According to the Obama Administration the trade of five senior Taliban leaders for Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl did not constitute negotiating with ‘terrorists’ since according to administration Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz the Taliban is not a terrorist organization, but an ‘armed insurgency’ instead.
The Obama Administration does not want to appear to be violating the long-standing American policy of not negotiating with terrorists, so it’s important that they be able to differentiate between the Taliban as an ‘insurgency’ and a terrorist group.
Throughout history the United States has been confronted by or supported insurgencies at various times and locations around the world. Fighting the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, the Moro tribesmen in the Philippines, and supporting the Contras in Nicaragua to name a few.
Historically our government for the most part supported foreign insurgent groups as a means of furthering U.S. policy goals and of stopping the spread of Soviet and Chinese communism during the Cold War. And our adversaries in Moscow and Beijing propped up armed insurgencies to use against us as well for their own goal of world domination.
Both sides did so partly as a way of preventing armed conflict between the world’s nuclear powers.Go after each other using proxies and we can avoid a more direct conflict that could rapidly escalate out of control to the point of using nuclear weapons.Something all were loath to do.
How the Obama Administration has handled the situation involving Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl shows once again the Administration’s complete lack of understanding of the military, or the ‘Warrior Ethos’ in particular.They have displayed that lack of understanding repeatedly over the past six years.To the military the ‘Warrior Ethos’ is a way of life, to the Obama Administration it’s just a photo op.
Anyone who has served in the military and in harm’s way knows the importance of being able to count on the guy in the foxhole next to you.The old saying “for want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and for want of a horse the battle was lost”, showing that small actions can result in large consequences is as true today as it was when first coined years ago.
Bowe Bergdahl wasn’t “lost”, he walked away of his own free will deserting his post on the battlefield.And by doing so he placed at risk the lives of his fellow soldiers.Had his unit come under a sustained attack, “for want of Bowe Bergdahl the battle could have been lost, along with the lives of his comrades in arms”.
But perhaps I’ve got it all wrong.Considering the Obama Administration and Democrat Party’s support of insurgencies like ‘Occupy Wall Street’, the ‘Ferguson Hands Up Don’t Shoot’, and ‘I Can’t Breathe in New York’ that are trying to overthrow the results of an election, maybe the Obama Administration knows full well what an insurgency really is after all.