WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that he felt confident the five Taliban detainees freed in a swap for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl posed little risk to Americans, adding that Qatari officials were not the only ones monitoring them — and that while the five might be able to return to the battlefield, “they also have the ability to get killed doing that.”
Mr. Kerry, in some of his first public remarks on the exchange, struck a decidedly tough tone, dismissing as “baloney” the suggestion that terrorists would have new incentive to kidnap Americans. He also hinted, without offering details, that the United States had the means to monitor the Taliban members, who are now in Qatar, and act against them if necessary.
The Qataris “aren’t the only ones keeping an eye on them,” Mr. Kerry said on the CNN program “State of the Union.” He added, “These guys pick a fight with us in the future or now or at any time at enormous risk.”
A new incentive to capture soldiers rather than putting them to the sword strikes me as a good idea.
Up to now, the general said, every time commanders weighed an attack on the Haqqani network, which operates on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, “we were concerned that Bowe Bergdahl could end up dead.”
Open season. No Bag Limit.