Tag Archives: 9/11

International news, national news, political news

OK, it's official: We're at war

Is it war or is it a counter-terrorism campaign?

I’d thought out loud in an earlier blog post that the terminology didn’t matter. We’re going after the Islamic State with heavy weapons. Secretary of State John Kerry — who’s been to war … in Vietnam — was reluctant to use that term. Now the commander in chief, Barack Obama, says we’re “at war” with ISIL.

http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-makes-official-us-war-220808683.html

Let’s be mindful, though, of what this “war” actually means, or doesn’t mean.

It doesn’t mean we’re going to take over a foreign capital, run up the Stars and Stripes and declare victory. Nor does it mean we’re going to receive surrender papers from a foreign government aboard some warship. It won’t result in our rebuilding (I hope) some nation that we’ve blown to smithereens trying to root out and kill terrorists.

What the “war” means is that we’re going to be in this fight for perhaps well past the foreseeable future. I suspect we’ll still be fighting this “war” when Barack Obama leaves office on Jan. 20, 2017. He’ll hand the battle plans over to his successor, wish that person good luck and then the new commander in chief will be left with trying to kill all the ISIL fighters our military can find.

The war against terrorism is something we launched after 9/11. Everyone in America knew the war wouldn’t have an end date. Heck, there really wasn’t an strategy to conclude the war when President Bush declared it after the terrorists killed thousands of Americans on that terrible Tuesday morning 13 years ago.

I still don’t give a damn what we call this conflict. If it’s war, then we’re going to have to redefine how we know when it’s over.

First, though, we’ll likely have to redefine when it ends. Good luck with that.

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Bad guys at the gate? Hardly

The Washington Times, a leading conservative-leaning newspaper, splashed a large headline Wednesday proclaiming that Islamic State terrorists are “planning to infiltrate” our southern border.

There you have it. Panic has set in.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/10/us-confirms-islamic-state-planning-infiltration-bo/

Social media is starting to churn up some dire stories about Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant getting ready to invade the United States. The Washington Times story suggests, if you parse the language with just a bit of care, that ISIL is merely “making plans” to do some bad things to us.

Does that mean ISIL is at the gate? Does it mean an attack is imminent? Does it mean ISIL is all set to start exploding bombs, capturing Americans and doing terrible things to their captives?

It means nothing of the kind.

All the story really means is that ISIL wants to do all those things. Well, duh? Who doesn’t know that already?

We should do well to take a deep breath and place just a bit of trust in the national security professionals’ ability to do the job for which they are highly trained.

I’m less willing at this point to listen to politicians looking to get their names in the news by making dire assertions that to date cannot be proven.

Do we dismiss the suggestions that ISIL is “planning” to attack the United States of America? Of course not.

We shouldn’t interpret such expressions of intent as anything more than that. I’m going to continue to place my trust on the men and women who are trained to keep us safe. I’ll start to worry when they sound the alarm.

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9/11 videos get tougher to watch

There’s a lot of remembering occurring today.

Where were we when we heard the news about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. 2001? What did we feel? What went through our minds?

I remember where I was and what I was doing. I was at my job, working at the Amarillo Globe-News. A colleague stuck his head in my office and asked, “Did you hear? Someone flew a plane into the World Trade Center?” My response: “What’s the weather like in New York?” “Beautiful,” he said. “What kind of moron would do that?” I asked in disgust.

I turned on the TV and watched the second plane fly into the second WTC tower.

The rest is history.

Today I’ve been watching MSNBC replay the events of that terrible day. I cannot watch any more video of the towers burning. I know what comes next. They crash to the ground. My anger boils up all over again.

On this 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I am filled once again with the dread that filled me that day. It is fear that someone will hit us again. We’ve been saying it ever since the 9/11 attacks: It’s not a matter of “if,” but “when.”

So far so good. We haven’t been hit like that since.

But watching the video of that horrific moment just gets harder with each passing year.

It might be the realization that the terrorists were destined to pull this kind of attack on us all along. Our national security team knew it was possible. The terrorists just have elevated that concern to the top of our national consciousness. It’s still there, which is where it belongs.

And as long as the threat remains at the top of our minds, we’ll remain ever-vigilant.

That’s my hope, at least.

International news, national news, political news

When did ISIL become such a threat?

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant dominated the Sunday talk shows.

Why not? ISIL has been on everyone’s mind these days.

Whether it’s ISIL or ISIS — po-tay -to, po-tah-to … whatever — the group has burst into our national consciousness in a way not seen since, oh, al-Qaeda did on Sept. 11, 2001.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/216871-obama-to-detail-nation-on-isis-threat

I’m left with this question: How does a terror organization operate under our noses and under our radar for as long as ISIL apparently has without there being some kind of forewarning?

I am quite sure I’m missing something here, but I pose the question because ISIL now has become the stuff of presidential addresses to the nation.

President Obama is going to speak to us Wednesday night and will detail a strategy for how he intends to destroy the terror organization. In a Meet the Press interview broadcast today, the president also said he will offer details on the specific threat he believes ISIL poses to Americans.

We’ve been operating in an ISIL-free environment ever since the war on terror began immediately after the 9/11 attacks. How can that have happened.

ISIL didn’t just emerge from a genie bottle overnight. It’s well-funded, well-organized, media-savvy and dedicated to the proposition that it intends to bring harm to Americans. No group just pops up from under the rocks without anyone knowing of its existence.

The same might be said of al-Qaeda. Yes, U.S. intelligence officials reportedly knew about that group before the 9/11 attacks. Al-Qaeda was responsible for the suicide attack on the USS Cole in 2000. It was known to have been involved in a bombing at the World Trade Center in 1993. President Clinton sought to kill Osama bin Laden but failed.

Did John Q. Public know about al-Qaeda then?

No. It took that horrific attack on New York and Washington to make us aware of who these monsters are what they are capable of doing.

Now it’s ISIL, the latest national threat. It’s good that ISIL is on our radar. It’s even better that it’s on the commander in chief’s radar.

I hope now that at his next news conference, someone in the White House press corps will ask: Mr. President, when did we know about ISIL and why are we only now getting revved up to fight this monstrous mob of murderers?

 

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'One plane ticket away'

U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers made what he presumed to be a profound point about the threat posed by Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq.

ISIS is “one plane ticket away” from striking the United States of America, Rogers said on Meet the Press this past Sunday.

I heard him say that and wondered: That’s news … now?

I get that Rogers is seeking to underscore the threat that ISIS poses. These are truly evil men who, it’s been said by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey, have an “apocalyptic, end-of-the-world” view.

The hard truth, though, is that all terror groups are “one plane ticket away” from entering the United States and doing terrible harm against Americans.

They were one ticket away on Sept. 11, 2001, yes? Nineteen terrorists boarded three commercial aircraft that day in the eastern United States, hijacked them and flew two of them into buildings in New York and Washington, D.C.; the third jet crashed into that Pennsylvania field after passengers fought heroically with the hijackers to keep them from crashing it into another target. 

I also believe we’ve done better at protecting the United States since that horrific day. The measures imposed during the Bush administration have made commercial air travel less fun for passengers around the world, but it has made it demonstrably safer.

The same can be said now, despite the critics’ claim that the Obama administration is doing too little to protect U.S. citizens against terrorist threat. To that I ask: We’ve had how many attacks on our shores since 9/11?

Yes, ISIS and other despicable terrorists are “one plane ticket away” from committing mayhem here. That’s as it’s always been and likely always will be.

The question remains: Are we going to remain vigilant and alert?

 

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Kettle, meet pot

Dick Cheney’s latest rant against President Barack Obama’s foreign policy brings to mind a not-too-distant past debate about another president’s foreign policy.

The former vice president’s recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal reminds me of what Republicans said about what Democrats said about President Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/dick-cheney-and-liz-cheney-the-collapsing-obama-doctrine-1403046522

Remember those bad old days?

President Bush — and, yes, Vice President Cheney — argued that the United States needed to topple Saddam Hussein. Their campaign to win congressional approval of their plan was based on a series of untruths, such as Saddam’s supposed involvement with the 9/11 attacks.

Well, some Democrats objected to us going to war in Iraq. Do you remember the Republican response? Why, if you criticize a president’s foreign policy, particularly when it involves war or potential war, you embolden the enemy, the GOP said. We must speak with one voice. Partisanship ends at the water’s edge, yes?

Yes, many Democrats were indelicate in their criticism at the time. In fact, many Republicans spoke reasonably in trying to tamp down the dissension here at home as we prepared to go to war.

Now the shoe is on the other proverbial foot. President Obama has withdrawn our troops from Iraq and is preparing to do the same in Afghanistan. Iraq is erupting into sectarian violence.

Who’s leading the criticism of a Democratic president? None other than the former Republican vice president, Richard Bruce Cheney.

His absolute lack of self-awareness, his complete amnesia on what he and other Republicans said a decade ago to similar criticism and his nonsensical defense of a policy that killed more than 4,000 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqis is simply stunning.

I hate to think Dick Cheney has lost his mind.

However …

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Time to end the Afghan War

President Barack Obama said it succinctly today: It is harder to end a war than to start one.

With that, the nation’s longest war now appears to be drawing to a close.

I’m glad about that.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/obama-afghanistan-troops-stay-9800-stay-2014-west-point-107115.html?hp=l2

The president’s critics were quick — as they have been all along — to blast him for setting a well-chronicled timetable for withdrawal. The United States, Obama said, will leave 9,800 troops in Afghanistan in an “advisory” capacity by the end of this year; we’ll draw down to that level from the current level of 30,000-plus.

Our combat role will end. Afghans will be responsible for their own country’s security. Our war effort will be over.

The critics say the timetable gives the Taliban time to plan, strategize and hit back hard at the Afghan government that seeks to cement its control.

That’s an interesting view, to which I have a single-word response: Vietnam.

President Nixon did not set a timetable for the “Vietnamization” effort he began shortly after taking office in 1969. But by the time he left office in August 1974, our combat role had diminished to near zero. Fewer than nine months later, in April 1975, the North Vietnamese communists had mustered enough firepower to overrun South Vietnam.

My point is this: With our without a timetable, the other side is going to keep fighting. The task, then, is to prepare our allies in power to defend themselves adequately against an enemy that’s been degraded significantly over the course of the past dozen years.

As the president noted, al-Qaida isn’t extinct. Its leadership has been decimated, Osama bin Laden has been eliminated, its organization has been scattered. Is it still operational? To a large degree, yes. Our forces, though, continue to hunt down and kill bad guys when and where we find them. That effort will — and should — continue.

It’s time to end this war.

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Heroes wear firefighter uniforms

Popular culture is fond of bandying about the word “hero.”

We ascribe that title to athletes and to movie stars who play heroic figures on the big screen.

One of our communities caught fire in recent days. Fritch, in Hutchinson County, has been battling wildfires. You want a definition of a real hero? Look to the people who plunge into the fire to battle it face to face.

We know all this, of course. We know about the heroism our firefighters exhibit all the time. The same can be said of police officers, who answer calls that should be “routine,” but too often prove to be anything but.

Today, let’s single out the firefighters for hero recognition.

I ran into one of them just yesterday. He was mowing a lawn two doors west of where my wife and I live. I walked over just to visit with him and to get a price on lawn mowing services. He said he’s been cutting grass part time for 22 years. His real job? He’s an Amarillo firefighter stationed at the River Road station just north of Thompson Park.

The fellow has had his hands full in recent days, battling the Fritch fire along with firefighters from other departments all across the northern Panhandle.

It’s good to understand, too, that those rural firefighters — the folks who work in our small farming and ranching communities — are volunteers who don’t get paid to suit up and plunge into the inferno.

The 9/11 tragedy nearly 13 years ago educated many Americans about the heroism our firefighters exhibit. Remember the stories of those individuals running upstairs into the Twin Towers to rescue those who were trapped?

Does that define a hero? You bet it does.

The fire season has arrived a bit early this year. Our firefighters are going have a busy time of it, particularly if the region remains as dry as it’s been.

They will put their lives on the line as they fight to protect people from the flames. They are heroes who should make us proud.

Godspeed, y’all.

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Security breach? Do you think?

San Jose, Calif., airport officials are seeking some answers to a vexing — and terribly embarrassing — question: How did that youngster get past security to stow himself away on an outbound flight to Hawaii?

We know the story.

A 15-year-old boy got past security, walked onto the tarmac at San Jose International Airport, climbed into a wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 767 and flew across the Pacific Ocean.

http://news.yahoo.com/teen-stowed-away-flight-hawaii-remains-hospitalized-212826541–finance.html

The most remarkable aspect of the story really isn’t the security breach. It’s the fact that the kid didn’t freeze to death at 38,000 feet above the water, where temperatures plummeted to 40 below zero. What’s more, the compartment wasn’t pressurized, meaning he had precious little oxygen to breath at that altitude.

The kid huddled in there for — what? — five hours.

Airport security in this country is supposed to be air tight in this post-9/11 world. San Jose is a fairly busy air terminal to be sure. A lone youngster, though, just isn’t supposed to walk undetected across a vast expanse of open space, climb into a jetliner compartment and then take off as a stowaway.

I see a very serious wakeup call in he making here.

San Jose is bound to deploy a lot more eyes and ears on everyone who ventures onto the airport site.

As for the youngster, who remains hospitalized from the ordeal, he’ll get to explain eventually just how he pulled off this amazing stunt. Someone will need to ask him what, if anything, he did just to stay alive.

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Terror group won't die

Al-Qaida is “stronger than ever,” says the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.

Interesting, eh?

The infamous terrorist group has been seen in a large gathering in Yemen, apparently getting past U.S. intelligence officials whose job is to ensure that these gatherings don’t occur.

Chairman Mike Rogers is alarmed, as he and all of us should be.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/mike-rogers-al-qaeda-105722.html?hp=r4

It never has been assumed that al-Qaida would wither and die the moment those U.S. Navy SEALs gunned down 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011. You kill one leader, and others would surface to succeed him. That’s been the thought all along.

The troubling part of this is that al-Qaida seemingly is strong enough to appear to be plotting major attacks against the United States. The video of the Yemen meeting shows terrorist group leaders meeting in the open in plain view. Others’ faces are blurred, but the meeting is large and is occurring right under the nose of U.S. drone aircraft supposedly on the hunt for these very types of terror group gatherings.

The fight will go on, regardless of whether our troops are fighting in Afghanistan; that military engagement is scheduled to conclude at the end of the year.

However, our “war on terror” must continue vigorously — and with vengeance and extreme prejudice.