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01/28/2015 02:27 PM
On Wednesday during the White House press briefing, ABC’s Jon Karl inquired about the Taliban and the White House’s spokesman Eric Schultz stumbled as he attempted to explain that the U.S. does not negotiate with terrorist organizations, but that negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan is okay because they’re an “armed insurgency.”Karl asked if the Jordanians trading a prisoner for a hostage held by ISIS was any different than president Obama trading five high-ranking terrorists for Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl. After struggling to paint the Bergdahl swap as a means of “leaving no man behind,” Schultz responded,
“I would also point out that the Taliban is an armed insurgency and [the Islamic State] is a terrorist group. So we don’t make concessions to terrorist groups.”
Karl followed up by asking, “You don’t think the Taliban is a terrorist group?”
Like a deer stuck in the headlights, Schultz tried to qualify, “I don’t think the Taliban, uh… the Taliban is an armed insurgency. This was the winding down of the war in Afghanistan and that’s why this arrangement was dealt.”
The Obama Administration has retained some of their harshest rebukes and inflammatory rhetoric for Republicans and conservatives who oppose his radical agenda domestically; however, this administration has been thoroughly unwilling to admit the dangers of radical Islam and the organizations who foster terrorism under the guise of religious duty and the administration’s complete unwillingness to admit something so basic as that the Taliban is a terrorist organization is truly indicative of the kind of failed leadership that endangers Americans, both at home and abroad, every single day.
