Merchants of Men: How Jihadists and ISIS Turned Kidnapping and Refugee Trafficking Into a Multibillion-Dollar Business by Loretta Napoleoni

Author:Loretta Napoleoni [Napoleoni, Loretta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: True Crime, General
ISBN: 9781760293062
Google: 2GGLDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2017-01-25T23:32:48.976989+00:00

chapter eleven

The Mythology of Western Hostages

Western governments portray all hostages as heroes, especially if they wear a uniform. Soldiers hold the highest ranking. They are the bravest: abducted while in the pursuit of their duty to protect their country. This is the narrative that justifies the decision to rescue them at any costs, including negotiating with terrorists. No government can ignore this commitment, including the United States.

Perhaps the best account of why, under the right circumstances, every country negotiates with kidnappers, is by President Obama: “The United States of America does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind.”182 This pronouncement was made on May 31, 2014, in the Rose Garden when Barack Obama announced the liberation of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The then twenty-eight-year-old soldier had been kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan almost five years earlier on June 30, 2009. During the speech the president revealed that to free the hostage the United States had agreed to transfer five detainees from the Guantánamo Bay detention camp to Qatar, the country that had helped broker the deal.183

The ceremony held at the Rose Garden was supposed to be the first of several celebrations to welcome home Sergeant Bergdahl. Instead, almost as soon as he set foot on US soil, things went sour. Several members of his platoon in Afghanistan accused him of being a deserter and someone even hinted that he might be a traitor. Republicans lashed out at President Obama for having secured his release without properly informing Congress, and putting US national security at risk. Some even criticized Bergdahl’s father for having spoken a few words in Pashto during the Rose Garden ceremony. As more and more of the details about Sergeant Bergdahl’s abduction became known, the polemics linked to his release, abduction, and ransom soared.

THE BOURNE FOOLISHNESS

Bowe Bergdahl was kidnapped on the morning of June 30, 2009, while walking alone in the Afghan desert, a few miles from the tiny outpost known as OP Mest where he was posted. Mest is in the Paktika Province, in eastern Afghanistan, right near the Pakistani border. A few hours earlier, Bergdahl had left his post without permission. Technically speaking, he had deserted his platoon.

Just after sunrise, a Taliban group on motorcycles spotted and approached him, as is customary in any desert region. Because he was not wearing his uniform but Afghan clothes, the Taliban realized that he was not a Pashtun only when they got close to him.

Bergdahl’s story begs several questions: What was a twenty-three-year-old soldier doing alone in the middle of the Afghan desert? How did he get there? And why was he unarmed in a region infested by the Taliban?

After his liberation, Bergdahl did not speak to the media, and US authorities did not release any information. Very little was known about the precious hours before his abduction. Privately, however, Bergdahl disclosed the events that led to his captivity to Mark Boal, the screenwriter of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. Boal approached Bergdahl because he wanted to make a movie of his story.

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