Why Did President Obama Make the Bergdahl Trade?

Last week, I suggested that it made no sense for the White House to trade five high-ranking terrorists for a presumptive American deserter.   It’s certainly possible that he thought doing so might earn political kudos for the Administration by expecting the American public to be more pleased with the repatriation of an American soldier despite his circumstances and focus less on the cost incurred.  If so, he grossly miscalculated.

However, common sense tells me the explanation is to be found elsewhere.  For instance, note what the president stated in the middle of his Rose Garden announcing Sgt. Bergdahl’s release.  “We’re committed to winding down the war in Afghanistan and we are committed to closing down Guantanamo.”

Was he saying, in part, that recovering Bergdahl was tying up a loose end on the way to getting out?  But what does that have to do with the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?

Remember, in January of 2009, almost immediately after being sworn in, President Obama pledged to close the facility.

It’s eerie, almost scary in a way.  He may simply be checking off promises made.  In another context, that would be welcome and refreshing in a politician. 

But for our president, his promises were made in a pre-White House state of ignorance.  His experiences of the past five and a half years should have corrected that condition and made clear the unwise nature of what he'd previously hoped to accomplish.  Alas, the ideological blinders have remained in place.

Thus, Obama is taking pride in doing what he said he would do.  Consequences be damned.

 

What does he expect the released Taliban leaders to do?  He admits they will probably return to the fight.  But we’re leaving Afghanistan soon (contrary to military advice), so it’s not our problem.  No wonder the Afghan government was vociferously opposed to the Bergdahl deal.  Hey, but a box will be checked off!

And where does Obama put the several hundred terrorists still held at Gitmo?

What does it matter if there are no other options?  They’ll simply be set free to return to the battlefield.  Our withdrawal ends U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan, but the war will continue.  Unfortunately, our premature departure and the releases of enemy leaders significantly decrease prospects of survival for our Kabul allies.

 

Is it too much to suggest that Obama really doesn’t care?  His conduct and plans suggest that he doesn’t.  But he will have checked off another box.  The effects will be the problem of his successor and America’s friends around the world.

For the outgoing president, though, his belief in his legacy will be secure.  He kept his promises.  (Well, some of them.  “You can keep your doctor,” doesn’t count for those lies were simply for our own good, weren’t they?)