Now, in the newest twist in the saga of the female terrorist dubbed “Lady al-Qaeda” by the New York press, Siddiqui’s family members have appealed to the Taliban to facilitate her release. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid declared last week:
Give us Siddiqui and we will give you captured U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl.So apparently there are some terrorists the US would not trade for a man left behind. For those who've forgotten or never knew, Siddiqui is a US-trained scientist arrested and convicted of terrorism. Her claim to fame is being married to Ammar al-Baluchi, yet another terrorist relative of KSM who is one of the main 9/11 defendants housed at Gitmo (evidently not available for trade but one never knows). He hails from the Quetta area of Pakistan, a weird origin of hate for the US since the 90s, perhaps seeded by the Saudis.
Why bring this up? The question now is who the US would consider trading for a captured American. Let's say somehow terrorists managed to capture John Kerry--who might Obama consider giving up to get him back? He gave the Taliban five high level combatants for an Army private who might have deserted. Are we going to just hope that never happens? The 9/11/12 riots in Cairo were in part due to a demand to return the Blind Sheikh.
Part of the delusion we're seeing now is an administration pulling off this swap as cog of 'ending the war' in Afghanistan, which involves flim-flamming the public into believing the Taliban isn't really a part of the global jihadist movement spearheaded by AQ and can therefore be separated into a single entity we can deal with directly like a legitimate political group. In reality they know, or should know, the war is not going to be "over" just because we remove our troops from 'armed conflict' somewhere.
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