The inconsistencies and suspicious aspects of Sgt. Bergdahl’s release and exchange for five Taliban commanders would strain the credulity of an episode of the national security drama Homeland.
Unfortunately, however, this is reality and part of a war in which thousands of Americans, civilian and uniformed alike, have made the ultimate sacrifice.
Those in the administration who authorized negotiations with the terrorists who are ideologically allies to those responsible for the murders of September 11th, 2001 will have to answer these questions:
- How did Sgt. Bergdahl fall into the hands of the Enemy? The official version is that he left his post without permission, yet on a video his captors released, Bergdahl says he was the Tail-End Charlie of a foot patrol and became separated. Which is it? Did he go AWOL? Will he be charged with desertion?
- Why did his father – who wears a full beard typical of fundamentalist Salafi Muslims – praise Allah in Arabic in the press conference with the Commander-in-Chief in front of the White House?
- Why did the Haqqani Network, one of the deadliest jihadi groups in the world, agree to exchange Bergdahl for five commanders from the Afghan Taliban who are not members of the Haqqani Network? Instead of, for example, for Mali Kahn another Guantanamo detainee who is a senior Haqqani commander.
- According to his friends and those that know him, Bergdahl joined the military in order to help the Afghan people and provide “philanthropic support to the war effort.” When did we change US Armed Forces recruiting protocols and start looking for charity workers instead of professional soldiers for our infantry?
- At the strategic level, what response will the administration have to all the allied nations, including France, Spain, and Italy, to whom we have insisted since 2001 that they do not negotiate with terrorists for the release of their nationals and who did as we requested?
- Lastly, what other concessions is the Obama White House prepared to make with the Enemy?
With this move, more than any other, President Obama violated a fundamental premise of American National Security which has both a moral and strategic rationale: that we do not negotiate with terrorists.
We do not negotiate with terrorists because in their willful targeting of the weak they embody evil, and because when you give in to evil, evil grows.
Now we have sent a message to all jihadists around the world: capture an American and America will do your bidding.
Dr. Sebastian Gorka has been appointed to Major General Horner Chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University and is National Security Affairs Editor for Breitbart.com.