Blog Post #9
“Wait, what was all of this about? Did they really just give up five leaders of the Taliban for one American soldier?”
In this enlightening episode of Serial 2, Sarah Koenig and her team investigate the circumstances of the trade deal that was made by the United States and the Taliban to safely return Bowe Bergdahl back home. In the episode, Koenig describes the meetings that U.S. personnel had with the Taliban to negotiate terms of agreement for the return of the U.S. soldier. It was interesting to see a nation like the United States negotiating with a sub-national group that many Americans hold a negative image of. The Taliban’s wants seemed to be more heavily weighted than America’s in this deal, with the implications of releasing prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. military base and detention facility known for gross human violations. The individuals that the Taliban wanted in exchange for Bowe had adverse backgrounds and history, to say the least. One individual, Mullah Fazl, was accused of notorious war crimes and was said to be “one of the most feared men in the land.” These prisoners were said to be non-negotiable for the Taliban, that it only had to be those five individuals that would be traded. Despite the checkered past of the prisoners that were exchanged for Bowe, I find it interesting to examine the message that the Taliban is trying to send to their people—that they would do anything to get their men back to further their cause onto the global stage.
The notion of sovereignty made Bergdahl’s recovery more difficult due to the fact that the Taliban is a sub-national group that operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan and are not connected with the state governments. When the U.S. discovered that Bergdahl was in Pakistan, instead of Afghanistan where the DUSTWUN investigation was fervently being held, the situation became more complicated as the U.S. has no direct authority in Pakistan and the Haqqani family was closely aligned with the Pakistani government, meaning that they could get away with a lot. Also, the notion of the Taliban office that was also mentioned in the deal is one of interesting means, due to the fact that it could be a way for the Taliban to get recognition in the international community. At this point, it seems as the reservations of “not negotiating with terrorists” is no longer in the midst, as the U.S. has no choice but to abide by the releasing of prisoners in Gitmo and the Taliban office that was brokered through the Qataris.
The Taliban got their prisoners back—from Gitmo, no less. And all they gave up was Bowe, the guy they planned to give up all along, the guy they were tired of holding. All in all, a tidy victory.
One point that was subtly brought up in this episode that I thought was interesting when Koenig talked about when countries negotiate to get their soldiers back from enemy territory. It was mentioned that Israel will exchange prisoners for the remains of one of their soldiers, which I thought was noteworthy and is definitely different from country to country. The process to get Bergdahl back was certainly a difficult procedure for the U.S. and I noted before that the fact that the U.S. would do so much to this extent for a soldier—not a general or higher-up military personnel was important to consider in the Bergdahl case.
