By Brigitte L. Nacos
It is hardly surprising that the one-for-five prisoner swap that freed US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from his captivity in the Pakistani-Afghan border region and five high-ranking Taliban officials from the American detention facility at Guantanamo has led to another clash between President Obama and his detractors in the Congress and elsewhere. For the extreme right, as expressed on a number of web sites, the deal with the Taliban amounts to another act of “treason” on the part of what these circles have long attacked as an illegitimate president.
While the official line of Washington since the Nixon presidency has been that “we do not negotiate with terrorists,” this position has been abandoned repeatedly with the objective to free American hostages.
This was the case during the Iranian Hostage Crisis that lasted 444 days and was finally resolved through negotiations. With Algerian officials acting as go-betweens between the US and Iranian governments, the release of the American hostages was achieved in exchange for the release of large sums of Iranian assets that had been frozen in American banks since the early days of the hostage crisis.
Far more violations of the "no negotiations with terrorists" policy happened during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and H.W. Bush in the 1980s.
Although President Reagan had come to office with the warning that terrorist violence would result in swift and effective retribution, he decided otherwise, when a Hezbollah group hijacked TWA Flight 847 in 1985, killing a young US Navy diver, and eventually holding more than fifty Americans in and around Beirut. When the hostage-takers asked for the release of hundreds of Lebanese prisoners from Israeli prisons, the Reagan administration looked to Israel for working this out. With the excuse that the release of more than 700 Lebanese prisoners had already been decided, the hostage-prisoner swap was smoothly carried out.
And then there was, of course, the secret arms-for-hostages deal negotiated by Reagan’s emissaries and their Iranian counterparts that sent mostly spare parts for military equipment to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages by Hezbollah. Starting point was Hezbollah’s kidnapping of foreigners in Lebanon, among them 25 Americans. Two of those, William Buckley, CIA station chief, and William Higgins, a US Marine colonel, were brutally killed by their captors, several hostages managed to escape.
Tehran, after much delay, finally got Hezbollah to free two American hostages. But soon thereafter, two other Americans were kidnapped by the same terrorist gang.
The long Lebanon hostage crises was finally resolved on President Herbert Walker Bush’s watch, when Terry Anderson, the last American hostage, was released after Israel agreed to free Lebanese prisoners. Moreover, Hezbollah received a hefty sum of money from Iran when the Tehran government got as part of the final deal more of its frozen assets from US banks.
We have seen it all. Negotiations. Deals that exchanged victims of terrorists for imprisoned terrorists. Ransom payments.
So, the latest swap of Sgt. Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is nothing new.
Indeed, the one-for-five swap was a modest ratio compared to other deals. The probably most uneven one was struck between Israel and Hamas that freed one member of the Israeli Defense Forces, Gilad Shalit, after 5 years of captivity in 2011. To win the release of Shalit, Israel freed 1,027 prisoners—almost all of them Palestinians plus a few other Arab nationals, 280 of which had been sentenced for life for terrorist attacks in which more than 500 Israelis were killed.
In spite of those precedents, I have grave reservations against the latest swap. But not because the president did not involve the Congress; these sorts of initiatives work only if kept secret; after all, there were and are opponents of any deals between the US and the Taliban. I am critical because paying ransom or negotiating prisoner exchanges encourages terrorists to grab more hostages for more such deals. On this point, I agree with President Obama's critics.
We have seen this in the past, for example, in Lebanon and Colombia. We see it now again and again in Africa, where Islamists kidnap for ransom money and/or the release of imprisoned comrades.
And chances are that we will see more of this in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan with American victims.
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Of course, one sympathizes with the parents of a son held hostage for years who was in declining health according to propaganda videos released by his captors.
Yet, rereading Michael Hastings’ 2012 story about Sgt. Bergdahl in Rolling Stone Magazine, one wonders about the circumstances of his reported walking away from his unit’s post and his capture by the Taliban. One wonders why he forgot to speak English, his native tongue. And one wonders about his father’s shaggy beard that looks just like the beards of his son’s captors. I, too, would have appealed to those religious fanatics if they had held a member of my family. But embracing their appearance code, say, by wearing a burqa? I don’t think so.
FYI: My comment at July 17, 2014 at 03:16 PM was posted here in error. It has been re-posted at its intended destination, http://www.reflectivepundit.com/reflectivepundit/2014/07/dick-cheney-did-not-learn-from-iraq-debacle-wants-repeat.html .
Posted by: Eric | July 18, 2014 at 02:12 AM
Regarding Rand Paul, his brand of libertarian is a direct descendant of the WW2-era America First Committee radical isolationists who, along with the American Friends Service Committee radical pacifists, tried their best to keep America out of World War 2 and WW2's post-war occupations.
In Paul's worldview, Europe ought to be Fascist and/or Communist right now and Asia should be under imperial Japanese and/or Communist control.
Regarding Paul's substantive point, our main problem in post-war Iraq was, indeed, insufficient method (strategy, plans, tactics, techniques, procedures, etc.) for an effective post-war occupation, rather than troop numbers or funding. (Our post-war troop level in Iraq peaked at 157,800 in FY2008.)
Despite the modern history of successful American-led post-war nation-building occupations, the regular Army of 2003 simply was not prepared to do a nation-building occupation of the kind needed for Iraq. The Army's post-war shortcomings were mainly due to an institutional mindset deeply rooted in the fall-out of the Vietnam War, exemplified by the Powell Doctrine, that was averse to nation-building occupation. Before 9/11, when the Army was tasked to do a mission on the spectrum of civil affairs or peace operations, it was done ad hoc as an "operation other than war". Given the military's aversion to dedicated peace operations before OIF, the only way the Army could develop a sufficient peace-operations doctrine, capability, and more fundamentally, a proper civil-affairs mindset for occupying post-war Iraq was to actually occupy post-war Iraq and learn through necessity. Ergo, the conception and birth of the Petraeus-led Counterinsurgency "Surge".
That's normal, though. The standard of perfect preemptive anticipation, preparation, accounting, and execution that critics like Paul apply to OIF is ahistorical. I agree we should do what we can beforehand to prepare. However, that the learning curve for victory in Iraq was driven by necessity on the ground is consistent with military history. The US military has always undergone steep learning curves in war. OIF just demanded a steeper learning curve for the peace operations of the post-war.
Moreover, the US historically has followed victory in war with a long-term presence and comprehensive investment in the post-war. As the World War 2 victors, we learned the importance of securing the peace after the war and not repeating the post-war mistakes made by the World War 1 victors.
We gain little from war itself because war is destruction. The prize of war is the power to build the peace on our terms. The long-term gains we historically associate with wars have actually been realized from our peace-building following those wars. To resolve the Saddam problem and then leave Iraq without first responsibly securing the peace would have been a contradiction of all our acquired wisdom as leader of the free world, an inhumane abandonment of the Iraqi people, and a short-sighted, enormously risky gamble that invited new problems.
Our long-term post-Saddam, peace-building mission in Iraq was normal. Leaving Iraq prematurely in an unsafe environment like we did was abnormal.
Posted by: Eric | July 17, 2014 at 03:16 PM
That's like saying you agree with a spree killer not involving the police, because of course there are always police who oppose any spree killings, and plans for mass murder only work if kept secret.
Except we're talking about 5 of the worst killers and the 6th who set them free.
This wasn't just "any deal between the US and the Taliban". Obama freed not just any 5 random Taliban fighters. He freed the 5 most dangerous, most senior Taliban commanders in our custody. There were obvious reasons these 5 were off limits for "any deal" except with very careful consideration. The best we can hope for now is they will contain their carnage to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
How many American soldiers have been killed or wounded protecting the people of Afghanistan? Helping them build a nation that can withstand a return of the Taliban's terrorist rule? How many of those Afghanis has Obama condemned with this act?
Posted by: BF | June 08, 2014 at 06:30 PM
Not to mention the bloody consequences for the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Posted by: BF | June 08, 2014 at 05:59 PM