The Games of Bergdahl, the White House and Closing Down the Afghan War

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been released by the Taliban after five years of captivity and will soon be home in Idaho.  On the surface, this sounds like good news.  The only American POW of the Afghan War has been “rescued” and there will be celebrating in his home town and by his family.

Reality, of course, is a bit more complicated.  First of all, he was not released, he was traded by the USG for the release of five fairly senior Taliban leaders who had been sitting in Guantanamo Bay prison for many years.  So much for the American policy that we don’t negotiate or swap prisoners with terrorists.  The sophistry being used by Obama Administration officials that we negotiated with the Government of Qatar, not the Taliban is just that – word games.  It hardly matters who carried the envelopes.  We’ve released five senior insurgents in exchange for Bergdahl.  The five are supposed to stay under supervision of the Qatar authorities and remain in Qatar.  Anyone want to take that bet?  And now there will be even more of an incentive by the Taliban or any terrorist group to take hostages, in order to get colleagues out of prison.
Congressional Republicans are upset that the White House violated a regulation that says Congress is to be given 30 days advance notice before releasing any prisoners from Guantanamo.  The White House says this was a sudden opportunity and Bergdahl’s health had been in jeopardy and they couldn’t wait.  While legally correct, this complaint does seem on the picayune side of polotics.  Of course the Obama Administration didn’t inform Congress because (a) the details of the secret negotiations would have been leaked to the press by the following morning, and (b) all sorts of embarrassing questions would have been raised even before the swap was made.  Bottom line is that the White House didn’t want to be in the situation of shutting down the Afghan War and leaving at the end of the year, with the awkward situation of leaving a POW behind.

Nobody in the Administration really cared how Bergdahl had come to be a POW.  A fact that is looking more and more sleazy, if one is to believe the accounts of his fellow soldiers from June 2009.  He either walked away from the base that night intending to desert, or foolishly walked away with some Afghan “friends.” In either case, he wound up in the hands of the Taliban.  The likely facts of his disappearance have been known by the Army for five years, but generally swept under the rug.  What a PR nightmare that would have been – “GI doesn’t like the war and walks away from his post.”  Amazingly, as part of the charade that the Army and the Obama Administration wanted to maintain, the Army has actually promoted Bergdahl from Private First Class to Sergeant while he’s been in captivity.  Adding to the bad taste in the mouth is that six U.S. soldiers were killed in the weeks right after the “disappearance” while hunting for Bergdahl to “rescue” him!  No doubt the Army will now be handing him all of his back pay for while he’s been playing badminton with his captors.

The Bergdahl story is really an excellent lesson as to how Washington politics work and the concern of presidents to make sure history speaks well of them.  Don’t let the true facts of Bergdahl’s disappearance get in the way of a grand humanitarian gesture to bring home our only POW.  Don’t let a wise policy of not swapping hostages with terrorists block an exchange, nor any little regulation of informing Congress in advance of releasing prisoners from Guantanamo.  We’re getting out of the long (and probably long-term, pointless) Afghan War and getting Bergdahl home was just one more little tick on the shopping list of things to do.

No doubt there will be a ghost-written book out in time for Christmas sales by Bergdahl and perhaps even a movie deal by next year.  The Army should hold a courts martial trial of Sgt. Bergdahl, but the odds of that happening are about the same of the released Taliban prisoners staying in Qatar.  The Obama Administration will continue patting itself on the back and explaining how they honorably left no man behind – no matter what the costs down the road for its actions.  I’m reminded of the wonderful line at the end of the John Wayne/Jimmy Stewart classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, dealing with the issue of a good story versus reality.  A young journalist finds out that the Stewart character didn’t actually shoot bad guy Liberty Valence, as had been thought for years and upon which the character had risen to the US Senate.  His editor burns the journalist’s notes and says, “This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”