The Bergdahl Desertion

At WSJ, "Obama wanted to ‘whittle away’ the killers at Guantanamo":

The United States Army intends to charge Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. That was Wednesday’s news, but the bigger story is the extravagant price the U.S. has paid because President Obama wanted to score political points.

Readers will recall that then-Private First Class Bergdahl went missing from his post in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan in June 2009. Fellow soldiers suspected desertion, though the Army conducted a risky manhunt to recover him. The sergeant was quickly captured by the Taliban and held for five years.

The Associated Press has reported that an internal Pentagon investigation in 2010 found “incontrovertible” evidence that he had walked away from his post. Journalists also uncovered an exchange of letters in which the soldier wrote to his father “the title of U.S. soldier is just the lie of fools,” that he was “ashamed to even be american,” and that “the future is too good to waste on lies.” Replied father Robert: “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!”

All of this would have been known to President Obama and National Security Adviser Susan Rice when the Administration decided to swap Sgt. Bergdahl for five Guantanamo Bay detainees—all top Taliban leaders—in May 2014. Mr. Obama even invited Sgt. Bergdahl’s parents to a Rose Garden ceremony to announce the swap, while Ms. Rice declared on a Sunday talk show that the soldier had served his country with “honor and distinction.”

At the time of the release, Mr. Obama said he had a sacred obligation as Commander in Chief to do everything possible to bring the sergeant home. Maybe so, but the President made his real motives clear when he noted that the transfer was part of “the transition process of ending a war” and that he wanted to “whittle away” the number of Gitmo detainees. That, he told NBC, “is going to involve, on occasion, releasing folks who we may not trust but we can’t convict.”

This is the language of a President more concerned with pursuing his ideological fixations, and fulfilling a misbegotten campaign pledge, than winning a war or securing the country.

The Bergdahl swap unleashed a torrent of criticism at the time, including from Senate Democrats, so it’s not surprising that the charges against the soldier are only being unveiled now, five months after the midterm elections. There was no Rose Garden ceremony, and Ms. Rice issued no statement that we saw.

Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan shows no sign of ending, while an emboldened Taliban can look forward to getting their old commanders back after their obligatory year in Qatar ends in June. Sgt. Bergdahl will now face a court martial, but we already know that the White House is guilty of deserting its obligations to U.S. security.

More at Free Beacon, "Former Sergeant Who Served with Bergdahl: He’s Lucky No One is Talking About the Death Penalty."

PREVIOUSLY: "Bowe Bergdahl Charged With Desertion and Misbehavior."