Last week, I spoke about how President
Barack Obama justified his prisoner swap of
five senior Taliban leaders for U.S. Army Sgt.
Bowe Bergdahl by saying former military
leaders and presidents, including George
Washington, have engaged in prisoner of war
exchange, too.
Obama's exact words were: "This is what
happens at the end of wars. That was true for
George Washington; that was true for
Abraham Lincoln; that was true for FDR;
that's been true of every combat situation --
that at some point, you make sure that you try
to get your folks back. And that's the right
thing to do."
From that statement alone, I revealed how
Obama's made grievous errors in judgment
by concluding that 1) the war is over and 2)
he was engaging in a prisoner exchange like
George Washington -- to take just a single
example among his list of stellar leaders.
What Obama didn't tell you regarding
Washington and prisoner exchange during
the Revolutionary War is that both countries
-- England and the U.S. -- exchanged
prisoners of war because both had "few
facilities to accommodate large numbers of
prisoners," according to the Mount Vernon
Ladies' Association, whose mission it is "to
preserve, restore, and manage the estate of
George Washington to the highest standards
and to educate visitors and people throughout
the world about the life and legacies of
George Washington."
As far as buying Americans back from
captivity at the price of enemy combatants,
Obama needs to follow the example of Gen.
Washington, who "made sure that no states
holding military prisoners should trade a
British soldier for an American citizen.
Washington believed that this would have
legitimized the British capture of more
citizens, most of whom were largely
defenseless."
Though no one is minimizing the
understandable elation of Bergdahl's family
over his release, George Washington would
not have traded for him, because he didn't
believe in trading prisoners of war until after
the war was in fact over, treaties were signed
and hostilities ceased, lest he risk the capture
of further American people for ransom.
Here are my two additional grievances with
Obama's prisoner of war exchange:
3) As the commander in chief, George
Washington wouldn't have completely
undermined the very heart and soul of the
military as Obama did with his prisoner
exchange, especially in light of how it is a
cardinal sin in military culture to abandon
one's post and platoon during war.
A little over a week ago, The Washington Post
reported, "Ralph Peters, a retired lieutenant
colonel and intelligence officer, wrote in
National Review that a 'fundamental culture
clash' exists between the president's team
and those in the armed forces, as reflected by
(national security adviser Susan) Rice's
remarks on Bergdahl's honor."
"Both President Obama and Ms. Rice seem to
think that the crime of desertion in wartime
is kind of like skipping class," Peters wrote.
"They have no idea of how great a sin
desertion in the face of the enemy is to those
in our military. The only worse sin is to side
actively with the enemy and kill your
brothers in arms. This is not sleeping in on
Monday morning and ducking Gender Studies
101."
Maybe a key here as to why Obama could so
easily discard military code and culture is he
really doesn't regard America's battleground
in the world as a war on terror in the first
place.
Remember the 2009 explanative memo from
the White House to Pentagon staff members
via the Defense Department that said that
"this administration prefers to avoid using
the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on
Terror.' Please use 'Overseas Contingency
Operation'"?
Of course, while the White House plays with
semantics, our courageous U.S. military
personnel are continuing to fight and die on
the battlefield. While the war diminishes in
Obama's fairy tale mind, he just gifted the
real war on terror and the Taliban with their
greatest boost in years.
4) George Washington would not have
emboldened America's greatest enemies
around the world and put at greater risk not
only U.S. military personnel but also
American citizens by increasing their
captivity value in the eyes of our enemies.
And what are the odds that Obama had
another political ulterior motive for prisoner
exchange -- namely, the turning of the
American mind and media from his Veterans
Affairs battlefield? For his "never waste a
crisis"-saturated administration, is this
hypothesis really a stretch?
On June 5, veteran newsman and CEO of
WorldNetDaily Joseph Farah wrote in a
column titled "What Motivates Obama?": "Is it
possible that part of the calculated political
motivation underlying Obama's decision was
just that -- getting the VA out of the nation's
headlines? At first glance, it seems counter-
intuitive: Can you escape one scandal by
creating another? The answer is, of course.
It's called the old 'wag the dog' strategy."
The bottom line, as President Obama recently
said to cadets at the United States Military
Academy, is that "for the foreseeable future,
the most direct threat to America, at home
and abroad, remains terrorism."
Yet his actions as commander in chief say just
the opposite. Indeed, last June, he said
America needed to draw down its war footing
and bring it to an end.
The truth is that Obama is too conciliatory a
leader to be the commander in chief of the
greatest military force in human history. He
says terrorism is the "most direct threat to
America" to cadets yet calls the war on terror
an overseas contingency operation.
He doesn't even know how to announce
victory. He confessed to ABC News in 2009,
"I'm always worried about using the word
'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this
notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and
signing a surrender to MacArthur."
So how does one add up the following Obama
conclusions? 1) The war, which is not really a
war at all, is over, so much so that we're
exchanging the release of final prisoners of
war. 2) Victory won't be announced, yet the
end of combat missions and the withdrawal
of American troops have been.
There can be only one conclusion, at least in
Obama's mind: America has lost the war on
terror, particularly in the Middle East.
Facts unfortunately point to the tragic event
that Sgt. Bergdahl went AWOL on his post
and platoon. But even worse, facts point to
the catastrophic event that President Obama
just went AWOL as our commander in chief.
And George Washington is rolling in his
grave.
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