Tag Archives: 9/11

International news

It’s over … finally!

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Say whatever you wish about the end of the Afghan War.

That we can declare an end to our fighting there is in itself a moment worth saluting. Our longest war came to an end this morning when the last C-17 transport jet took off from Kabul airport, cleared Afghan air space and we declared an end to our evacuation of all U.S. citizens and allies who wanted out.

I have said since we went to war in Afghanistan 20 years ago that there could be no way for us to “declare victory” in the way we were able to do, say, at the end of World War II. Our military brass accepted the terms of surrender of enemy forces in 1945; the fighting stopped and we danced in the streets from coast to coast.

There would be no such celebration after the Korean War, certainly not after the Vietnam War, nor after this war.

Indeed, our war against terrorism is likely to persist, but without the hackneyed “boots on the ground” fighting a cunning enemy.

I will stand with President Biden’s decision to end this war. He knew what his three presidential predecessors — George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama and Donald J. Trump — couldn’t understand. It was time to end a war that had gone badly not long after it started in the wake of the 9/11 attack.

President Bush went to war after 9/11 intending to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban government. He succeeded. He vowed to get the men responsible for the attack on New York and Washington. That task fell eventually to Obama’s national security team that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011. Trump’s team got the leader of the Islamic State.

One thing remained constant. The Afghan War kept on going.

Joe Biden took over in January. He assessed the return on the investment we were getting in Afghanistan and determined it was time to end it. Now! So … he did.

Those who write the history of this big day will need time to evaluate all the nuance attached to it. I am going venture out on that limb and presume that history will look more kindly than President Biden’s critics are viewing this landmark day in real time.

It’s over. Thank God in heaven!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Pledge for the ages

Rhetoric uttered in anger and pain, while we are grieving, does at times develop a certain staying power.

Right after 9/11, President Bush stood amid the rubble of what once were the Twin Towers in New York City, draped his arm around a firefighter and told the world through a bullhorn: “I hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

Twenty years later, 13 American servicemen and women died when an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at Kabul airport where the United States has been conducting an evacuation of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies.

President Biden looked sternly straight ahead and said: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”

And so, there you have yet another statement for the ages born out of extreme anguish and pain.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Historical perspective in order

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

While we waste our breath, our emotional energy and valuable time bashing President Biden over the end of the Afghan War, I want to offer this bit of perspective for y’all to ponder.

Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked us on 9/11. They had safe haven in Afghanistan. The Taliban sheltered them and kept them hidden from view. President Bush then led a united country into war in Afghanistan.

It was a conflict doomed more than likely from the very beginning.

For 20 years we fought the Taliban. Our special forces killed the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden, who we found hiding in Pakistan. Yet the fight continued. It was going to go on forever had we allowed it to happen.

President Biden said, in effect, “Enough of this!” He ended the war. Just as he said he would do.

Let’s understand that Joe Biden took control of our military as it was drawing down its presence in Afghanistan. He merely finished an unwinnable task begun two decades ago by George W. Bush.

Let’s also be clear. The war did produce some victories for our side. We degraded al-Qaeda, killing many of the organization’s leaders. Our national attention was yanked away from the Afghan fight when we went to war in Iraq for reasons that stand as an example of supreme deception.

The Afghan War had to end. President Biden ended a conflict that President Bush launched.

International news

Did we not prep the Afghan army well?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As the world watches the Afghan War lurch forward to what looks like a tragic ending, I cannot get past a thought that has been troubling me since the Taliban began their march toward reasserting control over a country it ruled with ruthlessness and depravity.

My thought is this: What in the world did we do to prepare the Afghan armed forces to cope with the onslaught they are facing? 

We arrived on the battlefield not long after 9/11. President Bush ordered our forces into battle to rid the world of al-Qaeda. We succeeded in removing the Taliban from power then after the terror organization had given their fellow terrorists safe haven from which to attack the United States on 9/11.

President Bush left office in January 2009 and President Obama then ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda mastermind; the SEALs and CIA operatives did the deed on May 1,, 2011.

President Obama left office in January 2017 and Donald J. Trump took over. The fight continued.

Trump left office in January 2021 and now we have President Biden on the watch. Through all those previous administrations, there had been an understanding — or so many of us believed — that our forces were on call to do two things: to engage the enemy on the field and to train and equip the Afghans to take over the fight when we were finished.

Biden adds forces for Afghan evacuation, defends withdrawal decision (msn.com)

President Biden made the call to end our involvement there. We began pulling troops out. The Taliban went on the march. The Afghan military has done a terrible job of defending their country. Reports from the field suggest that regular army troops aren’t fighting, that the bulk of the resistance is coming from militia forces.

We spent tens of billions of dollars training these forces to do something that was expected of them. To defend their nation against a savage enemy. They appear to be failing in that mission.

Do we return in full force? No! We must not! I happen to endorse the decision to leave the Afghanistan battlefield. I am aghast at the slipshod way it is occurring. President Biden is deploying 5,000 additional U.S. troops to assist in the evacuation of Americans and our allies, to get out of harm’s way.

But … my goodness. I am troubled by the lack of effort reportedly being shown by the armed forces we supposedly prepared to defend their nation.

I want our young men and women to come home as much as the next person. However, it saddens me terribly to believe we spent two decades fighting and dying for a nation that is unable — or unwilling — to defend itself.

International news

How can we declare victory?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Twenty years ago, the United States decided to retaliate against the monsters who attacked us on 9/11.

I recall asking back then: How will we be able to know when to end this war against international terrorism? I also wondered how we can declare victory in a war that might seem to have no end.

Well, one aspect of that war is coming to a conclusion. President Biden has ordered all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, which had given safe haven to the terrorists who hit us on 9/11.

My questions remain the same today as they were when I posed them back in 2001. President Biden has made what amounts to an executive decision. The time has come, he said, to end the war. How does he know that? Well, he hasn’t explained that to us in terms that I have heard.

As for a victory declaration … there won’t be anything of the sort. We will see no “Mission Accomplished” banner hanging across the White House portico.

Indeed, the decision carries plenty of risk. The Taliban are on the march in Afghanistan. The future of women and children in that country now become tenuous. Biden’s predecessor as POTUS sought to negotiate with the terrorists; it didn’t go well for either side.

To be honest, it has been a haphazard withdrawal. There is no clear plan to offer safety for the thousands of contractors who worked with our forces during the Afghan War. I will retain plenty of hope that the president will come up with a plan to provide refuge for the translators and others who assisted our men and women on the battlefield.

However, a war against international terror cannot possibly signal that we have defeated the terrorists, that we have eliminated the threat. Indeed, the threat was always there, always lurking just below the surface, just beyond our consciousness.

It will be there even as we exit the field of battle in Afghanistan.

national news

Waiting for next ‘greatest generation’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The nation is about to say goodbye to yet another Fourth of July holiday and it gives me pause to reflect on a conversation I had a few days ago with a North Texas gentleman who offered an observation I felt compelled in the moment to challenge.

He told me he was unsure that today’s young people would be able to storm the beaches of Normandy the way they did on June 6, 1944 when Allied forces launched the campaign to liberate Europe from the tyranny that had gripped it tightly.

I begged to differ from my friend’s view. “Oh yes they would,” I told him. I said my only hope that be that there would be no need for them to mobilize and to act the way our parents and grandparents did.

I long have saluted the Greatest Generation, the 16 million Americans who suited up for World War II. Of that total, fewer than 400,000 are still with us. My dad was one of them. So were several of my uncles and my father-in-law. They’re all gone now and I honor their heroic acts damn near daily.

I do not believe,  though, that they will be final generation of Americans to step. Indeed, the 9/11 generation is full of incidents of young men and women signing up for active military duty on the day the terrorists struck us on that horrifying day, much like my own dad did when Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.

The annals of heroism are full of episodes of greatness among the current generation of young Americans who are fighting for their country. They, too, are facing unique obstacles as they battle face to face with enemies of our way of life.

They are the heirs of the Greatest Generation who, I am convinced, are set to forge their own path to greatness. I am proud of them.

military news

Declaring victory?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President George W. Bush responded with strength and resolve nearly 20 years ago when terrorists declared war on this country.

He ordered the military into Afghanistan  to overthrow the government that had given the monsters safe haven. The war against international terror had begun.

I said at the time that I wondered how in the world we could declare victory. How could we ever know when we have defeated this enemy? I likened it a bit to the semi-cavalier approach espoused by the late, great Republican U.S. Sen. George Aiken of Vermont who said during the Vietnam War that we should “just declare victory and go home.”

President Biden has in a sense declared victory against the terrorists. He is bringing home the remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan no later than Sept. 11, the 20th year since the beginning of the longest war in U.S. history.

We didn’t start this conflict, but today Biden declared that we are about to finish this particular phase of it.

My fervent hope is that we remain on the highest alert possible for any future evil intent. I heard the president say that it is time for us to look forward, that the terrorist movement has “metastasized” and moved into many other areas of the world. It is time, he said, for us to focus our efforts beyond the Afghan battlefield.

Joe Biden is not wild-eyed. He does not strike me as being prone to making decisions based on hunches and gut feelings. The president is a studied creature of the government he now leads.

I do hope with all that I can muster that he can remove the relative handful of troops from the field of battle while ensuring that we can remain focused sharply on danger when it presents itself. That we can take a proactive posture against threats to our nation.

We do possess the nation’s strongest military apparatus. A first-rate intelligence service complements that force with seasoned and dedicated professionals. We also have a commander in chief who listens and acts on the advice and counsel he receives from the pros who are trained to deliver it.

Can we truly declare victory on the Afghan killing fields? I hope that is the case.

International news, military news

Biden: Bring troops home

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It is with guarded optimism — with the emphasis on “guarded” — that I welcome the pending end of our nation’s longest war as announced today by President Biden.

The president today declared his intention to have all U.S. combat troops removed from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 20 years after what has been called simply “9/11.”

Terrorists hijacked jetliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on that horrific day. A fourth jetliner became the scene of a fight between heroic passengers and terrorists and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. We went to war that day.

Joe Biden today, in effect, declared a form of “victory” in our fight against international terrorism. He wants to end our combat involvement in Afghanistan, where the Taliban gave safe harbor to al-Qaeda terrorists, enabling them to plot and execute the ghastly terrorist attack that drew us into the longest conflict in our nation’s history.

At roughly the halfway point in that struggle, our special forces killed the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden.

To be sure, the terror threat cannot possibly be extinguished ever. It was there all along, prior to 9/11 and afterward. Indeed, President Biden today acknowledged that threat and vowed to deploy all available counter- and anti-terrorist strategies to protect us against further attacks.

I hope with all my heart that he succeeds in this effort. I no longer want to send our young men and women into battle. That doesn’t mean, though, that we ever let our guard down against threats such as what befell us on 9/11.

I remain dubious that the Taliban can be trusted as a negotiating partner. Thus, it is imperative that we keep our military on the highest level of preparedness moving past the date set for our withdrawal from the Afghan battlefield.

Joe Biden reminded us that four U.S. presidents — George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Biden — all have dealt with this conflict. President Biden vowed today he wouldn’t hand it to a fifth commander in chief.

I want to applaud this decision. However, I will hold off on that hand-clapping when we can know for certain that we have ended forever the threats of violence that can come at a moment’s notice.

national news

Transition proves tough

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The transition from the presidency of Donald John Trump to Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has proved tougher than I anticipated.

From a blogger’s standpoint, Trump kept me energized damn near daily with commentary to offer; Biden, meanwhile, is essentially keeping a low center of gravity … which I am certain is a good thing.

I am left, then, to think of what kind of former presidency awaits the 45th White House occupant. How does this guy spend his remaining time on Earth? Will he bask in the reflected glory of having served a single term as president? Or will he continue to live under the ruse of the Big Lie that he keeps telling, the one about alleged electoral thievery by the guy who beat him?

There might come a time when the former presidents gather in one place. It might a funeral for one of them. It might be an event that President Biden decides to host that calls on his predecessors to attend. What might that be? Let’s see, we’ll be commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 later this year. There might be an event at the White House or the Pentagon, or at the World Trade Center in Manhattan that compels the former presidents to show up.

Surely we would see Presidents Bush and Obama there, yes? I mean, 9/11 occurred on Bush’s watch and Obama approved the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. President Clinton is no stranger to comforting a nation grieving over tragedy, which he did after the Oklahoma City bombing. President Carter’s health might not allow him to be there.

What about Donald Trump? Does he get invited to attend such an event?

I am thinking he is going to live out his days as an outcast from this exclusive club of former U.S. commanders in chief. It doesn’t matter one damn bit to me whether he ever rehabilitates himself sufficiently to be welcomed back, or whether he would even feel suited to accept an invitation, were one to be extended.

There might come a day when these thoughts won’t invade my skull. Man, I hope it gets here in a hurry.

national security

Time for thorough examination

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald John Trump’s impeachment trial is over.

The ex-president will walk away and hole up in his luxurious resort way down yonder. Fine. Good riddance.

However, the wreckage that befell the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 needs a careful examination. Recall that in the wake of 9/11, President Bush formed a blue-ribbon, bipartisan commission to look carefully at how to eliminate the kind of national security breach that occurred on that terrible day. The commission, led by Republican former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, resulted in — among other things — the creation of a new Cabinet department, Homeland Security.

The results? We haven’t been hit in that fashion in the two decades after that attack.

Why not form a similarly constituted commission now to take a deep dive into the myriad causes of the riot that erupted on the very day that Congress was meeting to certify the 2020 presidential election? As bad as the event unfolded, it could have been much more tragic.

We need to examine how the security broke down and search for remedies to repair it. We need to examine carefully reports of its pre-planning, who was involved, and seek to root out their motives. There needs to be a careful, thorough and unvarnished accounting for all the factors that led to this monstrous attack on our democratic process … and on the very free-election foundation of our government.

President Biden has many contacts associated — past and present — with the federal government. Surely he can find competent, reasonable, fair-minded individuals to serve on this committee to start peeling away the conspiratorial layers that produced this heinous attack.

We need answers and solutions to how we can prevent a recurrence of this monstrous act.