On Saturday, the Fox News Channel’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine” host, Judge Jeanine Pirro criticized the Obama administration for swapping five Taliban terrorists for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, but refusing to negotiate for the release of James Foley.
“This week US officials confirmed that one of the five [terrorists released for Bergdahl] is attempting to return to terrorist activity with the Taliban. Now, there’s a shock, and I’m not talking about White House ineptitude. I’m talking about an enemy so hardened and so determined that they are willing to play the silly little games that we are so naively willing to believe that they’ll be good boys, proven by the fact that they’ve taken up yoga and they plan to go home and start farming. I didn’t know the Taliban grew anything other than opium” she stated.
Pirro continued, “let me see if I get this, an American like James Foley is held for two years and then beheaded, we don’t negotiate for him, but we do negotiate for someone who was widely believed to be a deserter both inside and outside the Pentagon. Since when do we trade mass murderers for someone like this guy, Bergdahl? Remember, Mr. President, you never told Congress, as you are legally required to, that you were doing this lopsided deal. Maybe you needed those hugs with Bergdahl’s mom, and dad in the Rose Garden. But even then there was something that wasn’t right, and don’t give me this hogwash that these are prisoners of war who have to be freed when we leave Afghanistan. First of all, we haven’t left Afghanistan, there are still 10,000 Americans there. We know that you don’t like the military, but why replenish the enemy when the number of remaining American troops is at its lowest? A little primer here. Gitmo detainees are not prisoners of war, the Taliban is not a country, they don’t wear a uniform, they don’t follow chain of command, they don’t carry arms openly, and they kill civilians. As such, they are enemy combatants who can be held indefinitely, or until they cease to be a danger to us. Now, Mr. President, I know you don’t like terms like ‘Islamic extremist’ and ‘jihad,’ but now you don’t like the word ‘terrorist’? Now the Taliban are not terrorists?”
She concluded by criticizing the White House referring to the Taliban as an “armed insurgency,” saying “here’s the bottom line. they kill Americans, they’re terrorists. They kill schoolchildren, they’re terrorists. and just yesterday, this so-called armed insurgency, the Taliban, proudly took credit for killing three Americans, and you want to call them armed insurgents? So I say to myself, ‘what difference does it make?’ Here’s the difference. Since you did negotiate with terrorists and you’re not supposed to negotiate with terrorists, you can’t call them terrorists, so now you have to call them armed insurgents.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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