The other day, the White House engaged in rhetorical calisthenics when asked by a White House reporter if this administration wasn’t being hypocritical when they condemn Jordan for a prisoner exchange to get their downed pilot back from al Qaeda when the White House traded five Guantanamo detainees for Bowe Bergdahl. According to ABC News;
[Deputy Press Secretary Eric] Schultz explained that the exchange the United States made with the Taliban — releasing five Taliban prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in exchange for the release of Sgt. Bergdahl — was consistent with that policy because the Taliban is an “armed insurgency” and not a terrorist organization.
It’s even funnier if you watch him explain it in this video;
World News Videos | ABC World News
Of course, the Taliban is indeed a terrorist group – they throw acid in the faces of children, they bomb public places in hopes of civilian casualties, they hide behind the population to launch their cowardly attacks. But, you know, since the Obama Administration has unilaterally declared that the Afghanistan War has ended (without a vote from the Taliban, Haqqani or al Qaeda), changing the name of the type of threat our troops face there is something we should expect from this group of pointy-headed scholars of history.
By the way, the “armed insurgency” claimed responsibility in a “green-on-blue” attack in Kabul airport which claimed two contractors’ lives, according to Fox News;
The attack came Thursday evening at a military base at Kabul’s international airport, and also left one Afghan dead. The Taliban’s claim of responsibility came in a message on Friday from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who identified the attacker as a man named “Hessanullha,” from Laghman province, just east of Kabul. Hessanullha “penetrated into the security forces and was waiting for such a target for a long time,” Mujahid said.
“Yesterday in the evening he managed to get to a crowd of invading and infidel American military forces where he turned his gun towards them and opened fire,” he added. “During the gun battle, Ehsanullah was also killed by the enemy.”
And, oh, by the way, one of those five terrorists that we released from Guantanamo in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl has tried to rejoin the Taliban, according to Lindsay Graham;
“[The prisoners released to Qatar] had some Haqqani people come to meet with them. … They’re reaching out. The Taliban five are communicating with people inside Afghanistan.”
However, Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a leading Capitol Hill voice on foreign policy, said all five are still in Qatar.
“I was afraid one had left, but they told me they’re all still there,” he said.
The Pentagon said in a statement that it would not comment on specific cases involving the detainees.
“However, we take any incidence of re-engagement very seriously, and we work in close coordination through military, intelligence, law enforcement and diplomatic channels to mitigate re-engagement and to take follow-on action when necessary,” the statement said. “The Defense Department has a close security partnership with the government of Qatar. We’re confident in our ability to continue to mitigate any threat that may be posed by the former Guantanamo detainees.”
Yeah, well, there has been a recidivism rate of about 30% among these Gitmo grads, so we can pretty much expect them to go back into the wild and catch up with their terrorist buddies.
