Great comments from Miller and Rollins about the impact of the Bergdahl for Taliban trade. Miller hits the nail on the head with her comment that with being released, the Taliban 5 “are there as inspirers, as motivators and as living proof that you can confront the ‘Great Satan’ and win.”
Rollins also wonders at the end of the video if whether or not the outing of our CIA station chief in Afghanistan was part of the deal with the Taliban.
Transcript:
MARIA BARTIROMO, HOST: Do they go back after a year on Qatar and come back and plan more terrorist attacks against America?
JUDITH MILLER: Well, I think the statistics would seem to indicate there’s a great risk exactly that is going to happen. As of January 2014 we had 29 percent of the 614 Gitmo detainees who had been released who went back to the fight, so that’s not very good. And many of them were taken by countries that had promised, as has Qatar, that they will look after them and make sure they don’t return to the fight.
So that’s the problem. That’s the real tradeoff, even if they don’t go pick up an RPG, they are there as inspirers, as motivators and as living proof that you can confront the ‘Great Satan’ and win.
ED ROLLINS: To her point, these guys are going back as heroes. These were very significant players before they were picked up. They were not guys carrying rifles and shooting people, they were leaders. And I think they go back and be more significant as leaders today…
BARTIROMO: What’s most compelling to each of you on this Sgt Bergdahl story?
MILLER: I want to know is if money was paid the Haqqani network because the people who had the good sergeant were not the Taliban they were the Haqqani network. They don’t care about the five guys, they care about money.
ROLLINS: The story I want to see followed up here is how we threw out the CIA chief last week in Afghanistan in which we put him on a paper. If that was part of this deal or what have you. I mean that was just an outrageous story. We need to go look at that.
