FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019 file photo, Taliban Mullah Abbas Stanikzai, center, attends "intra-Afghan" talks in Moscow, Russia. On Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, the Taliban announced a 14-member negotiating team ahead of talks this month with U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been meeting with the insurgents to try to end America’s longest war. Mullah Abbas Stanikzai heads the Taliban team announced Monday, which includes five former inmates of the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay who were released in 2014 in exchange for a captured American soldier. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

Lt. Col. Allen West (Ret) spoke with Brian Kilmeade about the Taliban including five former inmates from Guantanamo Bay who were released in 2014 in exchange for U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl as part of their 14 member negotiating team with the U.S. envoy to formally end the war in Afghanistan.

Watch here:

(Brian Kilmeade)I just want you to weigh in on what’s going on with Afghanistan. We had our acting Secretary of Defense land there and it looks as though we’re trying to get this government to soon have direct talks with the Taliban. I’m concerned although I don’t want an endless war and every person that gets hurt I feel terrible about. But I do want to end the right way to not ruin the service of everybody else it’s been there and ruin their legacy. So what would you like to see happen next?

(Allen West) ] You know I just again reiterate the point that the Taliban is a radical Islamic jihadists organization. You think about the things that they’ve done and that’s why we’re sitting down with. And I just read a report this morning that part of the Taliban negotiating delegation are those five individuals that were released from Guantanamo Bay by President Obama. And to me that just makes me sick in the stomach and it should make every single person that served and sacrificed in Afghanistan sick in the stomach. You remember the way that we first met. I used to call that to you from down in Kandahar. I don’t want to see those sacrifices go to waste and sitting down with those five individuals as part of the negotiation delegation, to me that’s the wrong way to go.

(Brian Kilmeade) You mean the guys who were in Gitmo that we let go to get back Bergdahl?

(Allen West) A deserter. Yes sir. You’re absolutely right

(Brian Kilmeade) Unbelievable. My fault for not knowing that. I did not know. Wow.

(Allen West)That’s why you have me around.

(Brian Kilmeade) Exactly. There’s many reasons to have you around. Colonel thanks so much. And by the way pick up the colonel’s book. Hold Texas Hold The Nation. Victory or Death. Colonel thanks so much.

(Allen West) Always a pleasure Brian. You take care.

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