A Total Moron Ruminates On Securing the Release of Bergdahl

This utter stupidity from the blog of Willis Hart...

Will Hart: "On Securing the Release of Bergdahl"... What cost would have been TOO MUCH? That's what I want to know. I mean, what if they had wanted the Blind Sheik and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as well? Would that have been acceptable to secure the release of this character? And the fact that people died looking for him. That's what really pisses me off the most here. Frigging douche-bag. (6/7/2014 AT 7:37pm).

My God! Is this guy exceptionally obtuse or what? Omar Abdel-Rahman (AKA the Blind Sheik) is Egyptian. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is Pakistani. Neither of these individuals was ever a member of the Taliban. We negotiated with the Taliban for the release of 5 members of the Taliban. Why would the Taliban care about the Blind Sheik or KSM? Answer: they don't. They wanted THEIR people back.

If al Qaeda had captured Bergdahl we wouldn't have negotiated with them. The Taliban, for the record, has never been designated as a terrorist organization (Source).

Also, as reported by ThinkProgress, "none [of the five] were facing charges in either military or civilian courts for their actions"... and that "when wars end, prisoners taken custody must be released".

We are at war with the Taliban, and the Taliban never launched attacks against the US on non-Afghani soil. They did "harbor" al Qaeda, but the Taliban isn't al Qaeda. In fact, prior to 9/11, the Taliban made various offers to surrender or expel bin Laden, but the Bush administration was uninterested*.

In regards to taking the Taliban up on their offer to turn over bin Laden, the Hartster (and his buddy Dennis Marks) have mocked me many times (for saying we should have considered it), but the offer was genuine IMO. The Taliban did not want to be bombed or have their country invaded.

Anyway, the point is that, with this post, the dumb-dumb again conflates the two groups by moronically suggesting that the Taliban would want to negotiate for the release of members of al Qaeda. Stupid.

*Note: That the Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden is a point made by Sheldon Richman in his 5/6/2014 article for the Libertarian Reason Magazine titled "Why You Shouldn't Blame Bowe Bergdahl for Deserting in the Fog of Endless War". I also wrote about it in this post from my other blog "Sleeping with The Devil".

See also: SWTD #259.

OST #17