Afghanistan

See my earlier — in-depth — post on this topic, HERE.

In an appearance on CNN with Jake Tapper on Tuesday, former Army Sgt. Evan Buetow, U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s team leader on the night he disappeared from his base in Afghanistan, asserted that he had access to radio intercepts which indicated that Bergdahl actively sought out the Taliban. Following Bergdahl’s capture, Buetow alleged, the Taliban’s attacks on Americans became “far more directed.”

Buetow told CNN that, within days of Bergdahl’s disappearance, military teams monitoring radio communications intercepted radio chatter and telephonic communication which indicated that an American was searching for Taliban members who spoke English.

“When we heard that, it told us, okay, he’s actively seeking out the Taliban,” Buetow said. “And, yes, over the next couple of months, all the attacks were far more directed.”

“I heard it straight from the interpreter’s lips as he heard it over the radio,” Buetow told Tapper. “There’s a lot more to this story than a soldier walking away.”

..read it all…

Via Gateway Pundit:

Colonel David Hunt told Bill O’Reilly tonight that Bowe Bergdahl was a deserter.

“Bowe Bergdahl was a deserter. Bergdahl on June 20, 2009 crawled underneath a wire at his fire base with water, food, a change of clothes, a knife and a cell phone. He called his unit the day after he deserted to tell his unit he deserted… Bill, we lost 14 soldiers, killed, searching for a deserter. He left his unit in combat. It’s non-arguable… We don’t know yet if he joined the Taliban or not. But, there’s no question he deserted.

And according to liberal extraordinaire, Jeffry Toobin, CNN legal analyst, says Obama clearly broke the law (The Blaze):

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin claimed on Monday that President Barack Obama “clearly broke the law” by failing to provide notice to Congress at least 30 days before trading five Taliban members from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

Swatting down the Obama administration’s justification, Toobin argued that a presidential signing statement doesn’t mean the commander-in-chief no longer has to comply with the law.

“I think he clearly broke the law. The law says 30-days’ notice. He didn’t give 30-days’ notice,” Toobin said. “It is true he issued a signing statement, but signing statements are not law. Signing statements are the president’s opinion on what the law should be.”

Watch Bowe Bergdahl’s unit team leader tell Jake Tapper that Bowe actively sought out the Taliban, HERE.

Via CNN

Just when you think that Obama and his admin couldn’t do anything so egregious as it has already has… Obama and Co. go and do something so jaw dropping that you would think it is fiction. Really. For those that are not aware of the story, lets start with Twitchy catching us up:

An American soldier, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held prisoner in Afghanistan since 2009, has been released from captivity after successful negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban:

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was handed over to U.S. special forces by the Taliban Saturday evening, local time, in an area of eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. Officials said the exchange was not violent and the 28-year-old Bergdahl was in good condition and able to walk.

The announcement of Sgt. Bergdahl’s release was made earlier today (click to enlarge):

We traded five senior [again, senior] Taliban prisoners for a single soldier. Before we get to who the five Taliban prisoners were we should ask who the soldier is and how he was captured. CNN did a great job in telling the story at the top, likewise, Larry Elder catches us up with a Military Times article where he quotes from some of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s compatriots who served HONORABLY next to this deserter:

John Lilyea, over at This Ain’t Hell, smartly comments on the situation:

Since Bergdahl was “captured” or whatever happened, I took the position that we should all shut up about the speculation of the circumstances involving his capture. I heard rumors early in the news of his capture, but I always figured that if he had value to whoever who was holding him, he’d be kept alive – and no matter what he did, he probably didn’t deserve to be beheaded for it.

But, that’s all changed now that he’s in US hands and no longer in danger. I’ve been reading all of the reports on the internet from folks who claimed to serve with Bergdahl and I’ve read the lists of names of troops who lost their lives searching for him. But, I’m in the business of doubting everything I read that is related to the military on the internet. So, I’ll wait for the trial and/or the inquiry. You know there will have to be a 15-6 investigation (for an Article 32 hearing – a military grand jury).

I suspect that Bergdahl is a stank-ass hippie who accidentally joined the Army and decided to smell some Afghan flowers one night. I have no doubts that he thought that the Taliban or Haqqani Network would welcome him open arms, you know because of his inherent stank-ass hippie naivete. I have no doubts that he tried to escape from them at some point because, he escaped from the Army when things weren’t what he thought they’d be.

I also think that Shinseki resigned, along with Jay Carney yesterday because they knew the news would be swallowed up by the news that Bergdahl was released – I’m sure the news on tomorrow’s Sunday shows will be about the release of Bergdahl and how the President pulled off this great victory, and it will all be an attempt to cover up the scandals which are legion. By Monday, there will be no scandal about the VA – because Shinseki resigned and because “Bergdahl!”

…read more…

The Daily Surge also weighs in on the issue:

He had been acting strange, telling people in his unit he wanted to “walk the earth,” and kept a journal writing about how he was meant for better things. No one thought anything about it. He was considered a little “out there”.

He detailed his disillusionment in an email to his parents three days before he went missing. “I am sorry for everything here,” he wrote, “these people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them they are nothing and they are stupid.”

In another email he wrote, ” I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools,” he concluded, ” I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”

Later he took some water, a compass and a knife, left his weapon, and departed. Later that day, a drone and four fighter jets began to search for him.

Weeks of searching turned into months. The military pushed his parents and fellow soldiers to sign non-disclosure agreements. The US government knew full well that he had deserted.

There is no way to know what he told the Taliban. The truth is we lost good men trying to find him. PFC Matthew Michael Martinek, Staff Sgt. Kurt Robert Curtiss, SSG Clayton Bowen,PFC Morris Walker, SSG Michael Murphrey, 2LT Darryn Andrews were all KIA from his unit.

Sgt. Bergdahl should be tried under UCMJ for being a deserter and judged for what he did. Bergdahl is not a hero, he is not a soldier. He failed his brothers. Now sons and daughters are growing up without fathers who died because of him and he will have to face the truth someday.

…read more…

Dick Cheney Weighs In

Stephen Hayes over at the Weekly Standard interviewed many of Bergdahl’s mates, and ALL of them he talked to consider him a traitor. In fact, in an Interview on the Hugh Heweitt Show about the below excerpted article said that he doesn’t know of anyone from Bergdahl’s unit who disagrees with the position that he is a traitor:

In an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, National Security Adviser Susan Rice claimed that Bergdahl “wasn’t simply a hostage, he was an American prisoner of war, taken on the battlefield.” She added: “He served the United States with honor and distinction.”

“That’s not true,” says Specialist Cody Full, who served in the same platoon as Bergdahl, and whose tweets over the weekend as @CodyFNfootball offered an early firsthand account of Bergdahl’s departure.

“He was not a hero. What he did was not honorable. He knowingly deserted and put thousands of people in danger because he did. We swore to an oath and we upheld ours. He did not.”

“He walked off—and ‘walked off’ is a nice way to put it,” says Specialist Josh Cornelison, the medic in Bergdahl’s platoon.

“He was accounted for late that afternoon. He very specifically planned to walk out in the middle of the night.” “He was a deserter,” says Specialist Full. “There’s no question in the minds of anyone in our platoon.”

[….]

“You don’t mail all your personal belongings home, especially your computer. It’s not like you can go to a sports bar — there’s no sports bars over there,” says Specialist Full. “You just wouldn’t give up your computer if you weren’t planning to leave. He knowingly deserted and he put countless fellow Americans in danger — not just his platoon mates.”

[….]

One uncomfortable question that has vexed those involved in the Bergdahl case: Was Bergdahl merely a deserter or was he, possibly, a Taliban collaborator?

…read more…

Okay. This gets us caught up with who Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is, and how his actions have made him the bane of HONORABLE military men and women all across our nation. This next part has me wagging my head in disbelief. Walid Shoebat enlightens us on the matter. Obama had a Rose Garden press conference about the release that included Bowe Bergdahl’s father, Robert Bergdahl, giving an Arab prayer:

People are making an issue of the smile from Obama. They have valid points. It could also be a nervous reaction as Obama is flipping-out in his head about the disaster he knows is coming because of this call to arms in Arabic. Yes, call to arms. Shoebat:

…While the Obama administration is proudly touting how it was able to free an American soldier who was captured by the Taliban, what no one picked is the fact that Obama SMILED as soon as he heard the most famous war cry of Islam, “bismillah al-rahman al-rahim,” Arabic for “in the name of Allah the most gracious, the most merciful.”

[….]

The “basmallah” is the Islamic expression for victory and only indicates that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s father is a Muslim. Think that the man is acting as “Muslim” for a stealth operation to rescue his son who is already in good hands in Germany?

And what is with the long beard and trimmed mustache?

No this is not a bum, biker, or a Santa Clause fan. When one gives the basmallah, trims his mustache and elongates his beard, its the first sign of a convert to Islam, j

[….]

EVIDENCE THAT BERGDAHL CONVERTED TO JIHADI ISLAM

We were first hit with news from Brietbart that the Taliban said that Robert Bowe Bergdahl’s son, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, converted to Islam, changed his name to Abdullah, and even trained the Taliban in bomb making techniques.

And like father like son, the young Bergdahl, also trims his mustache and extends his beard, as [this picture to the right shows]:

[….]

But is it the speech with the Basmallah, the beard and the trimmed mustache, the testimonies from his colleagues on his desertion, that confirm our suspicion that these men are Jihadi converts? Hardly.

What no one in the media captured was Robert Bowe Bergdahl’s favorites on his Youtube account. It reveals a dark mind, a collector of a litany of ‘terrorist favorites’, videos from training on how to become Muslim Jihadist to urging American troops to desert and even favorite speeches by confirmed terrorists like Shaykh Anwar al-Awlaki, condemning America as a terrorist state:

WTF!?

This guy, who deserted his post, who has a whacked Islamic father, is who our men in the military died for!? We lost these HEROES…

PFC Matthew Michael Martinek, Died September 11, 2009 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom 20, of DeKalb, Ill.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska; died Sept. 11 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, of wounds sustained in Paktika province, Afghanistan, Sept. 4 when enemy forces attacked his vehicle with an improvised-explosive device followed by a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire.
Staff Sgt. Kurt Robert Curtiss, Died August 26, 2009 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom 27, of Murray, Utah; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska; died Aug. 26 in Sar Howzeh, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he was shot while his unit was supporting Afghan security forces during an enemy attack.
SSG Clayton Bowen, Died August 18, 2009 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom 29, of San Antonio; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska; died Aug. 18 in Dila, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Also killed was Pfc. Morris L. Walker.
PFC Morris Walker, Died August 18, 2009 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom 23, of Chapel Hill, N.C.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska; died Aug. 18 in Dila, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Also killed was Staff Sgt. Clayton P. Bowen.
SSG Michael Murphrey, Died September 6, 2009 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom 25, of Snyder, Texas; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska; died Sept. 6 in FOB Sharana, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. were ALL KIA FROM OUR UNIT WHO DIED LOOKING FOR Bergdahl.
Many others from various units were wounded or killed while actively looking for Bergdahl.

(Gateway Pundit)

…for THAT guy!? And Obama has a Rose Garden victory lap where a guy spouts an Islamic prayer?! I say again,

WTF!?

And, since when did the Taliban become anything but terrorists? Libertarian Republican reminds us of something:

From the NYTimes 2007, “Obama: Man of the World”:

Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

Something Shoebat also notes in his post:

Obama has never declared the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and has no real testimony of converting to Christianity, as his pastor Jeremiah Wright stated:

I made it easy for him to come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ is and not feel that he was turning his back on his Islamic friends and his Islamic traditions and his understanding of Islam From the Obama Admins love of the Muslim Brotherhood, to this… please tell me how this helps American security and moral? Now the Taliban are official “enemy combatants?”

The next step in this saga, then, is to ask the question about who we are trading that are non-terrorists and what the consequences of such actions may be. The Daily Beast has identified them a bit:

According to a 2008 Pentagon dossier on Guantanamo Bay inmates, all five men released were considered to be a high risk to launch attacks against the United States and its allies if they were liberated. The exchange shows that the Obama administration was willing to pay a steep price, indeed, for Bergdahl’s freedom. The administration says they will be transferred to Qatar, which played a key role in the negotiations.

In the initial statements released about the deal, the White House declined to name the detainees who would be leaving the Cuba based prison Obama has been trying to close since his first day in office.

A senior U.S. defense official confirmed Saturday that the prisoners to be released include Mullah Mohammad Fazl, Mullah Norullah Noori, Abdul Haq Wasiq, Khairullah Khairkhwa and Mohammed Nabi Omari.

[….]

“They are undoubtedly among the most dangerous Taliban commanders held at Guantanamo,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior editor at the Long War Journal who keeps a close watch on developments concerning the detainees left at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Fazl, for example, was the Taliban’s former deputy defense minister and is wanted by the United Nations for his role in massacres targeting Afghan’s Shi’ite Muslim population.

According to the 2008 Pentagon’s dossier on Fazl disclosed by Wikileaks (PDF), Noori also was a senior Taliban military figure and, according to his Pentagon dossier, was asked personally in 1995 by Osama bin Laden (PDF) to participate in an offensive against northern alliance warlord Rashid Dostum.

Wasiq, a former deputy minister of intelligence, at one point tried to cooperate with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and asked for a GPS system as well as a special radio to communicate with the U.S. military after the U.S. invasion in 2001. His dossier (PDF) says that he was a crucial liaison between the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalist groups while he was deputy intelligence minister. But the 2008 report also said he was holding out information he had on other top al Qaeda and Taliban leaders during interrogations.

Khairkhwa, a former Taliban governor of Herat, was considered by the Pentagon’s 2008 dossier to be a likely heroin trafficker (PDF). That dossier also says he likely participated in meetings with Iranian officials after 9-11 to help plot attacks on U.S. forces following the invasion.

…read more…

Here is more from Fox News:

Abdul Haq Wasiq

Thought to be in his early 40s, Wasiq served as the Taliban deputy minister of intelligence and “had direct access to Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin leadership,” according to an internal memo that assessed risk at Guantanamo. He reportedly used his office to support Al Qaeda “and to assist Taliban personnel elude capture.” He also reportedly arranged for Al Qaeda personnel to train Taliban intelligence staff. Wasiq belongs to the Khogyani Tribe and began his religious training under his father, Muhammad Saleem, who died in 1981.Three years later, he went to study Islam at Warah, a school located on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border near the Khyber Pass. When the Taliban assumed control in Afghanistan, a number of Islamic students, including Wasiq, went to Kabul. Wasiq has been accused by Human Rights Watch of mass killings and torture. According to a report by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Wasiq “arranged for Al Qaeda personnel to train Taliban intelligence staff in intelligence methods.”

Mullah Norullah Noori

As a senior Taliban military commander, Noori has been described in government reports as a military mastermind of sorts who engaged in hostilities “against U.S. and Coalition forces in Zabul Province.” Noori, who is estimated to be around 46 or 47 years old, has developed close ties to Taliban leader Mullah Omar and other senior Taliban officials, according to a JTF-GTMO report. Noori, who was named as the Taliban governor for the Balkh and Lagman provinces, is wanted by the United Nations for war crimes including the murder and torture of thousands of Shiite Muslims. Noori has been able to remain a “significant figure” to Taliban supporters and sympathizers. According to government records, which are based on conversations with Noori, he grew up in Shajoy where he learned to read and write at a mosque in his village. His father was the imam at the mosque. As a boy, he worked as a farmer on his father’s land. In March 1999, he traveled to Kabul where he met with Mullah Yunis, the commander of the Taliban security base, and expressed interest in joining the Taliban. After the Taliban front lines fell in November 2001, Noori traveled to Konduz where he was trained and worked with Omar. Noori has been implicated in the murder of thousands of Shiites in northern Afghanistan. When asked about the killings, Noori “did not express any regret and stated they did what they needed to do in their struggle to establish their ‘ideal state.’”

Mullah Mohammad Fazi

As the Taliban’s former deputy defense minister, Fazi was held at Guantanamo after being identified as an enemy combatant by the United States. Fazi is an admitted senior commander who served as chief of staff of the Taliban Army and as a commander of its 22nd Division. He’s also wanted by the United Nations on war crimes for the murder of thousands of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan. According to documents, Fazi “wielded considerable influence throughout the northern region of Afghanistan and his influence continued after his capture.” The Taliban has used Fazi’s capture as a recruiting tool. “If released, detainee would likely rejoin the Taliban and establish ties” with other terrorist groups, the Guantanamo report says.

Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa

Khairkhwa is the former governor of the Herat province and has close ties with Usama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. According to the Joint Task Force Guantanamo file, Khairkhwa “represented the Taliban during meetings with Iranian officials seeking to support hostilities against US and coalition forces.” Khairkhwa and his deputies are suspected of being associated with an extremist military training camp run by the Al Qaeda commander Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who was killed in 2006. U.S. authorities have also accused Khairkhwa of becoming a powerful opium trafficker.

Mohammad Nabi Omari

As a senior Taliban leader, Nabi Omari has held multiple leadership roles in various terror-related groups. Pre-9/11, Nabi, who is estimated to be in his mid-40s, worked border security for the Taliban – a position that gave him “access to senior Taliban commander and leader of the Haqqani Network, Jalaluddin Haqqani,” according to the JTF-GTMO report. Born in the Khowst Province of Afghanistan, Nabi Omari and his family were forced to resettle as refugees though In Miram Shah, Pakistan after the Soviet Union’s occupation in Afghanistan. In the late 1980s, Nabi Omari returned to Afghanistan where he fought with the mujahideen against the Soviets. During the early 1990s, he ping-ponged between Taliban-related positions and others, including a stint as a used car salesman. In August 2002, Nabi reportedly helped two al Qaeda operatives smuggle missiles in Pakistan. The weapons were smuggled in pieces and the plan was to reassemble the missiles once all of the pieces had been brought across. Nabi was caught in September 2002 and eventually moved to Guantanamo.

All this to say that these guys are really-bad-bad-guys, and that Bergdahl collaborated with the followers of these monsters. Besides becoming living martyrs in the Islamic world, what other deleterious effects does such a release entail for our military men and women? Dennis Prager opines well on the topic, mentioning that even if Bowe Bergdahl had served honorably, the idea that we negotiate with terrorists only increases the danger our military and citizens must deal with already: