Tag Archives: 9/11 attacks

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Do we ignore our guys’ missteps?

A friend of mine passed on a bit of wisdom this morning at the Amarillo Town Club that I’d like to share here.

All this give-and-take on social media — particularly Facebook — he says, makes him think about whether he is looking critically enough at his “guys'” missteps, mistakes, goofs and blunders.

He was speaking about some of the Facebook threads that have developed among people of differing political points of view. I’m happy to report that some of the threads to which he refers is in response to posts that appear on this blog.

I’ve given some thought to what he said and his wisdom makes sense.

We all have our own bias. I tilt to the left and I recognize my bias there. Many of my friends in the Texas Panhandle tilt the other way — no surprise there, right? I like sharing ideas with them, even though I recognize they’re always wrong and I’m always right.

OK, back to the seriousness. My pal, a well-educated man who works in the public sector, takes note of the need to assess whether we’re being as analytical as we can be when assessing some of these issues.

Some of the social media posts do twist off in irrational directions. Barack Obama is seen by many on the right and far right as a traitor who intentionally seeks to degrade America’s ability to defend itself. I try to restrain myself when I see that kind of opinion tossed into cyberspace. My friends on the left and far left are equally perverse, suggesting for example that George W. Bush actually sanctioned the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to get us into a war with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I also restrain myself on that nonsense as well.

The vast middle ground between those extremes is where we need to focus our attention.

I’m willing to talk sensibly with anyone. I’m also willing to acknowledge that I tend to look differently when my guys mess up than when the guys on the other side mess up. I’m not going to apologize for that. It’s my bias and I’m entitled to wear it on my sleeve, just as the other side is entitled to display its own bias.

My friend’s point about taking care to look critically at my side, though, holds up.

I hereby pledge to seek to do so — even if it produces the same response.

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Memo validates drone strike on American

Maybe there’s something wrong with me … but I doubt it.

I might be one of few Americans who can justify a drone strike that killed an American citizen who happened to be an al-Qaeda terrorist.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-memo-justifies-drone-hit-american-citizen-al-awlaki-n138431

The U.S. Justice Department has released a declassified version of a memo that validates the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born terrorist. He had been plotting against the United States of America. He was a traitor to his country. His death in the Yemen drone attack, which occurred in September 2011, has become a cause for civil libertarians who contend that the United States should not target an American citizen in its war against international terror.

Al-Awlaki was a very bad man. He deserved to die on the battlefield. He had taken up arms against the United States. He was an enemy combatant. My understanding of war is that enemy combatants become targets of the forces that oppose them.

“We believe DoD’s contemplated action against al-Aulaqi would comply with international law, including the laws of war applicable to this armed conflict and would fall within Congress’ authorization to use ‘necessary and appropriate force’ against al-Qaida,” the memo said.

The memo concludes, saying that al-Awlaki was “engaged in continual planning and direction of attacks upon U.S. persons from one of the enemy’s overseas basis of operations, the U.S. government does not know precisely when such attacks will occur, and a capture operation would be infeasible.”

“There are few questions more important than the question of when the government has the authority to kill its own citizens,” according to deputy ACLU legal director Jameel Jaffer.

My own feeling is that when one of those citizens takes up arms on the field of battle against his country, then he has answered the question himself. He becomes a target.

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'Take the fight to terrorists'

Bet on this: President Obama’s critics will say his statement today about how the United States plans to aid Iraq in its fight against Sunni insurgents is insufficient.

They know this, how?

I’m willing to give this strategy a try.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/obama-u-s-prepared-take-targeted-action-iraq-n135621

The president today announced the deployment of 300 military advisers who will guide the Iraqi armed forces on using the weapons we’ve given them to defend their country against the insurgency that has erupted.

The United States, Obama said, is ready to launch “targeted” attacks against Sunni military positions. When those attacks occur no doubt will be kept secret.

It’s fair to ask: What in the world is the political and/or military gain sending ground troops back to Iraq? The president believes we have nothing to gain by re-entering the battlefield. Sure, we could whip the Sunnis, force them to retreat, perhaps surrender … and then what? We’d leave yet again and the Sunni fighters would emerge from their hiding places to resume the fight.

Do we want to keep a residual force there — a la South Korea and Europe? What happens when the insurgents start targeting Americans? Do we start shooting again, thus reigniting a war we thought was over?

It’s been said time and again: This crisis requires a political solution, not a military one. The war we’ve been fighting since 9/11 is as unconventional as it gets. It’s a war against terrorists who know zero boundaries. We need to employ counter-terrorism measures, which we’ve been doing with considerable effectiveness.

While we’re on this subject, allow me this additional statement about the nation’s security.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and others have been yammering about the alleged “surrender” of American security to the bad guys. Have we been attacked the way we were on Sept. 11, 2001? No. Have our forces been killing and capturing terrorists? Yes. Did we exterminate the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden? Yes again.

Will this country be any safer if we send thousands of troops back into Iraq? I think not.

It’s time to force Iraqi political and military leaders to step up the fight and defend their country against those who seek to topple them. It’s their fight in their country. We can lend a hand. Our battlefield job is finished.

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Cheney's hubris is astounding

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Listening to former Vice President Dick Cheney blast President Obama over his Iraq policy is like listening to — and I’ll have to give credit to a former editor of mine for this one — Xaviera “Happy Hooker” Hollander lecture us on chastity.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/obama-briefs-top-lawmakers-options-iraq-n134626

Cheney co-wrote with his daughter Liz an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he blamed Obama for the mess that has erupted in Iraq.

This man continues to spew nonsense with absolutely zero trace of self-awareness of his own role in creating the monster that is now roaring loudly across Iraq.

It was Cheney and President Bush who sold the world a bill of goods on Saddam Hussein’s bogus role in the 9/11 attacks; on his goal of developing nuclear weapons; of his possession of “weapons of mass destruction”; of how Iraqis would greet U.S. forces as “liberators” after they breezed into Baghdad.

Yet the former VP fails to recognize any complicity in the turmoil that has erupted in the country we occupied for nearly a decade.

And what did Republicans say in 2003 when Democrats criticized President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq? Oh, yes. They said such criticism gave aid and comfort to the enemy. Hmmm. Is that notion now off the table?

What in the world does it take to persuade this chicken hawk to shut his pie hole and follow the lead of the president he served for eight years? George W. Bush — following the lead of his own father, George H.W. Bush — has taken a vow of silence on the policies of his successor. I am quite certain “W” has plenty of thoughts on where he believes President Obama has gone wrong. That’s fine. He’s entitled.

However, President Bush recognizes we have one commander in chief at a time. If only the vice president who called so many of the shots in his own administration would come to the same recognition.

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Benghazi suspect nabbed

Quite a number of President Obama’s critics had wondered aloud about why the United States hadn’t yet captured any of the Benghazi consulate attack.

They seemed to forget that it took the United States nearly a decade to locate and kill Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

Lo and behold! Today it was announced that U.S. special forces captured Ahmed Abu Khattala, the reported mastermind behind the Benghazi attack that killed U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three others.

It took — what is it? — less than two years to find Khattala.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/suspect-benghazi-terror-attack-captured-libya-u-s-n133141

Hey, of course it won’t stem the criticism. The critics will say we should have caught the suspected mastermind a lot longer ago. Were these critics harping on the length of time it took to take bin Laden out? Gosh, I cannot remember it.

The question now is this: Where is Khattala going to be held, in Guantanamo Bay or somewhere in the United States?

It makes no difference to me where they hold this guy, as long as he’s kept under strict watch under the tightest security possible.

NBC News reports: “He will be tried in U.S. court — most likely in Washington, D.C. — and is currently being interrogated by FBI officials. He faces charges of killing a person in the course of an attack on a federal facility, providing material support to terrorists that result in death, and using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.” Khattala could get the death penalty if he’s convicted.

However, politics being what it is, look for Obama administration critics to find plenty of grounds to criticize the effort that produced the very result they had demanded in the first place.

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Pentagon strikes hard at al-Qaida

Something tells me the Pentagon brass is embarrassed enough to take some serious action against the world’s pre-eminent terrorist organization.

A video surfaced a few days ago in Yemen that showed a large crowd of al-Qaida thugs rallying in broad daylight; they were chanting, cheering and carrying on as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

You remember al-Qaida, yes? They’re the murderers responsible for the 9/11 attacks, not to mention countless other acts of bloody terrorism before and since that heinous act more than a dozen years ago.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/21/world/meast/yemen-drone-strike/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Well, the video suggests that al-Qaida is growing yet again. The group is brazen enough to prance around in the open, apparently right under the noses of U.S. and Middle East intelligence-gatherers.

Over the weekend, drone strikes and special operations forces began a concerted effort to wipe out a number of these terrorist leaders. Pentagon officials called it a massive operation conducted in cooperation with Yemeni government operatives and commandos. News of the strikes was announced late Sunday and early Monday it was revealed that the strikes are continuing.

This is the nature of war these days. The war on terror that President Bush declared after the 9/11 attacks is continuing. My hunch is that it will continue for as long as terrorists lurk among us anywhere on the planet. Osama bin Laden is dead, but others have surfaced to take his place.

Al-Qaida got our attention in a serious way when its henchmen flew those jetliners into the New York skyscrapers and into the Pentagon. All that dancing and prancing just made us angry all over again.

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Good news from Afghanistan?

Might there be a glimmer of hope finally in Afghanistan?

The Afghans have conducted an election to choose their next president. The top two candidates, according to National Public Radio, are pro-Western in their leanings and are not allies of the outgoing — and unpredictable — Afghan President Hamid Karzai; indeed, Karzai’s hand-picked successor is running far behind the top two candidates.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304819004579485482622918584

A runoff appears to be in the offing between opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah and former World Bank executive Ashraf Ghani.

What’s more, the election produced a stunning 60 percent turnout in the face of attacks from Taliban terrorists who, of course, oppose elections of any stripe.

Can this be a tipping point in the evolution of Afghanistan from a lawless, tribal society into one that is governed under the rule of laws that the rest of the civilized world understands?

Hope should spring eternal.

The United States already has ended its major combat role in Afghanistan after fighting an all-out war there against the Taliban since shortly after the 9/11 attacks. More than a dozen years have passed. Too much American blood has been spilled in what had been thought to be a lost cause.

It’s too early certainly to declare victory in a land with no known history of representative democracy. But with the impending election of either Ghani or Abdullah, the country appears to be headed toward a leadership that will tilt in our direction rather than toward the forces of evil.

It’s now time for the world to begin holding its breath.

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Cheney makes my head spin

My head is spinning.

I just caught up with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview on “Face the Nation” in which he ridicules the Obama administration’s efforts to manage the crisis in Ukraine.

President Obama is weak, indecisive, he’s lost the confidence of our allies, he’s wrong to take military options off the table — those are just some of the things Vice President Cheney offered in his assessment of Obama’s handling of the crisis.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/03/09/cheney_no_question_putin_thinks_obama_is_weak.html

I want to declare that Dick Cheney has no credibility — none whatsoever — on matters relating to managing international crises. How he can assert the things he does blows my ever-lovin’ mind.

Let us remember that Dick Cheney was in the Situation Room when President George W. Bush decided to go to war with Iraq in 2003. Cheney had declared time and again publicly that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed chemical weapons and that he would use them on our allies in the Middle East. Cheney made the case for war, argued that the United States had to invade a nation, topple a sovereign government, rebuild a nation, and create a more democratic society where none ever had existed. We would be seen as “liberators, not occupiers,” he said.

Well, Mr. Vice President, it didn’t quite work out that way.

The weapons were nowhere to be found. We toppled the government and installed one more to our liking. The war went on even after Saddam Hussein had been hanged. We lost more than 4,000 American lives.

Let us also remember that Saddam Hussein played no role at all in the 9/11 attacks. Our “allies” in Saudi Arabia are far more complicit in that heinous and dastardly act than the Iraqis. Why didn’t we topple that government, too, Mr. Vice President?

It’s almost laughable how Cheney glossed over the U.S. response to the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, saying that it occurred near the end of the Bush administration and as the Obama administration was preparing to take over. What’s the implication, Mr. Vice President? Might you be suggesting that Russia’s brass felt more comfortable invading Georgia as President Bush was about to leave office?

The Bush administration was as powerless to stop the Georgia incursion single-handedly as the Obama administration is now with the crisis in Ukraine.

My next task is to get my head to stop spinning.

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Atheists picking senseless fight

One can find religious symbols virtually everywhere. The cloud that spreads sunlight from the heavens? How about spectacular sunrises or sunsets? Rock formations that resemble, say, the Star of David or perhaps an oversized Buddha?

Well, a group calling itself American Atheists has argued before a federal appeals court that a piece of I-beam in the shape of a crucifix that was taken from the World Trade Center wreckage in the wake of the 9/11 attacks should not be placed in a private museum.

Give … me … a … break.

http://www.today.com/news/world-trade-center-cross-fight-continues-athiest-group-appeals-ruling-2D79328902?ocid=msnhp&pos=4

There are religious symbols and then there are those things that transcend pure religion. The crucifix-shaped metal fits the latter description. As an appellate judge ruled earlier in allowing the article to be displayed, it “demonstrate(s) how those at Ground Zero coped with the devastation they witnessed.”

Thus, the symbol has become far more than some religious symbol, although I personally see nothing wrong with it symbolizing the faith of millions of Americans — and a billion or so people around the world.

American Atheists filed suit in July 2011 to prevent the display at the museum, which was built on land leased from the federal government.

The cross-shaped beam was discovered in the wreckage as crews sought to clear debris after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and killed about 3,000 people, most of the Americans.

It’s become a symbol of strength, resolve and courage — all of which have been demonstrated amply by those who toiled in the rubble left by the terrorist attacks on that horrifying day.

American Atheists are entitled to express their opinion on the suitability of religious icons.

On this one, though, they’ve missed the mark by a mile.

Let’s hope the Second Court of Appeals sees this issue correctly.

The 9/11 National Museum is set to open in May. Here’s hoping the cross-shaped beam is on display in all its glory.

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Olympics have ended; world can breathe now

Russia closed its Sochi Winter Olympics in fine fashion Sunday.

It ended without any terrorist incident, which had been the talk of the world in the days leading up to the lighting of the Olympic torch.

Mission accomplished, Russia.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/2014-sochi-winter-olympics-end-103820.html?hp=l17

The Russians’ Ring of Steel, which comprised several thousand military and law enforcement personnel, had been deployed around the Olympic venues to ensure that no suspicious individuals or groups got in. I take my hat off to the Russians for protecting the spectators and athletes from harm.

This does beg the question: Were the alarms sounding prior to the Olympics justified?

Members of the Congress were there, declaring they had evidence of “credible threats” to the Olympics. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, actually suggested that the Russians might want to consider canceling the Olympics because of these threats, which he deemed to be valid and potentially disastrous.

Not to be derailed, the Russian organizers — with plenty of help from other governments — proceeded with the Olympics and they turned out to be quite the affair.

The 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens faced similar questions and concerns about terrorism, given that it was the first Summer Olympics after the 9/11 attacks. The Greeks were thought to be terribly lax in their anti-terror preparation. However, they too were able to pull off a successful Olympic event.

Congratulations are due the Russians. They might be our foes in some key geopolitical disputes at the moment, but they managed to stage a successful Olympic spectacle. They spent a ton of money on it, about $50 billion.

Given that they headed off any terrorist attack, it likely will be deemed worth the cost.