{"id":30002,"date":"2012-05-17T13:45:21","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T17:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=30002"},"modified":"2012-05-17T17:02:45","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T21:02:45","slug":"time-the-bergdahl-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=30002","title":{"rendered":"Time: The Bergdahl negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time, Inc.<\/a> sent us a link to their recent article which takes a look at the negotiations with the Taliban for the release of SGT Bowe Bergdahl, the Taliban’s sole living American soldier POW. They take a look at the home life of his family in Idaho while they wait and lobby the Obama Administration for their son’s release. <\/p>\n

I know there is speculation in the military community about the circumstances surrounding his capture – I’ve heard it all – but until we get this American Army sergeant home to his family and in the arms of his countrymen, we should lay that speculation aside for the moment.<\/p>\n

According to his captors, Bergdahl didn’t make their lives easy. The Haqqanis says that he escaped once;<\/p>\n

Three days after his escape, the Haqqanis recaptured Bergdahl in the mountains. \u201cIt was a brief escape, and he was easily recovered from the same area. He was not familiar with the area and route, and then the whole area was controlled by Taliban, and therefore escaping was not possible,\u201d one of the network\u2019s commanders says. The Haqqanis were angry. Bergdahl had exploited the honesty, poverty and illiteracy of the men assigned to guard him, promising them that he would take them to the U.S. if they helped him escape, the militant leader says. Bergdahl was physically punished for misguiding the fighters who had tried to escape with him, says the commander, adding that the fighters had been \u201cparalyzed,\u201d his grim euphemism for execution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyway, Time interviewed both the Taliban and the State Department negotiators and, funny, but it’s like they’re not even talking about the same negotiations;<\/p>\n

On March 15, the Taliban suspended the talks, citing the Americans\u2019 \u201cunacceptable\u201d conditions. Taliban members say the U.S. tacked on a last-minute stipulation that the Taliban announce a cease-fire and lay down arms first. \u201cWe told them we are willing to announce a cease-fire, but you should start pulling out all foreign forces and tell the world that invading Afghanistan and removing the Taliban from power was your mistake, but they did not agree,\u201d a Taliban leader says. \u201cThus the talks failed.\u201d Not surprisingly, the U.S. sees it differently. \u201cThe Taliban refused to agree to the terms we require for a transfer, so they walked away,\u201d the Obama Administration official says. \u201cThis proposal … is still very much on the table.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the article ends;<\/p>\n

The White House waits for a signal from the Taliban that talks can begin again, and the town of Hailey for news of a miraculous release. And somewhere in the mountains near the Afghanistan-\u00adPakistan border, a young man waits to go home to his family. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whatever the circumstances of his capture were, the fact that he tried to escape proves to me that he’s still trying to fulfill his obligations under the Code of Conduct. And it’s pretty funny that he convinced some halfwitted Gomers to help him escape. I guess that won’t work again. <\/p>\n

The article is behind a pay wall, but, well, you know how you can get the whole thing, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time, Inc. sent us a link to their recent article which takes a look at the … Time: The Bergdahl negotiations<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}