Sergeant Bowe Robert Bergdahl was released on May 31, 2014, after being held captive by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan since June 30, 2009. His release was brokered by the American, Qatar, and Afghanistan governments with the Taliban, in exchange for five Guantanamo Bay detainees to be held for a minimum of one year in Qatar before being eligible for actual release.
A win for the Obama administration right?
Not according to conservatives who have demonized the President, accusing him of negotiating with terrorists – a claim that has been thoroughly debunked.
What is interesting is that as, The Nation reports “Only months ago, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the last POW in Afghanistan, had been valorized by the right. Senators McCain, Ayotte and Inhofe, Sarah Palin and Allen West and right-wing websites wanted Bergdahl freed at all costs, and blamed Obama for leaving him behind.” However, recently they have done a complete 180 degree turn on Bergdahl.
The Nation elaborated, writing:
“With no evidence and ‘no admission that any change had taken place,’ they’ve recast him, variously, as a deserter, a traitor, a jihadist or, as Fox News reporter James Rosen bizarrely put it, ‘a kind of modern-day Lee Harvey Oswald.’”
Death threats were made against his parents; his hometown of Hailey, Idaho, canceled a celebration of his return for fears of public safety. Fox News’s Kimberly Guilfoyle declared that he was “lucky” US forces didn’t find him earlier because “he would have come home either in a body bag or come home and gone straight to jail.”
On social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, conservatives are using Bergdahl to attack the administration’s victory in capturing one of the masterminds behind the attacks in Benghazi. Last weekend, while the country was busy celebrating Father’s Day, the Obama administration was busy capturing the ring leader behind that attack, Ahmed Abu Khattala. However, according to most internet righties, that merely means we are still four terrorists down, subtracting Khattala from the five released from Gitmo to secure Bergdahl’s release.
Here are a few of our favorite flip-flops by leading conservatives regarding Sgt. Benghazi that you can use to put the hurt on conservatives on Facebook, Twitter, etc. [You can read a more complete list here.]
Sarah Palin Then:
“Todd and I are praying for Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, his family, and all of his fellow soldiers who are putting their lives on the line to defend our freedom and protect democracy abroad,” Governor Palin said. “The capture of Private Bergdahl and the bombings in Jakarta prove that we have not defeated terrorism, and that radical extremists will stop at nothing to attack Westerners and our ideals.” July, 2009
Sarah Palin Now:
“No, Mr. President, a soldier expressing horrid anti-American beliefs – even boldly putting them in writing and unabashedly firing off his messages (http://nypost.com/2014/05/31/the-bizarre-tale-of-americas-last-known-pow/) while in uniform, just three days before he left his unit on foot – is not “honorable service.” Unless that is your standard.” June, 2014
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) Then:
“The mission to bring our missing soldiers home is one that will never end. It’s important that we make every effort to bring this captured soldier home to his family.” June, 2013
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) Now:
“Well, my response is the president knew fell and well that these are the highest ranking Taliban people in captivity. And that’s the issue. It wouldn’t make any difference who Bergdahl was. […] So they should have turned Hitler loose and that would have been the end of the war. No, that’s on his face, it didn’t pass the smell test.” June, 2014
Rep. Rich Nugent (R-FL) Then:
“Last year, on the fourth anniversary of Sgt. Bergdahl’s capture, on the floor of the House of Representatives, I introduced a resolution in the House calling on the United States to do everything possible not to leave any members of the armed forces behind during the drawdown of Iraq and Afghanistan. Believe it or not, I had members of Congress come up to me and say, ‘I didn’t know we had a living POW in Afghanistan.’ That was shocking to me.” February, 2014
Rep. Rich Nugent (R-FL) Now:
“But what angers me so much about this situation is that knowing full well that there was strong opposition to a prisoner swap in Congress, the Administration decided to go behind our backs and release the detainees without the notification required by law.” June, 2014
Michelle Malkin Then:
“My prayers are with the family of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier seen on the Taliban abduction video released this weekend. The Jawa Report has the full clip. All Americans should hope and pray for his release from jihadi custody.” July, 2009
Michelle Malkin Now:
“Bergdahl is still scheduled for a promotion. For those who served with Bergdahl, I can only imagine this feels like a slap in the face. Many believe the move, and subsequent WH Rose Garden announcement, was timed to knock the VA scandal — a slap in the face to America’s veterans — out of the headlines. A cruel irony if true.” June, 2014
Last but not least, is John McCain, but we want to follow his comments up with a more detailed explanation as his flip-flop is a bit more complicated (and insidious) than the others noted above.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) Then:
“I would support. Obviously I’d have to know the details, but I would support ways of bringing him home, and if exchange was one of them, I think that would be something I think we should seriously consider.” February, 2014
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) Now:
“This decision to bring Sgt. Bergdahl home – and we applaud that he is home – is ill-founded … it is a mistake, and it is putting the lives of American servicemen and women at risk. And that to me is unacceptable.” June, 2014
“We were never told that there would be an exchange of Sergeant Bergdahl for five Taliban.” June, 2014
As The Washington Post reports, Fact Checker began looking into McCain’s apparent flip-flop the first week of June. They note numerous accounts where the details of the exchange were reported, in some instances years prior to Bergdahl’s release.
To fully grasp the depth of McCain’s lie, one must first consider that “Throughout the discussions, it has always been the same five men, so their identities would have been no surprise to any lawmaker keeping track of the discussions. The five are Khirullah Said Wali Khairkhwa, the former interior minister; Mullah Mohammed Fazi, a senior commander; Mullah Norullah Noori, a provincial governor; Abdul Haq Wasiq, deputy chief of intelligence; and Mohammned Nabi Omari, a member of a joint al-Qaeda-Taliban cell in eastern Khost province.” Source
The Washington Post goes on to cite numerous examples of this information being reported:
In August 2011, the Associated Press reported that Afghan negotiators were seeking the release of Taliban fighters in exchange for Bergdahl, naming specifically Khairkhwa, Fazi and Wasiq. In January 2012, the Guardian newspaper reported that Washington would free Khairkhwa and Noori, and possibly Fazi, in exchange for getting the Taliban to open an office in Qatar for peace talks.
In a March 9, 2012, report, the Afghanistan Analysts Network issued a long report on the Guantanamo Five, which actually found that the men were less hard-line than believed.
Then in August 2012, Reuters reported that the Obama administration had offered to trade “five senior Taliban leaders” — including Khairkhwa, Wasiq, Noori and Fazi — for Bergdahl. The headline on Business Insider’s Web site was: “The US Wants To Trade Five Taliban Leaders In Guantánamo For This One American POW.”
The list goes on and on.
Feel free to go to The Washington Post to read their full article, ending with McCain an upside-down Pinocchio, constituting a flip-flop.
You can watch a video from MSNBC on Republican flip-flogs on Bergdahl, below.
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