Really, what did anyone expect?
“Four Taliban members swapped for Bowe Bergdahl now in Afghan government,” by Samuel Chamberlain, New York Post, September 7, 2021:
Four of the five Taliban members released from Guantanamo Bay by the Obama administration in 2014 in exchange for admitted US Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl are part of the Islamic fundamentalist group’s new hardline government in Afghanistan, according to local media reports.
The four members of the so-called “Taliban Five” who have joined the new government are Acting Director of Intelligence Abdul Haq Wasiq, Acting Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs Norullah Noori, Deputy Defense Minister Mohammad Fazl, and Acting Minister of Information and Culture Khairullah Khairkhah. The fifth member of the Taliban Five, Mohammad Nabi Omari, was appointed governor of eastern Khost Province last month.
Afghan outlet TOLOnews published a list Tuesday of members of the new “caretaker” government, which features several familiar faces who helped run the war-torn country between 1996 and 2001 — when the Taliban were forced from power by US-led NATO forces following the 9/11 attacks.
Wasiq, Fazl, and Khairkhah all held positions in the former Taliban government — Wasiq as a deputy intelligence chief, Fazl as army chief of staff, and Khairkhah as interior minister.
According to assessments written in 2008 by leadership at Guantanamo Bay and later made public by Wikileaks, Wasiq “utilized his office to support [Al Qaeda] and to assist Taliban personnel elude capture” and “was central to the Taliban’s efforts to form alliances with other Islamic fundamentalist groups to fight alongside the Taliban against U.S. and Coalition forces” in the early days of the Afghanistan war.
The same assessments said that Fazl was alleged to have had “operational associations with significant al Qaeda and other extremist personnel.”
Fazl and Noori, who was governor of two northern Afghan provinces during the earlier Taliban regime, are also accused of ordering the massacres of ethnic Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek communities in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998.
Khairkhah, who helped found the Taliban in 1994, allegedly took part in “meetings with Iranian officials seeking to support hostilities against U.S. and Coalition Forces” following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, according to the 2008 assessments. He also was the governor of western Herat province between 1999 and 2001 and was known as “one of the major opium drug lords in western Afghanistan,” US military leadership found.
Despite the assessments recommending “continued detention” for the five, then-President Barack Obama signed off on an agreement that sprung the men from Gitmo in exchange for the release of Bergdahl, who had been taken captive by the Taliban after walking away from an observation post in Paktika Province in June 2009.
“The United States of America does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind,” Obama said at a Rose Garden ceremony announcing Bergdahl’s release on May 31, 2014.
As Bergdhal returned to the United States, the Taliban Five were flown to Qatar, where much of the Taliban’s political leadership resided at the time. Among those aghast by the price paid for Bergdahl’s return was then Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who told CBS’ “Face The Nation” that the Taliban Five were “the hardest of the hard core” and “the highest high-risk people.”
In 2015, Bergdahl was charged by the military with desertion with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty and one count of misbehavior before the enemy by endangering the safety of his fellow soldiers. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to both charges and was sentenced to a dishonorable discharge, a reduction in rank and a fine. Bergdahl has since appealed to federal court in a bid to get his conviction overturned.
The new Taliban government also features Acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list with a $5 million bounty on his head and is believed to still be holding at least one American hostage. He headed the feared Haqqani network that is blamed for many deadly attacks and kidnappings….
mortimer says
A government of thugs, terrorists, sadistic murderers, drug dealers, enslavers and supremacists. What could go wrong.
All thanks to the white-haired Ghost in the White House, the career yes-man, and know-nothing about Islam. He is the El Cid president. We want to know who is pulling his strings.
Kashyap says
God knows what is happening to US
/
somehistory says
From the moment that the pretend American, pretend Christian, pretend president began having his way about things, this was the **plan.**
Everything from that point has been to further islam’s spread and satan’s goals of turning a world of humankind into walking corpses.
‘o’ was in satan’s control, doing his bidding…while believing it was only his big ideas…when he set the taliban members free to return to afghanistan in pretense of rescuing a “hero.”
‘o’ is still acting for satan….and believing it is all his big idea…in leaving the weapons, cash, Americans, Christians, behind; and the taliban….including the ones he released…in charge of it all.
satan the devil is nearing the end of his earthly control, and so are his human children. They may boast and plan, plan and boast and threaten, but it won’t be for much longer.
“Just a little while longer, and the wicked one will be no more,” wrote the Psalmist. That “little while,’ is almost up.
savvyone says
somehistory, I absolutely believe the same thing about O. I have from his beginning. I read his books, which are very revealing about his mindset. He states he will go with the Muslims if the political winds shift. I say he was THERE from the beginning.
He is who is behind Biden. I think he hates America.
somehistory says
Thank you, savvyone.
If the puzzle pieces fit….
revereridesagain says
Once again Barack Hussein O’Bozo has American blood on his hands.
On Saturday, in addition to BIDEN, the pernicious scheming delusionoid senile old fool infesting Donald Trump’s office, I hope his shadow boss will be subjected to a barrage of abuse equal to his by outraged survivors, bereaved friends and families, heroic first responders especially those who have died of illnesses contracted on “The Pile”, and all the rest of us for whom that horrific day will forever be the stuff of nightmares, for all the work they have done to give aid and comfort to the monsters behind it.
NEVER FORGET
gravenimage says
Four Taliban members Obama traded for deserter Bergdahl are in the new Afghan government
………………
Oh, great.
And Bergdahl has been described as a deserter–and he is that. But this was *far worse* than just some loser walking away from his post at Fort Dix or Ramstein. Bergdahl specifically deserted to *join the Taliban*. This wasn’t some guy who just didn’t like his sergeant or was irked about KP.
Keys says
Yes, far worse. And spun to look like Obama got one of our heroes back.
So many connections in all of these “Biden blunders” to the Obama Administration. These are not blunders to the Obamacytes.
gravenimage says
Thanks, Keys. Agreed.
And that Bergdahl got away with nothing more than a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank, and a fine from his military pay–no worse than most garden-variety deserters would have faced–people who did nothing to endanger their fellow soldiers or their country, is grotesque.
Infidel says
In the meantime, at Gitmo, KSM has yet to be tried. Simply b’cos the Pentagon and the FBI couldn’t resolve who owned him
In future, we should avoid taking prisoners, and just kill on the battlefield indiscriminately. Don’t bother capturing people for more intel, b’cos that’ll just create more opportunities for fuck-ups like this. Kill everyone you confront, so that in future, the enemy is genuinely weakened, no matter what, and there is no pissing contest b/w the different TLA agencies on whose turf they belong. Also, future enemies won’t have people to include into their new regimes
James Lincoln says
Those four Taliban members should have never been allowed to leave Gitmo.
Never!
Hank says
Wondering if they were allowed to read the Quran during Gitmo years?
gravenimage says
Absurdly they were, Hank. *All* inmates are furnished a Quran at U.S. government expense.
And the guards had to handle the Qur’an reverently and wear gloves so their Infidel hands would not “desecrate” them. Just grotesque.
And yet Muslims constantly claimed that guards “abused” the Qur’an. Most of these stories were false:
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2005/06/12/so-where-is-the-real-abuse-of-the-quran/
Hank says
At first glance I thought it was the cast for “Pirates of the Caribbean”
OLD GUY says
Once again our government leaders help and release criminals. WHY?
On top of which Biden Administration wants to send millions of our hard earned tax dollars to these CROOKS. Somebodies got to be getting a kickback, or a board of directors position with a big paycheck otherwise no one with any sense at all would help these terrorist.