This is the ninth in a series of posts about Serial 2, a podcast focused on the war in Afghanistan. It centered around Bowe Bergdahl, and I wrote responses to the podcast for my first semester International Relations major-required course, Introduction to World Politics. We learned about the international state system, and challenges to international politics today.
When I first heard about Bowe, it was in 2016, a year after the Serial 2 podcast came out. I had finished Serial 1 and started listening to the series about Bowe. I remember thinking, why is Bowe’s case so politicized? At the time, Donald Trump was campaigning for presidential office, and while I do not remember paying attention to what he said about Bowe, I knew that Bowe was a symbol, to some Americans, of ‘deserters’, of government inefficiency. I felt like I knew what I needed to know: a soldier was captive in Afghanistan, he was rescued, the end. I remember I stopped listening to Serial 2 after the first two episodes. I did not intend to study International Relations either.
Listening to the podcast now, I want to know the answer to my original question. In the penultimate episode of Serial 2, narrator Sarah Koenig hones in on this politicization of Bowe’s rescue, and what that means for military strategies, political compromises and diplomatic negotiations today.
When Bowe’s return was announced by former President Barack Obama in the Rose Garden, the language he used in his statement implied that Bowe is some kind of hero. Bowe’s parents were present at the announcement, and also spoke about their son. During the first part of the episode, Koenig focuses on how the event angered military service members. It is true that Bowe left a lot of people to work on bringing him home. His actions put many others’ lives in danger, as patrols were increased in the wake of his departure. After the Rose Garden, soldiers who knew and served with Bowe were interviewed by conservative news outlets, particularly Fox News because they did not want Bowe’s return to become something is was not. It became a ‘juggernaut,’ politicized by conservative media as a trade in a political strategy by President Obama.
The soldiers who spoke up were concerned about ‘justice.’ But from Koenig’s reporting, the Rose Garden announcement was a spur of the moment decision. At the time, many events concerning Afghanistan and Bowe were happening at once. There was recent reporting on the U.S. decision to wind down activity in Afghanistan. Bowe’s recovery operation was a delicate success. Bowe’s parents were in town. It was a sunny day, and photographers and media had been holding their tongues to report on Bowe. And then, Ambassador Susan Rice steps up to say that Bowe served with ‘honor and distinction.’ The White House did not notify Congress, to protect the fragility of the ‘mutual release.’ The complexity turns out to be a maelstrom of coincidence, the administration did not say anything, and then said too much. And Congress and soldiers find out from an impromptu press conference.
The complexity of the situation of Bowe’s rescue is, domestically, a system of political calculus. Career politicians must weigh elections, constituents, legislation they need to pass, party lines and domestic support in their reactions to current events. The Republican representatives who reacted the way they did, saw the Bowe’s recovery from an angle of low intel. I can see why the Obama administration arranged the recovery how they did, but I also think that the concerns over accountability are legitimate. Even the fact that Congress was not notified and found out through public news was inappropriate, and likely mismanaged. The Obama administration’s political game was to release the information, expecting a similarly hopeful, joyful response. The opposing member’s game was to shape the narrative with service member’s accounts and the release of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
Additionally, internationally, the U.S. appears most powerful when its unified, but in Bowe’s recovery, to express that within the U.S. government, some members want to exchange prisoners, others are against it, and to reveal the trade internationally exposes the precarious position of the Qataris and the Taliban. The reality is that the deal is possible in secret and impossible with full transparency. Would any other president act differently in this situation?
I agree with Koenig in her final assessment, that this ‘bare knuckles’ disagreement is fundamentally about closing Guantanamo, the war in Afghanistan. Bowe’s recovery, the uproar is about “a larger moral question.” It’s about almost anything polarizing the Democrat and Republican parties regarding Afghanistan, and not Bowe.
