Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Joint Chief Chairman: "Many Times We Suspected It Was Iranian Activity"

Joint Chief Chairman: "Many Times We Suspected It Was Iranian Activity"

July 16, 2015 Afghanistan , General Dunford 0 Comments

Incoming Chairman Of Joint Chiefs: Iran Killed 500 U.S. Soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan

By John Sexton, July 16, 2015 Breitbart

On Wednesday, the Military Times highlighted an exchange from General Dunford’s confirmation hearing last week. Senator Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) 60%, a leading critic of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, asked General Dunford how many deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan were attributable to intervention by Iran. Dunford replied, “I know the total number of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that were killed by Iranian activities, and the number has been recently quoted as about 500. We weren’t always able to attribute the casualties we had to Iranian activity, although many times we suspected it was Iranian activity even though we didn’t necessarily have the forensics to support that.”

Most of the casualties attributed to Iran are the result of a deadly type of roadside bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator (EFP). These bombs were manufactured in Iran and brought to Iraq for use against U.S. troops. The bombs used an explosion to create a slug of molten copper which could penetrate the armor of most U.S. vehicles. During 2006 and 2007 they were the most deadly bombs used against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Read More: http://www.breitbart.com

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Friday, July 3, 2015

The Political Comeback Of GWBush!

July 03, 2015 Afghanistan , Andrew Duyan 0 Comments
Fewer In U.S. View Iraq, Afghanistan Wars As Mistakes

By Andrew Duyan, Jun. 30, 2015, Gallup

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Amid a security situation in Iraq and Afghanistan that continues to be contentious, a smaller share of Americans now than last year view the conflict in Afghanistan or the Iraq war as a mistake. A slim majority, 51%, say the 2003 decision to send troops to Iraq was a mistake, down six percentage points from 2014. A little more than four in 10 (42%) say the 2001 military action in Afghanistan was a mistake, also a drop from last year's 49% reading.

Official military operations have ended in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but the U.S. is still heavily involved in those countries' security affairs. Over the past year, U.S. military involvement in both countries could be characterized as on the rise, or at least not on the wane. This week, President Barack Obama announced the deployment of an additional 450 troops to Iraq to aid in the fight against the militant group Islamic State, bringing the total number of troops sent since June of last year to 3,550. Obama made good in 2011 on a campaign pledge to withdraw all American troops from Iraq, though he has since had to reverse course as the Islamic State group overran portions of the country.

In Afghanistan, a muscular Taliban insurgency has also complicated Obama's efforts to withdraw troops from that country, a goal most Americans shared when Gallup last asked about it in 2012. In March, Obama announced he would maintain U.S. troop levels, which stand at 9,800, until at least the end of 2015, a break from previous plans for a speedier withdrawal.


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Monday, June 8, 2015

Weak Defense?

June 08, 2015 Afghanistan , Associated Press 0 Comments
Solder Who Killed 16 Afghans Says He Was Consumed By War 

By Associated Press/Yahoo, Jun. 7, 2015

TACOMA, Washington (AP) — The U.S. soldier who murdered 16 Afghan villagers in 2012 says he had lost compassion for Iraqis and Afghans over the course of his four combat deployments.

The News Tribune newspaper of Tacoma used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain an eight-page letter former Staff Sgt. Robert Bales wrote to the senior Army officer at Joint Base Lewis-McChord requesting that his life sentence be reduced.

"My mind was consumed by war," Bales wrote late last year.

"I planted war and hate for the better part of 10 years and harvested violence," he added. "After being in prison two years, I understand that what I thought was normal was the farthest thing from being normal."

Read the full story: www.yahoo.com

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Saturday, January 3, 2015

Lawsuit seeks answers

January 03, 2015 Afghanistan , Foxnews.com 0 Comments
Family Of Murdered Marine Suing Military Over Alleged Cover-up

Foxnews.com, Dec. 29, 2014

He wasn't killed in a firefight on a battlefield, or by a roadside bomb while on patrol. The 21-year-old was working out with fellow Marines at the base gym when an Afghan teenager walked in carrying an AK-47 -- and emptied the clip, killing Buckley and two others.

The Marine Corps told Fox News it could not comment on the matter, because of the pending case.

Read more: www.foxnews.com

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Friday, January 2, 2015

Strategic incoherence

Strategic incoherence

January 02, 2015 Afghanistan , Barack Obama 0 Comments
Obama: We’re Ending Mission In Afghanistan--But Troops Will Remain



 CNS News, Dec. 30, 2014, Townhall

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Monday, November 10, 2014

Safer in Afghanistan?

November 10, 2014 Afghanistan , CBS Los Angeles 0 Comments
Army Veteran Fatally Shot At Party In Sylmar

Nov. 9, 2014, CBS Los Angeles

A 21-year-old Army veteran who recently returned from serving in Afghanistan was fatally shot early Sunday morning while attending a party with friends.

According to the LAPD, Francisco Garcia attended a party with several friends on Saturday evening at a home located on Dronfield Street.

Around 2:00 a.m. Sunday, those who attended the party moved up the street to a different location.

Read more: losangeles.cbslocal.com


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Tuesday, October 7, 2014

It's the West's that depraved, right?

October 07, 2014 Afghanistan , Child Sex Trafficking 0 Comments
FLASHBACK: Afghanistan Sees Rise In ‘Dancing Boys’ Exploitation

By Ernesto Londoño, Apr. 4, 2012, Washingtonpost.com



DEHRAZI, AFGHANISTAN — The 9-year-old boy with pale skin and big, piercing eyes captivated Mirzahan at first sight.

“He is more handsome than anyone in the village,” the 22-year-old farmer said, explaining why he is grooming the boy as a sexual partner and companion. There was another important factor that made Waheed easy to take on as a bacha bazi, or a boy for pleasure: “He doesn’t have a father, so there is no one to stop this.”

A growing number of Afghan children are being coerced into a life of sexual abuse. The practice of wealthy or prominent Afghans exploiting underage boys as sexual partners who are often dressed up as women to dance at gatherings is on the rise in post-Taliban Afghanistan, according to Afghan human rights researchers, Western officials and men who participate in the abuse.

“Like it or not, there was better rule of law under the Taliban,” said Dee Brillenburg Wurth, a child-protection expert at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, who has sought to persuade the government to address the problem. “They saw it as a sin, and they stopped a lot of it.”

Read the full story:  www.washingtonpost.com

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Pedophilia

October 07, 2014 Afghanistan , Child Sexual Exploitation 1 Comments
Afghanistan's Dirty Little Secret

Afghan boy / Source:  www.fromdortmund.com
By Joel Brinkley, Aug. 29, 2010

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."

All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.

"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."

Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.

President Hamid Karzai is Pashtun, from a village near Kandahar, and he has six brothers. So the natural question arises: Has anyone in the Karzai family been bacha baz? Two Afghans with close connections to the Karzai family told me they know that at least one family member and perhaps two were bacha baz. Afraid of retribution, both declined to be identified and would not be more specific for publication.

As for Karzai, an American who worked in and around his palace in an official capacity for many months told me that homosexual behavior "was rampant" among "soldiers and guys on the security detail. They talked about boys all the time."

He added, "I didn't see Karzai with anyone. He was in his palace most of the time." He, too, declined to be identified.

In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called "dancing boys" a "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape."

Read the full story:  www.sfgate.com

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Saturday, October 4, 2014

But USA is decadent?

October 04, 2014 Afghanistan , Bestiality 0 Comments
Spy Footage Catches Afghan Men Having Sex--With A Goat?!?

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Saturday, September 27, 2014

When is she moving?

September 27, 2014 Afghanistan , Daniel Greenfield 0 Comments
Sen. Gillibrand: Pakistan and Afghanistan Better For Women Than USA

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
By Daniel Greenfield, Sept. 26, 2014, Frontpagemag.com

Oddly Gillibrand insists on living in the United States instead of in the more progressive Pakistan under the notoriously feminist Sharia law.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, appointed to her position via Senator Schumer as a favor for a politically connected clan, changed all her political positions and is working hard to pretend that she’s a serious legislator.

Mainly by repeating stupid thingsthat other people have said.
The most animated speaker was Gillibrand, who condemned opposition to expanding paid family leave across the country. 
The Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act would establish a national paid family and medical leave insurance program so workers would not have to choose between a paycheck and caring for themselves or a family member, said Gillibrand. 
“In every other industrialized, wealthy country in the world they have paid leave,” the senator said. “Europe has up to six months. Even Afghanistan and Pakistan have paid leave, but we do not have paid leave in this country, and because of that when forced to meet a family need, an urgent care need, often times women are forced to leave the workplace because they cannot take that time off unpaid.”
Sure Pakistan and Afghanistan are fantastic for women.

Read the full story:  www.frontpagemag.com

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Tuesday, August 5, 2014

What does this say about U.S. leaving Afghanistan by 2016?

August 05, 2014 Afghanistan , United States Millitary 0 Comments
U.S. General Killed In Afghanistan



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Saturday, August 2, 2014

And Now This...

August 02, 2014 Afghanistan , And Now This... 4 Comments
Afghanistan, Iran: 1970 vs. 2012--Any Questions?


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Thursday, July 31, 2014

No, you chose to ignore OBL, had several chances

July 31, 2014 9/11 , Afghanistan 0 Comments
Bill Clinton On 9/10/01: ‘I Could Have Killed’ Bin Laden

Former President Bill Clinton
By Tristyn Bloom, Jul. 31, 2014, Dailycaller.com

Just hours before the planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, former president Bill Clinton was in Australia telling businessmen that he “could have killed” Osama Bin Laden during his presidency, but chose not to, MSNBC reports.

“I nearly got him,” he says on newly-released recordings of the September 10 meeting. “And I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him. And so I didn’t do it.” (RELATED: Bill Clinton Sent Handwritten Note To al-Qaida Mosque)

Michael Kroger, one of the businessmen in the meeting who released the recording on Wednesday, said the audio had simply been forgotten about until now.

Read the full story:  www.dailycaller.com

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Friday, July 25, 2014

Killing the rape survivor?!

July 25, 2014 Afghanistan , Islam 0 Comments
Family Considers Killing 10-yr-old Daughter After Mullah Rapes Her In Afghan Mosque 

By Rod Norland, Jul. 20, 2014, News.nationalpost.com / NY Times

It was bad enough that the alleged rape took place in the sanctity of a mosque and that the accused man was a mullah who invoked the familiar defence that it had been consensual sex.

But the victim was only 10 years old. And there was more: The authorities said her family members openly planned to carry out an honour killing in the case – against the young girl. The mullah offered to marry his victim instead.

This past week, the awful matter became even worse. On Tuesday, local policemen removed the girl from the shelter that had given her refuge and returned her to her family, despite complaints from women’s activists that she was likely to be killed.

The case has broader repercussions. The head of the Women for Afghan Women shelter here where the girl took refuge, Dr. Hassina Sarwari, was at one point driven into hiding by death threats from the girl’s family and other mullahs, who sought to play down the crime by arguing the girl was much older than 10. One militia commander sent Sarwari threatening texts and an ultimatum to return the girl to her family. The doctor said she now wanted to flee Afghanistan.

The head of the women’s affairs office in Kunduz, Nederah Geyah, who actively campaigned to have the young girl protected from her family and the mullah prosecuted, resigned May 21 and moved to another part of the country.

The case itself would just be an aberrant atrocity, except that the resulting support for the mullah, and for the girl’s family and its honour killing plans, have become emblematic of a broader failure to help Afghan women who have been victims of violence.

Read the full story:  www.news.nationalpost.com

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Thursday, June 12, 2014

Al Qaeda Isn’t ‘On Its Heels’ --As much as he would like to, Obama cannot wish terrorism away

June 12, 2014 Afghanistan , al Qaeda 0 Comments
By Reza Jan, May 27, 2014

President Barack Obama told U.S. troops in Afghanistan on May 25, 2014 that the United States has “decimated the al Qaeda leadership in the tribal regions” of Pakistan.1 While conceding that the al Qaeda network elsewhere in the world poses an increasing threat to U.S. interests, the U.S. government frequently touts the progress it has made in neutering al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan — as it narrowly defines it.2 These talking points increasingly seem based on a picture of al Qaeda’s South Asian network that is at least several months out of date, however. They do not appear to account for al Qaeda’s well-known ability to repair damage to its network, that network’s improving position in Pakistan, or an apparent strategic pause in both U.S. and Pakistani operations against al Qaeda in the region. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and all it entails, not only increases al Qaeda’s operating room in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but has already severely degraded the intelligence infrastructure that helped support the drone and covert operations campaign that contributed heavily towards the success now claimed by the president.

Rhetoric Based on an Old Snapshot of the Network

President Obama described al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan variously as being “on its heels” and “on the ropes” in his speech on Sunday.3 The president and members of the administration have often used similar language to describe the effects of U.S. policies on al Qaeda in South Asia, though they have moderated these optimistic assertions with admissions that al Qaeda elsewhere in the world continues to pose a threat to the United States.4

The administration attributes Al Qaeda’s supposed near-defeat in Pakistan to the death of al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in a one-off Special Operations Forces strike deep inside Pakistan in 2011 and to the U.S. drone campaign inside Pakistan’s tribal areas, which has been underway since 2004.5

The U.S. drone program has, in fact, inflicted heavy casualties on al Qaeda in Pakistan over the years.6 It has killed top al Qaeda leaders and facilitators including Ilyas Kashmiri, Abu Yahya al Libi, Atiyah Abd al Rahman, and Abu Zaid al Kuwaiti, as well as successive leaders occupying the organization’s operational command or “number three position,” a feat that has had a serious impact on al Qaeda attempts to conduct attacks from Pakistan against U.S. interests outside the region.7 Before Kashmiri’s death in June 2011, bin Laden had reportedly tasked the senior operative with plotting an attack against President Obama.8

There are problems with using drone kills as metrics for success against the network, however. The first concerns the definition of what is, in fact, considered to be “al Qaeda.” The Obama administration has defined the group in extremely narrow terms: it considers al Qaeda primarily to be the group of individuals comprising its leadership during, and having involvement in, the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, as laid out in a recent report by Mary Habeck.9 This narrow definition excludes new leaders and operatives who have since come to prominence in the network and key facilitators and supporters that make possible al Qaeda’s survival and reconstitution.10Current U.S. strategy against al Qaeda fails to account for the change in the group’s basic structure from a rigid, hierarchical organization into a more fluid organism, interconnected with and often dependent upon local affiliates with which it does not necessarily have a formal association, but with which it shares an ideology, fighters, facilitators, infrastructure, and space, as laid out in an AEI Critical Threats report by Katherine Zimmerman.11

Read the full story:  www.american.com

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Thursday, June 5, 2014

Graham Contradicts Obama: 'The War Is Not Over When We Leave Afghanistan' --Enemy didn't get the memo...

Graham Contradicts Obama: 'The War Is Not Over When We Leave Afghanistan' --Enemy didn't get the memo...

June 05, 2014 Afghanistan , Guantanamo Bay 0 Comments
By Susan Jones, Jun. 4, 2014, Cnsnews.com

(CNSNews.com) - "This is what happens at the end of wars," President Obama said in Poland on Tuesday, as he defended his decision to swap Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay.

"The war is not over when we leave Afghanistan," Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Tuesday: "We're fighting al Qaeda, their affiliates, and people who provide material support, like the Taliban. These people will go back to the fight. President Obama has put Americans at risk all over the planet. And these people will go back to Afghanistan as sure as night follows day."



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Monday, June 2, 2014

K.I.A. In Search For Bergdahl

June 02, 2014 Afghanistan , Hostage Exchange 0 Comments

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Criticism Of Bergdahl Deal Mounts --Dems still quiet--for now

June 02, 2014 Afghanistan , Hostage Exchange 0 Comments
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl
By Jonathan Topaz, Jun. 2, 2014, Politico.com

The Obama administration on Monday faced a growing backlash against its deal to secure the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, as critics questioned the sergeant’s actions in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama’s use of executive authority to gain his release, and the implications for national security.

The escalating attacks on the deal were given new fuel by fresh reports that Bergdahl may have deserted.

“Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down,” Nathan Bradley Bethea, who served in Bergdahl’s battalion, wrote in a Daily Beast story. Bethea’s report said Bergdahl disappeared from his battalion in the middle of the night.

CNN cited a member of the soldier’s platoon who said he was “pissed off” at Bergdahl. “Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching for him,” the sergeant said.

On Monday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon added that he felt the president “broke the law” under the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act by not informing Congress 30 days in advance about the release of detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

“My perception is, and I think the eyes of many, he broke the law by not informing Congress 30 days before,” McKeon said of Obama on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown.” “You just had Ambassador Rice, she said they’ve been working on this for three years. She said Congress has been informed of this along the way. I don’t know who they were talking to. I have not been a part of this, and I’m the chairman of the committee.” McKeon was referring to National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who defended the legality of the administration’s actions on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

McKeon said that his committee will hold hearings on the issue, saying he hopes Democrats as well as Republicans will help investigate whether the White House violated the NDAA. “This is not a partisan issue. It’s just a matter of the law and breaking the law and not informing the Congress according to the law,” he said.

On the Senate side, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) requesting an immediate hearing on the deal.

“While I appreciate that an American was released from captivity, this decision by the Obama administration has serious implications for our future national security,” he wrote in the letter obtained by Fox News. Graham is a member of the committee.

McCain, echoing Graham, supports a hearing on the deal.

“It’s worthy of a hearing,” McCain told reporters. “But, it’s done.”

Read the full story:  www.politico.com

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Anger Explodes Over Treatment Of Bergdahl’s Release As Veterans, Troops Call Him A Deserter --WH miscalculated

June 02, 2014 Afghanistan , Hannah Allam 0 Comments
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl
By Hannah Allam and Johnathan S. Landay, Jun. 2, 2014, McClatchydc.com

WASHINGTON — For all the yellow ribbons strewn across his hometown in Idaho and the gratitude expressed by his parents in an emotional visit to the White House on Saturday, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will receive a hero’s welcome when he returns to the United States after nearly five years in Taliban captivity.

From military forums across the country, a groundswell of anger is rising over the Obama administration’s silence on perhaps the most controversial question surrounding the deal that freed Bergdahl in exchange for five senior Taliban members: Was he a deserter?

So far, the U.S. government has shied away from the long-nagging question, which raged anew Monday with growing clamor on the Internet about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance from his unit’s small forward position in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009.

Military-related blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages were filled with screeds from commenters accusing Bergdahl of being a “traitor” or a Taliban “collaborator.” The online publication The Daily Beast published a nearly 2,000-word first-person account by a former Army infantry officer who said he was privy to details of Bergdahl’s disappearance and who stated flatly that “he was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down.”

The mother of one of six soldiers who’ve been identified as being killed in circumstances related to the search for Bergdahl was furious over the opaque handling of the case, telling Army Times that the Pentagon “really owes the parents of these fallen soldiers the truth.”

But instead of addressing the desertion issue head-on, complained many military analysts and war veterans, the Obama administration is allowing the debate to fester, only deepening the skepticism of current and former service members who demand to know how Bergdahl left his unit, how many U.S. forces were killed in the search effort, and whether there are plans to conduct a legal review of his case and, if necessary, prosecute him.

Michael Waltz, who as an Army major commanded U.S. Special Forces in eastern Afghanistan at the time Bergdahl disappeared, said the sergeant deserted and shouldn’t have been accorded POW status.

“He just walked off after guard duty and wandered into the nearby village,” Waltz told McClatchy in an interview Monday. “This guy needs to be held accountable when the time is right, of course. Every American deserves to come home. I’m happy for his family. But he needs to be held accountable.”

Angry commentators took special aim at National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s televised remarks Sunday that Bergdahl “served the United States with honor and distinction.” They also bristled at Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s surprise visit Sunday to Afghanistan, where he praised the operation that freed Bergdahl but never mentioned the desertion issue before an audience of U.S. service members who undoubtedly have seen the debate swirling around the case.

Even military voices warning against trying Bergdahl in the court of public opinion say the Obama administration owes its enlisted men and women more transparency.

“Hagel hopped up on stage saying, ‘Oh, it’s a great day. We got him back.’ Crickets. Crickets,” said Fred Wellman, a retired lieutenant colonel who as spokesman for Army Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq handled the communications on many crises that reflected poorly on the U.S. military.

Wellman said his advice to defense officials would be to acknowledge the concerns of the enlisted ranks and veterans, to explain that there’s a plan to deal with the legal implications, and to stress that the most important focus now is restoring Bergdahl to health and reuniting him with his family in Idaho after nearly five years in the hands of a brutal enemy of the United States.

“They’re really underestimating the fury over this,” Wellman said. “It’s a tidal wave of anger.”

At White House, State Department and Pentagon briefings, reporters asked directly whether Bergdahl was a deserter. Officials all offered variations of the same talking point: “We would characterize him as a member of the military who was detained while in combat,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday.

Read the full story:  www.mcclatchydc.com

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EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon Knew Bergdahl’s Whereabouts But Didn’t Risk Rescue For ‘Deserter’ --Not for "deserter"

June 02, 2014 Afghanistan , Guy Taylor 0 Comments
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl
By Guy Taylor, Jun. 2, 2014, Washingtontimes.com

 The Pentagon on several occasions had ground-level intelligence on where Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was being held captive at various times — down to how many gunmen were guarding him — but special operations commanders repeatedly shelved rescue missions because they didn’t want to risk casualties for a man they believed to be a “deserter,” sources familiar with the mission plans said.

 Commanders on the ground debated whether to pull the trigger on a rescue several times in recent years, according to one of the sources, a former high-level intelligence official in Afghanistan, who said the conclusion each time was that the prospect of losing highly trained troops was too high a price to pay for rescuing a soldier who walked away from his unit before being captured by the enemy.

 A second source told The Washington Times that the rescue operation plans were “high risk” and became even less attractive in recent months when officials in the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command grew convinced that the Taliban and the militant Haqqani network, whose operatives were holding Sgt. Bergdahl, were eager to cut a deal for his release.

 “Joint Special Operations Command always had the rescue mission on the table and it was entirely under their ownership, but the big question centered on whether Bergdahl was somebody you risk lives for when you still have time and space to maneuver diplomatically,” said the source, a high-level congressional aide, who, like the former intelligence official, spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

 The aide also said there was frustration among some on Capitol Hill that the Obama administration had botched an opportunity to exert leverage over the Taliban, particularly since the U.S. military could have used force to secure Sgt. Bergdahl’s release.

 “The prisoner swap was being built up as the only option that was available. But there’s been knowledge of the general vicinity of where Bergdahl was, down to how many guys were guarding him,” said the aide.

 The catch, the aide added, is that special operations commanders and others at the Pentagon never sought approval for the rescue mission from the White House because they believed in the pursuit of a diplomatic deal.

 The aide said military officials in Afghanistan spent recent months pushing for a stronger deal than was ultimately struck, but were “superseded” by the White House and State Department. The aide would not comment on what the parameters of a “stronger” deal may have looked like, beyond saying they would have involved the Pakistani government.

 The former intelligence official who spoke with The Times corroborated that assertion but declined to offer further details, saying only that the deal turned out the way it did because “the administration wanted to close the door on this no matter what the price was.”

 Separately, the former official said, “Military commanders were loath to risk their people to save this guy. They were loath to pick him up and because of that hesitancy, we wind up trading five Taliban guys for him.

 “The mentality was, ‘We’re not going to lose more of our own guys on this,” the former official said.

 Both of the sources said military officials across the special operations community were appalled by the terms of the deal that ultimately got struck over the weekend between State Department-led negotiators and the Taliban, effectively securing Sgt. Bergdahl’s release from Haqqani network custody in exchange for the release of five former Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

 U.S. Special Operations Command declined to comment on the revelations provided to The Times.

 But The Associated Press reported that after weeks of intensive searching for Sgt. Bergdahl in 2009 the military decided against making an extraordinary effort to rescue him, especially after it became clear that he initially was being held in Pakistan under the supervision of the Haqqani network, a Taliban ally with links to Pakistan’s intelligence service.

 Nonetheless, individual units pursued leads as they came in, according to the AP report, which cited an unidentified Pentagon official as saying: “I know for a fact that we lost soldiers looking for him.”

 Read the full story:  www.washingtontimes.com
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