Posted on 05/31/2014 8:04:21 PM PDT by mgist
Lake, Josh RoginMay 31, 2014 3:12 pm EDT In exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Berghdahl, the U.S. has released five senior Taliban commanders from the Guantanamo Bay prison. They are considered some of the worst of the worst.
The five Guantanamo detainees released by the Obama administration in exchange for America’s last prisoner of war in Afghanistan, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, are bad guys. They are top Taliban commanders the group has tried to free for more than a decade.
U.S. Army/AP 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.
While not as well known as Guantanamo inmates like 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Taliban 5 were some of the worst outlaws in the U.S. war on terror. And their release will end up replenishing the diminished leadership ranks of the Afghan Taliban at a moment when the United States is winding down the war there.
“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.
Iran has worked in some cases with the government that has replaced the Taliban in Afghanistan, but also has been accused by the U.S. military of supplying the Taliban and other insurgent groups with roadside bombs known as improvised explosive devices of IEDs.
Nabi held several military leadership posts for the Taliban and helped organize the al Qaeda/Taliban militias that fought against U.S. and coalition troops in the first year of the war, according to his Pentagon dossier (PDF).
This week’s secret diplomacy was not the first time the U.S. government had engaged the Taliban in an effort to negotiate a prisoner swap for the release of Bergdahl. In 2011, State Department officials held a series of meetings with Taliban leaders in Doha.
In Congress, there was bipartisan opposition to any release of Guantanamo prisoners. After the negotiations were made public in early 2012 by Sen. Dianne Feinstein the Taliban announced they were pulling out of the talks.
In the summer of 2013, the U.S. attempted a Taliban confidence building measure, the opening of a Taliban representative office in the diplomatic enclave inside Doha, Qatar. Karzai was also mistrustful of that effort and his skepticism was validated when the Taliban violated their agreement with the U.S. and raised their flag at the office’s opening, causing Karzai to have a fit and forcing the U.S. to abandon the deal to keep the Taliban office open.
Talks resumed in late 2013 and the Taliban provided a video proof of life to the U.S. military in December 2013, which had been a condition for the U.S. to continue with the negotiations.
Many in Congress will still be opposed to the swap, but lawmakers gave up their right to stop it. A small change in the Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed last December, now makes it only a requirement that the Defense Secretary notify Congress when releasing Guantanamo prisoners. Before the change, Congressional sign off on any Guantanamo releases would have been needed.
At about 10:30 am eastern standard time, Bergdahl was released from his captors. The handover was peaceful and happened in eastern Afghanistan along the border, according to a senior U.S. Defense official. U.S. special operations forces conducted the rescue.
The official said that once he was on the helicopter, Bergdahl wrote on a paper plate (writing instead of talking because it was so loud) “SF?” The operators sitting with Bergdahl responded loudly, saying, yes, we’ve been looking for you for a long time. Bergdahl broke down crying, the official relayed.
In exchange for Bergdahl’s release, five detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be released to Qatar. The US has “appropriate assurances” that Qatar will be able to secure the detainees there, a U.S. official said. The detainees are under a travel ban for a year.
The transfer took place quickly without incident, peacefully and without violence. There were approximately 18 Taliban on site.
U.S. officials believe Bergdahl had been held for the bulk of his captivity in Pakistan. They’re not sure when he was moved to Afghanistan.
The transfer was not negotiated with the Haqqani network, a network of former Pakistani defense officials and other designated terrorists. Instead it was brokered through the Qatari government.
Bergdahl’s parents happened to be in Washington when the news broke. They had come from their home in Idaho for Memorial Day.
Bergdahl is currently being held at a forward operating base in Afghanistan. He will be there until doctors are ready to let him go, and his next move will be to Bagram only when he’s ready.
The U.S. official praised this operation as a show of interagency cooperation—it was a whole-government effort that he said had been in the works for five years. “We really got traction in the last week but we never lost sight of Bergdahl,” he said.
For more Obama outrages check out my blog devoted to the subject.
If nothing else than for a few laughs.
http://obamaclarifier.blogspot.com
Relax! These guys won't fly any planes into buildings for at least one year. I'm sure the Barney Fife's at TSA will dutifully check their identification and compare it against the no-fly list. So BO assured us. < / sarcasm >
Thing is he is going to let them all free very soon, might as well get some cred for getting our guy back now.
It has EVERYTHING to do with the VA scandal. Obama needs a distractor, something to show that he is pro-military, something to show that he cares. Make no mistake. This is not about a POW. This is - as usual - all about Obama.
New chant- the Taliban is alive, GM is owned by China
.... heck ... it definitely looks like "Deals" were made and "Signals" probably sent to operatives for quid pro quo to be enacted. My guess is probably to bolster the faltering and tarnished image top the masses of our "Good Guy" President's facade while at the same time allowing the "Demon Nation of America" to be delivered just a little bit closer into the arms of the mighty Allah for her punishment and destruction.
..... Naaaaaaw ... the President of the United States would never do that to the nation he was chosen and elected by the people to protect ..... would he?
Active Duty ping.
Yep! Now wouldn’t it be a shame if something happened to those five....
all 5 of them better have tracking deviced stuffed so far up their a$$es that only a Hellfire missle can find it.
And the father of the deserter/”hostage” wants to avenge the death of Afghan children...
The new normal business as usual in America.
Where is the press on that? Even the defense press goes chirp chirp...
So much logic and consistency in this trade. /s
Send in the Drones.
Time for a doublecross
Aiding the enemy. Isn’t that treason?
Obama will laugh it off. What will Republicans do? Bash the president who ‘freed’ a US soldier in captivity? Yeah, that’ll play well to the useful idiots that smell Obama’s pants. I can hear it now...
“Well, you got some folks in the republican party, who want to imprison US soldiers for political gains.” -Barry Soetero
Track these guys.
That is what I was thinking.
Put a GPS tracking bug in their body somewhere and wait for them to reunite with their buddies. Have a drone circling over head and boom. No more bad guys.
And the second day the newly elected Republican Senate will vote for Conviction and Removal. And on the third day, let us all welcome our new President: President Joe Biden ...
He did not wander off base, rather he went off to visit his ‘moderate’ Muslim ‘friends’ in the community. He was seemingly raised by hippie wannabe parents to whom ‘diversity’ is a good thing. He was just following his early training by giving “peace a chance”.
Just another John Phillip Walker Lindh in the making.
It might also be added that our Dear Leader did not bother notifying Congress as He is required. He knows that the “Muslim World” will see Him in a good light, now that He has released five of their most notable leaders to Qatar, from where they will somehow ‘escape’.
I’m also very positive that the most dangerous of the Taliban leaders will honor this commitment by the Qataris, and likewise the Qataris will not look the other way should these dangerous men happen to ‘accidentally’ travel elsewhere.
Of course, it is treason, but the charge can only legally be made if Congress declares war with a named enemy country ... something Congress was careful not to do.
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