Tag Archives: 9/11

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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.

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Opening Day tradition lives on

There can be nothing in all of American sports quite like Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season.

Daytona 500? Indy 500? Super Bowl? Forget about it.

Opening Day has a place all its own. It usually features a presidential first pitch.

God Bless Opening Day

Some presidents, well, have better arms than others. John F. Kennedy had a pretty good arm. So did Dwight Eisenhower.

But the standard for presidential first pitches still belongs to George W. Bush. Allow me this one caveat, though: He didn’t set the standard on Opening Day. He set it instead on the first game at Yankee Stadium during the 2001 World Series, the one that had been delayed by the events of 9/11.

Baseball fans everywhere remember that night. The president strode the mound wearing a New York Fire Department jacket. The crowd roared.

Then the president took the baseball, rubbed it in his hand and from the top of the mound — not in front of it as some presidents do — he wound up and threw a perfect strike.

The crowd noise that greeted the president’s arrival on the mound? It turned into an absolute din as 56,000-plus fans erupted. The pitch symbolized the perfect tonic for a nation that had been grieving, had become enraged at the dastardly deed done to it and sought relief from the anguish.

President Bush, with a simple pitch from a baseball stadium mound, delivered the goods.

There can be nothing like it anywhere else in the world of sports.

Play ball!

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No conspiracy theories, please

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Call me a non-conspiracy theorist.

I believe, for example, that:

* Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in murdering President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

* Men actually landed on the moon, beginning with Neil Armstrong’s “one small step … one giant leap” on July 20, 1969.

* Barack H. Obama was born in Hawaii — the 50th state to enter the Union — in August 1961 and, thus, is fully qualified to serve as president of the United States.

* Islamic madmen flew airplanes into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and sought to fly a jetliner into the Capitol Building before they were thwarted by passengers on 9/11.

* Adolf Hitler killed himself in the Berlin bunker in April 1945 as the Red Army was closing in on his location.

* Elvis Presley actually died on Aug. 16, 1977 of a drug overdose in his Memphis, Tenn., bathroom.

I mention all these things because of the nutty theories being bandied about — to this day — about the fate of Malaysian Air Flight MH 370. I won’t repeat the goofy notions here.

My strong belief all along has been that something happened aboard that airplane to cause it to turn sharply off course on March 8. Its remains now are lying at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean, along with the remains of the 239 people on board.

Our hearts break for those who are awaiting official word of their fate.

I just wish society, fed by social media and goofball Internet “sources,” would cease with the crazy talk. Let the searchers do their job, let them find the flight recorder, retrieve it and let its contents reveal the truth without all the mindless second-guessing.

Enough already.

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Cancel Olympics? You must be joking

U.S. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul says he’s open to canceling the Winter Olympics in Russia because of security concerns.

Someone needs to throw some cold water on that Texan’s face. Snap out of it, Mr. Chairman.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/russia/196442-house-homeland-security-chairman-terrorist-threat-on-olympics

Yes, there’s a threat to the Olympics. Ever since 9/11, there’s been security concern at every international event as large as the Olympics, winter or summer. It goes with the territory, in my view.

Canceling the games because terror organizations are making threats? What’s new about that?

The Salt Lake City Olympics of 2002 went off without a hitch, even though it had been beset by financial worries and incompetence. Two years later, the Athens Olympics were considered threatened. The Greeks mobilized their entire military establishment and, with the help of U.S. and other intelligence services, pulled off a stunning event. The 2006 Olympics in Japan came and went. The 2008 Olympics in Beijing were spectacular, even with the pollution that threatened athletes’ health. The Canadians’ biggest worry in 2010 was whether there would be enough snow in Vancouver; there was and those games were staged beautifully. The London Olympics of 2012 had similar security concerns, but the Brits did what they had to do to protect the athletes and the thousands of spectators who watched the events.

The Russians are pulling out all the stops to ensure the Sochi Olympics will be carried off. The Russians have deployed 100,000 troops into what’s being called a “ring of steel” around the Olympic village. If any military force knows how to clamp down on security, it would seem to be the Russians.

Past and present Olympians are urging organizers to ensure the games proceed. Yes, the threats are real. However, they were real in advance of prior Olympics — and they became a reality as far back as 1972, when Palestinian terrorists killed those Israeli athletes in Munich.

I am not dismissing the threat. I do not believe they pose a sufficient threat to cancel an entire Olympic Games. Doing so would give terrorists precisely what they want.