Washington is all up in arms about the circumstances of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s rescue and the debates about whether he was a deserter and his father’s actions are again dredging up the type of bigotry we saw in the aftermath of 911. I don’t know why some talking heads are so surprised when soldiers become disillusioned after 13 years of war and witnessing stuff like this (#5).
It’s obvious that the Obama administration’s explanations about the Bergdahl rescue so far have been confusing and politically motivated but the loudest criticism about how the 5 high-ranking Taliban leaders being exchanged for Bergdahl’s release affects America’s security just makes me shake my head. I don’t remember hearing this much concern about our security when we were waging wars based on trumped up or nonexistence intelligence and creating international criticism and condemnation. Remember the French newspaper headline “We are all Americans now”? We quickly managed to lose worldwide sympathy and support by our subsequent actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. We won’t regain that or our moral standing for generations.
Tag: Taliban
Dear Malala: I am writing this letter to explain why we tried to kill you
In a bizarre development, a senior member of the Pakistani Taliban has written a letter to Malala Yousafzai explaining why the Taliban tried to murder the then 15 year-old school girl. The handwritten, rambling, 4-page letter (which jumps around from British colonialism to pointing out that Henry Kissinger is Jewish) insisted that she was not targeted because of her support for education, but because of her “smearing campaign” against the Taliban. Last Friday Malala delivered a very inspiring speech at the United Nations supporting girls’ education and received a standing ovation. It’s as though the Taliban just realized that they need to launch a PR campaign to fix their misogynistic image.