Back in May 2014, Obama shocked much of America when, in stark rejection of long-standing US policy not to negotiate with "terrorists", he agreed to exchange Sgt. Bowe Berghdahl for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo. The prisoner exchange further raised eyebrows when it was suggested that Bergdahl hardly deserved such an executive action because he was captured only because he had deserted his post: a treason-worthy offense.
Naturally, the administration scrambled to defend the exchange: as Breitbart reports [5], back then National Security Advisor Susan Rice defended the prisoner swap for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl on the June 1, 2014 broadcast of ABC’s “This Week” by saying Bergdahl “served the United States with honor and distinction.”
Regarding the desertion allegations, she said Bergdahl, “served the United States with honor and distinction. And we’ll have the opportunity eventually to learn what has transpired in the past years.”
Rice also said that “assurances relating to the movement, the activities, the monitoring of those detainees [released in exchange for Bergdahl] give us confidence that they cannot and, in all likelihood, will not pose a significant risk to the United States. And that it is in our national interests that this transfer had been made.”
All of this followed what Obama's presidency has truly excelled at: a photo op.
[6]
Unfortunately, today was yet another day of humiliation for an administration whose most recent foreign "success" was arming the Yemen rebels with hundreds of millions in weapons [7] leading to their successful expulsion of the Yemen president (and Obama ally) when earlier this afternoon, the Army announced it would officially charge Bowe Bergdahl with desertion for leaving his post in 2009, his attorney said Wednesday.
More from the WSJ reports [8]:
Sgt. Bergdahl was notified on Wednesday that he had been charged with desertion and with misbehavior before the enemy, said Eugene Fidell, the soldier’s attorney.
The decision, set to be officially announced by the Army later Wednesday afternoon, marked the culmination of a closely scrutinized investigation of Sgt. Bergdahl, who was freed in a controversial swap for five Taliban prisoners held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Sgt. Bergdahl was captured by anti-American insurgents in 2009 after he disappeared from a small U.S. Army post in eastern Afghanistan. An Idaho native, he was shackled, beaten and forced to make propaganda videos during his five years in captivity, American officials said.
Last May, Sgt. Bergdahl was freed as part of a prisoner exchange approved by President Barack Obama that freed five Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.
The release triggered a wave of outrage, particularly from Republican lawmakers and other soldiers who served with Sgt. Bergdahl at the U.S. Army post in Afghanistan when he disappeared. Soldiers who served with him have accused him of abandoning his post.
Turns out the soldiers were right. But the biggest irony: should the US Army conclude that Bergdahl deserted his post, he faces a sentence of life in prison or even the death penalty. As such, Obama's favor to the young sargeant, who may have had a long if less illustrious life as a Taliban captive, may have cost him his life.
