Tag Archives: Afghanistan

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Questions arise about Bergdahl's release

Questions and concerns have surfaced about the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from his Taliban captors.

They are legitimate and serious questions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hagel-discusses-details-of-us-operation-to-exchange-taliban-detainees-for-captive-soldier/2014/06/01/551c21f8-e95f-11e3-a86b-362fd5443d19_story.html

My most pressing concern is this: How is the United States going to ensure that the five high-ranking Taliban officials released from Guantanamo Bay prison do not re-enter the fight against this country?

We gave up these individuals in exchange for Bergdahl’s release after five years in captivity. He reportedly was in failing health and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said his release was expedited to “save his life.”

The Taliban terrorists were turned over to Qatar officials and have been placed on a one-year “travel restriction.” How does that work? U.S. officials reportedly worked out a deal to have Qatari officials sit on these guys for a year. After that? Who knows?

Here is where I hope the CIA and every other U.S. intelligence agency capable of taking part is doing their job. By that I have to hope that we’re keeping eyes on these monsters 24/7, watching every move they make. Do we need to know the particulars? I have no need to acquire such highly classified information, but I do hope our intelligence professionals are up to the task of keeping these guys in their sights at all times.

As to the questions about whether the Obama administration broke the law by negotiating with terrorists and doing it in secret, we have to accept that sometimes we have to do unseemly-looking deeds to accomplish a worthy goal. The administration says it did keep congressional sources informed of what was going on.

As long as we can keep the released Taliban officials on a very short leash and prevent them from turning against our forces, then I’m willing to accept the strategy employed to have one of our own men released from captivity.

Our spooks, however, had better not mess this up.

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Good news from Afghanistan?

Might there be a glimmer of hope finally in Afghanistan?

The Afghans have conducted an election to choose their next president. The top two candidates, according to National Public Radio, are pro-Western in their leanings and are not allies of the outgoing — and unpredictable — Afghan President Hamid Karzai; indeed, Karzai’s hand-picked successor is running far behind the top two candidates.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304819004579485482622918584

A runoff appears to be in the offing between opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah and former World Bank executive Ashraf Ghani.

What’s more, the election produced a stunning 60 percent turnout in the face of attacks from Taliban terrorists who, of course, oppose elections of any stripe.

Can this be a tipping point in the evolution of Afghanistan from a lawless, tribal society into one that is governed under the rule of laws that the rest of the civilized world understands?

Hope should spring eternal.

The United States already has ended its major combat role in Afghanistan after fighting an all-out war there against the Taliban since shortly after the 9/11 attacks. More than a dozen years have passed. Too much American blood has been spilled in what had been thought to be a lost cause.

It’s too early certainly to declare victory in a land with no known history of representative democracy. But with the impending election of either Ghani or Abdullah, the country appears to be headed toward a leadership that will tilt in our direction rather than toward the forces of evil.

It’s now time for the world to begin holding its breath.

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Fort Hood … again

Violence has erupted at Fort Hood yet again.

It’s early in the aftermath of the latest shooting rampage at the sprawling Army post in Central Texas.

Four people — including the gunman — are dead and many others are injured.

It was less than five years ago that Army Major Nadal Hasan opened fire on his fellow soldiers while protesting the Pentagon’s war policies in Afghanistan. Hasan, a psychiatrist and a devout Muslim, had been ordered to Afghanistan; he wouldn’t go, so he embarked on a senseless rampage. An Army court martial convicted him and sentenced him to death.

Now this event.

The nation’s heart breaks once again at this senseless shooting. President Obama vows to get to the bottom of what transpired. Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey said the Pentagon’s main focus right now is to support the families of those who were killed or wounded.

Meanwhile, the simplest of questions arises from this tragic act. Why?

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Charlie ‘did it,’ all right

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=715472731818192&set=a.162532927112178.34097.105810232784448&type=1&theater

My brother-in-law posted this picture from the Texas State Cemetery.

It speaks to the courage of someone I used to know fairly well, but in a mostly professional way. The late Charles Wilson was an East Texas congressman whose district was part of the region our newspaper circulated back in the old days.

He was a tiger, a fierce defender of freedom against tyranny. He had his flaws, such as his partying ways — but he never apologized publicly for the lifestyle he led.

When he wasn’t carousing — which occupied little of his time — he served his Second Congressional District constituents honorably. He also was a friend of the Afghan freedom fighters known back in those days as the mujahedeen. They were the ferocious partisans who fought the Red Army that had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Charlie saw it as his mission to arm the mujahedeen with modern weapons, Stinger missiles the fighters could use to shoot down Soviet helicopters.

Wilson persuaded his colleagues in the House of Representatives to pony up the money to pay for the weapons.

The weaponry worked. The Soviets were driven out of Afghanistan. Two years after their defeat, the Soviet Union vanished from the face of the planet.

Charlie Wilson was one of those Texas Democrats who managed to work across the aisle with his Republican colleagues. In this polarized era today, it’s not likely Wilson could get nominated by his own party any more than a moderate Republican can get elected from within his or her own party.

But guys like Charlie knew how to legislate. They knew how government worked.

Charlie Wilson died in 2010. The more I see the dysfunction that passes for government today in Washington, the more I miss him.

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Defense budget plans to trigger new fight

You’ve just heard the latest shot in the fight between congressional Republicans and the White House over a key budget matter.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has announced a proposed Pentagon budget that, in his words, takes the United States off its “war footing” for the first time in more than a dozen years.

http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/budget-appropriations/199050-hagel-unveils-basics-of-2015-defense-budget-request

I want to make a couple of points:

One is that Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. As the liberal commentator Lawrence O’Donnell noted Monday night, it took a retired five-star general, Dwight Eisenhower, to coin the term “military-industry complex” in his farewell address to the nation as president of the United States. Ike understood the military better than most presidents. Hagel also understands the nation’s defense needs in this post-Cold War period.

Second is that even with the big cuts in defense spending, the United States still will spend more on defense than Russia, China and the United Kingdom combined.

The elimination of the A-10 Warthog close ground support jet is going to raise hackles. So will the reduction in surface ships for the Navy. Same with the elimination of the U-2 spy planes that will be replaced by unmanned drones. The Army will see its force reduced to 420,000 men and women.

Hagel’s point, though, is that the United States no longer will be fighting a war abroad but still will be able to respond to a future conflict while defending the homeland.

Our arsenal remains the most potent the world has ever seen.

The cuts will save the country billions of dollars over the short and the long terms, which is what fiscal conservatives say they prefer.

However, wait for it. The critics are going to declare that Hagel and the Obama administration are hell bent on disarming the United States in favor of domestic spending programs.

It’s untrue. That won’t stop the barrage.

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Keep the Army major, Nadal Hasan, alive

Nadal Hasan has been convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder. The crimes entitle him to a death penalty … which he says he desires.

My admonition to the military court that convicted him is to sentence him to life in prison. And by life I mean “life,” as in for as long as that animal draws breath.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/23/20154553-hasan-found-guilty-of-premeditated-murder-in-2009-fort-hood-rampage?lite=

Hasan, a psychiatrist and a major in the U.S. Army, represented himself in a trial. He has acknowledged killing 13 people Nov. 5, 2009 in that horrific massacre at Fort Hood, Texas. He didn’t mount a defense when it came time to do so. The jury that heard the evidence offered by prosecutors deliberated and then came back with the guilty verdict — as if they needed any time to actually ponder the evidence.

Now comes the punishment phase. Hasan killed those people as part of an Islamic jihad. He is a Muslim extremist who did not want to serve in Afghanistan. Well, he got his wish by committing that dastardly deed.

He also wants to be martyred. Dying at the hands of the U.S. government would, in his demented mind, earn him martyr status. But not just his in own so-called mind. He also would become a martyr to other extremists around the world who would rejoice at the thought of this individual being put to death by the “Great Satan.”

Deny him that martyr status. Toss him into the darkest hole possible and let him serve his time with other unspeakably violent criminals.