The White House has caught some flak recently for its hesitancy about identifying the threat of Islamic extremism, but their reticence is even broader than that: They won’t even call the Taliban terrorists.
Asked why the Obama administration agreed to swap Taliban members for Bowe Bergdahl when the U.S., as a matter of national policy, doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, Schultz stumbled through explaining that the White House does not view the Taliban as “a terrorist group.” Instead, he referred to it as “an armed insurgency.”
“This was the winding down of the war in Afghanistan and that’s why this arrangement was dealt,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
He noted that the Islamic State is ”a terrorist group” but maintained that the Taliban is not.