This week’s episode, “Trade Secrets,” focuses on the seemingly head-spinning, political and diplomatic negotiations that occurred to ensure
Bowe Bergdahl’s release from
Talibancaptivity in 2014.
As Koenig points out early in the episode, the exact details of these meetings between U.S. and Taliban officials would take weeks to fully explain. But there is one aspect of the deal that gained great attention on the world’s geopolitical stage: the highly criticized prisoner swap.
According to Koenig, when Bergdahl was captured in 2009, the
war in Afghanistan had taken a dark turn. The Obama administration was focused on a “fully resourced, counterinsurgency. Peace talks -- meaning talking directly to the Taliban about ending the war – that was not part of the plan,” Koenig said.
Quietly and behind the scenes, however, contact was being made.
In 2010, in Munich, Germany, the first meeting between the United States and the Taliban took place. Both parties entered the meeting with clear intentions. According to Koenig, the United States “wanted the Taliban to stop fighting, break with
al Qaeda and support the Afghan constitution, including rights for women and girls. That was especially important for Hilary Clinton.”
The episode reveals that the Taliban also presented a few non-negotiable demands during this meeting. According to Koenig, these included the removal of some of their names off of a U.N. sanctions list of
terrorists, clear distinction between themselves and al Qaeda, an official office in Doha,
Qatar, and they wanted Taliban prisoners released.
As Koenig stated early in the episode, “there was an orderly vision” that was expected of both parties after the first meeting in Munich back in 2010. She said that both U.S. and Taliban officials envisioned, “Everyone would agree to terms on the confidence building measures. The office would happen, the trade including Bowe would happen…”
Ultimately, the final goal of “Afghan to Afghan talks” would be achieved and underway.
Instead, what happened was anything but orderly. Again, as Koenig pointed out, the details of what occurred would be nearly an impossible task to explain in her forty-minute podcast. But, ultimately, after four years of heightened mistrust between U.S. and Taliban forces, and countless moments of tip-toeing around the complicated dance of diplomacy, Bergdahl’s freedom became directly tied to the release of five Taliban detainees from
Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba.
Koenig explained that among these five detainees was a Taliban deputy intelligence chief, a former Taliban interior minister, one of the Taliban’s chief of communications. The last two, and perhaps most infamous of the bunch, were Mullah Mohammad Fazl and Mullah Norullah Noori: The chief of Army staff for the Taliban and a provincial governor under the Taliban regime.
According to New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall, Fazl “was one of the most feared men in the land.” She went on to tell Koenig that he was “this hideous operational commander who had a string of massacres to his name,” and that he was known to “shove his fingers up peoples nostrils, to push their heads back then slit their throats.” Noori, on the other hand, as Gall added, “had a reputation as someone you could reason with.”
[Note: What this summary doesn't mention is that Fazl, while being a big douchebag, was reportedly going to surrender to American forces early on in the war before he got rolled up]
Finally, according to Koenig, as the U.S. military was making active strides toward removing any kind of a serious military presence in Afghanistan, and after U.S. officials received an alarming proof-of-life video of Bergdahl looking far from healthy, in any sense of the word, the highly anticipated prisoner swap happened Saturday, May 31, 2014.
Bergdahl was now back in U.S. custody and the five prisoners were brought to Doha and were to stay there for one year, Koenig explained.
Koenig emphasized the fact that while this was a necessary trade, it was by no means “a brilliant achievement.” She highlighted the fact that the entire swap was extremely “difficult to assess” in that, ultimately, the Taliban got everything they wanted from their original list of demands that were set forth during the first peace talks in Munich, Germany, back in 2010.
“They got some of their names off the U.N. sanctions list, their office isn’t official but there is that building in Doha, and they got their prisoners back from Guantanamo, no less. 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,” she said.
The day of the trade, President Obama faced the country in a now-infamous press hearing in the Rose Garden standing side by side with Bergdahl’s parents. He told the country, “This morning I called Bob and Jani Bergdahl and told them that after nearly five years in captivity, their son Bowe is coming home.”
According to Koenig, Bergdahl’s family and friends were under the impression he would not face any serious or incriminating charges upon his return, and that “time with the Taliban would be punishment enough.”
As we now know, this was far from the case.
On the next episode of “Serial,” the aftermath of the decision to bring Bergdahl home and how he now faces a court-martial are explored.
