
When someone asks "Can the government really do that??" the only proper response is "The government can do anything it wants, because what are you going to do about it?"
No, really, what are you going to do? Write angry editorials on the internet, or (even more uselessly) vote?
Chris Rhodes at June 2, 2014 8:33 AM
Not all that happy about a deserter (assuming he is one) getting traded but think about this. "These particular hostages have been out of circulation for 10 years. In the meantime, others have taken their place." So now you have the guys they were replaced by fighting for power with the old guard. Pretty much what Germany did to pull Russia out of WW1. Return Lenin and have him further destabilize the monarchy. Not quite a 1 for one parallel but same principle.
As far as him being a deserter. Who the hell deserts in the middle of the desert in a hostile war torn country? I suspect his fellow soldiers just didn't like him for being a winny bitch. Someone made the mistake of taking the ____ him attitude. He goes behind a rock to cry in his porridge and gets captured. CO is glad top be rid of him but can't say it, guys like this affect unit cohesion anywhere. Squad mates assume he deserted because he's a winny bitch. The only way I could see him desert there is that he had a nervous break down. Which could be seen as mental illness.
Or we got all the info we could out of them and as soon as they were released a few SOCOM sniper teams (or contractors) dropped the hammer so to speak.
Vlad at June 2, 2014 8:33 AM
I'm just tired of all this relentless agonized hand-wringing over the stuff that Obama does like it's something new or unprecendented.
Wake up. We've been laying down for this stuff for decades, even more than a century, as Isab points out with Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus. I'm not saying I would have approved of either Reagan's actions or Obama's. Just bored with the selective/conveniently timed outrage.
GPS tracking implanted in those prisoners? Actually, I would have preferred bombs, but GPS works well. We can monitor them with drones, then launch bombing strikes when we conveniently find them near their terrorist buddies.
Patrick at June 2, 2014 8:40 AM
Just pointing out, indignation is good. Ignorance that suggests you were in a coma from infancy up until Obama's first day in office is not.
Patrick at June 2, 2014 8:48 AM
How did they determine that Bergdahl was worth five Taliban? Did the Taliban initially ask for more, but we haggled them down to five?
And five fairly high-ranking Taliban, too.
At this point, it seems we essentially traded Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Dizzy Dean, Sandy Koufax, and Ted Williams for Marv Throneberry.
===================================
With Bergdahl's possible desertion and his comments about America along with his father's comments about liberating all the prisoners at Guantanamo, this trade is going to blow up in Obama's face - much like the Iran hostage trades blew up in Reagan's (although Reagan took way more heat for using the arms sales money to fund the Contras than he did for the actual trades themselves).
Conan the Grammarian at June 2, 2014 9:00 AM
Via Eli and via Eli.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 2, 2014 9:00 AM
Via Eli Lake.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 2, 2014 9:02 AM
I screamed and yelled about Iran/Contra too, Patrick. So what?
WASN'T ANYTHING LEARNED FROM THAT DEBACLE?
So we've made a weak hand, even weaker, by giving back senior generals, in return for a kid that may or may not have been deserter... but with a lot of irregularities, traded for these guys.
So this leads me to believe that either the administration is remarkably stupid, or there is a much larger picture involved. Why has this guy been captive for so long, when they have killed many others? What is it that he knows?
The idea that once these bad guys are in the wild, they can send a drone after them is probable, considering everyone else they targeted.
In any case, the actions of both jr. and sr. Bergdahls are reprehensible... but there are always things going on in the background.
We usually don't learn of them until things go really pear shaped.
But, I don't see how making the bad old Reagan/Bushes Presidencies equivalent to Mr. hopey/changey, does much to help your cause, Patrick. This was supposed to be transformative and transparent, and all new an' stuff.
So far there have been nothing but the standard feet of clay, a bill of goods. Hope apparently misplaced.
SwissArmyD at June 2, 2014 9:21 AM
> I approve of the trade.
Over the years, you've demonstrated nearly uniform and detachment about the horrible losses others can suffer at the hands of those who are cruel or wrong-headed.
Jus' sayin'.
> Retrieving our last POW brings us one step
> closer to ending this.
Ending what?
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 2, 2014 9:44 AM
Sorry for the extra 'and'. But there's a pattern happening........
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 2, 2014 9:53 AM
Via Ihawk:
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/207867-bergdahls-fellow-soldiers-claim-hes-a-deserter-not-a-hero#ixzz33V6In5cp …
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 2, 2014 10:02 AM
That's a point... in regard to a lot of issues that matter to people, Obama has been far from transformative; he's been the same ol' same 'ol. Expand entitlements to buy off the client classes; continue the growth of government (and particularly executive branch) power; jack up spending and deficits, appease enemies, and pretty much continue the story that every president since LBJ (except Reagan, to an extent) has written.
Regarding Vlad's comment about the Lenin thing... hmm. That could be a beneficial effect. We'll see. I will say, though, that even from the tactical standpoint I don't like this trade. First, I think they could have negotiated a better deal; you have to admit that at least on the surface, the deal we made looks very lopsided. Second, this isn't the usual swap of espionage agents that has been going on for about as long as civilized nations have existed. One of those guys was wanted by the freakin' United Nations for war crimes. Imagine, a non-Westerner that the UN is willing to put on trial for war crimes. What must he have done to reach that status?
So why did the White House pursue this, especially now? I have to admit that I don't get the motive. The only thing I can think of is that it was a reach at creating a feel-good story, but even so, I think an hour's work by an intern could have uncovered all of the ways that this can backfire from the publicity standpoint. Even from the partisan politics viewpoint, it makes no sense.
Cousin Dave at June 2, 2014 11:37 AM
I get the feeling that the administration was desperate for a feel-good story about a POW to push the VA scandal off the front pages so they pushed ahead with the trade without fully understanding the situation. And in their haste they shot themselves in the foot.
With this fiasco, this administration has gone beyond the gang that couldn't shoot straight. It's become the gang that forgot their guns, couldn't find the bank, and left their horses untied.
Conan the Grammarian at June 2, 2014 11:41 AM
I guess that is one way to empty Guantanamo so they can close it.
Ben at June 2, 2014 12:24 PM
I guess that is one way to empty Guantanamo so they can close it.
Ben at June 2, 2014 12:34 PM
Jus' sayin'.
> Retrieving our last POW brings us one step
> closer to ending this.
Every single war ever has left POW's behind or unaccounted for.
So I guess by your measure, no war has ever really ended.
Which is pretty much true, but for a lot of really wrong, and wrong headed reasons on your part.
Isab at June 2, 2014 1:24 PM
And again, Patrick, you show your willingness to go through life without learning what a fallacy might be...
That would interfere with defending Mr. Obama - who absolutely cannot be held responsible for anything if someone else once did it.
Radwaste at June 2, 2014 6:33 PM
By the way, physics is also a minor annoyance to this Administration - which has just called for a reduction of 30% in CO2 emissions.
Hello? CO2 is the product of the combustion of oil or coal. These fuels are costly. It's not like the power company is throwing it away. You should see a steam turbine wheel some time. It's fascinating to see what looks like a jet engine fan rendered in special steels.
If you want 30% fewer CO2 emissions, you're reducing power consumption.
There's a very pretty propaganda piece called "Solar Roadways" going around Facebook nowadays, which ignores transmission losses and the cost of cable tray maintenance completely. So many people are clueless about the very nature of thermal and electrical power, and government will take advantage of public ignorance, just as they do with climate arguments and radioactive waste disposal.
Radwaste at June 2, 2014 6:44 PM
He wasn't a prisoner. He was a guest. He was a comrade. The fact that he survived five years shows that he had something the Taliban wanted more than a dead American.
I have a loved one who served in the unit Bergdahl deserted. Any of those six soldiers who died as a result of this Muslim traitor's actions could have been him.
Sosij at June 2, 2014 7:27 PM
CO2 is also the product of animals breathing.
And I hear it's quite important to plants as well.
Conan the Grammarian at June 2, 2014 7:32 PM
"CO2 is also the product of animals breathing."
It's also the product of the reprocessing of lime (calcium carbonates) that take place in the Earth's mantle. And from what I understand, that source overwhelms all the others.
Cousin Dave at June 3, 2014 6:53 AM
Indeed, per Lomborg, global warming thus far (and for some decades to come) is a net benefit to humanity, as crops are fertilized by the CO₂.
Eventually, global warming will, in aggregate, be a hindrance to our well-being. The bad effects will outweigh the benefits.
But for now, open your blouse and shake your titties, because these are the good times!
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 3, 2014 11:00 AM
And cows farting.
We're all supposed to become vegetarians because too many beef cows are being raised on factory farms and their flatulence is contributing to climate change.
Conan the Grammarian at June 3, 2014 11:21 AM
CO2 is also the product of animals breathing.
And cows farting.
So what you are saying is CO2 is a byproduct of Bullshit. How ironic.
Goo at June 3, 2014 5:58 PM
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