Back in 2014, President Obama traded five Taliban leaders for one American soldier who, we were told had been captured by Taliban forces. Obama did everything he could to make the swap look good: He said the recovery of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was “a reminder about America’s commitment to never leaving anyone behind on the battlefield,” and the five Taliban terrorists were sent to Qatar, where they supposedly would keep out of trouble.
Seven years after this, Bergdahl is a known deserter. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to desertion and was dishonorably discharged. And now one of the jihadis Obama let go in exchange for Bergdahl, Khairullah Khairkhwa, is among the leadership of the Taliban that just seized Kabul.
Obama’s deal was weird from the start. Bergdahl was said to be as a deserter even at the time the deal was done. Former officer Nathan Bradley Bethea, who was with Bergdahl in Afghanistan, said that Bergdahl was “a deserter, and his fellow soldiers died trying to find him.”
Going against reports that Bergdahl was separated from his unit as he was out on patrol, Bethea said:
“Bergdahl did not ‘get behind while on a patrol.’ There was no night patrol. Bergdahl was relieved from his guard duty, and instead of sleeping, he left the outpost on foot. He deserted. I have talked to members of his platoon—including the last people to see him before he got captured. I’ve looked at the relevant documents. That is what happened.”
Three days before deserting, Bergdahl sent a message to his parents saying: “I’m ashamed to be an American. And the title of American soldier is just a lie of fools. I’m sorry for everything. The horror of America is disgusting.”
The Obama and Biden administration ignored these details, and made the terrible deal, and treated Bergdahl like a returning hero at the White House Rose Garden ceremony.
Now, the presence of Khairullah Khairkhwa in the Taliban leadership is proof of how disastrously self-defeating the Left’s foreign policy truly is. Jihadis will happily lie to get their way, as Obama’s team happily accepted the promises that the five jihadis would not return to the jihad.
Those jihadis saw these goodwill gestures as signs of weakness, a weakness that could be exploited. A weakness that they did exploit, all the way to Kabul.
Author: Scott Dowdy
