Tag Archives: al-Qaeda

International news, military news

Why the masks, bad guys?

Growing up watching TV and movie westerns, I came to understand why the bad guys — bank robbers, train robbers, cattle rustlers and the like — wore masks.

They wanted to protect their identity from the sheriff’s, marshals, posses and the assorted white-hat good guys looking to apprehend them or to, well, shoot ’em dead.

I am struck in the present day, therefore, about why these international terrorists keep parading around wearing masks.

The hideous pictures of the Islamic State monster we’ve all seen as he’s preparing to execute those journalists come to mind. FBI and Interpol apparently know the identity of the individual, but haven’t released his name for law-enforcement reasons.

We see other images of terrorists parading around in pickups armed with machine guns. The terrorists are wearing hooded masks.

Al-Qaeda “soldiers” have been recorded participating in training exercises. They’re firing those automatic weapons and acting like soldiers. Again, they’re masked. We can’t see who they are.

I won’t assume for an instant that these individuals are hiding their identities because their so-called “conscience” tells them that terrorizing the world is a bad thing and that they should be ashamed.

However, I will assume they’re hiding behind those masks because of cowardice.

Cowards, sad to say, are a more dangerous enemy than those who are unafraid to reveal their identities. They do their filthy deeds under cloaks of secrecy, then peel the masks off and go about their business right along with the rest of civilized society.

This is a treacherous foe we’re fighting. The masks only affirm their treachery.

 

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U.S. not alone in this fight

Barack Obama wants it known that the United States is not fighting the Islamic State one-on-one, nation vs. cult.

The president of the United States said on “60 Minutes” that the country he leads is just a leader in the fight that comprises an international coalition of nations battling a despicable terrorist organization.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/barack-obama-isil-111395.html?hp=l2

I get that.

The harder sell will be to Americans who are likely to perceive that since we’re “leading” the air strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq that it, indeed, is our fight to win.

I’m willing to welcome the rest of the world to join us in this war against this clearly defined evil force.

There must be no illusions about how long this conflict will persist. As we’ve learned so painfully, the death of one key terrorist leader such as Osama bin Laden does not by itself necessarily weaken an organization he would lead. Al-Qaeda received a serious blow to its command and control when the SEAL and CIA commando team smoked bin Laden in May 2011. Others have surfaced to take his place.

As the world has learned, ISIL has emerged as a serious world threat.

Thus, the world must fight this menace. That is what the president seeks to do, build a worldwide coalition of nations willing and able to fight ISIL to the death.

It is not our battle to wage on our own.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Revenge on tap? Who knew?

This is the nature of the enemy with which the United States and other nations are at war.

Al-Qaeda officials vow “revenge” for the air strikes that have hammered Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq. And why are we striking those targets? Because of terrorist acts against innocent civilians.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/al-qaida-leader-syria-warns-revenge-airstrikes-n213636

Al-Qaeda started this fight 13 years ago when terrorists hijacked those airplanes and flew them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. The United States, led by two presidents, have sought to finish the fight they started.

There’s no end game in sight yet. President Bush declared our intention to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan. President Obama has followed through.

ISIL has emerged as an offshoot of al-Qaeda and has executed innocents, some of whom in a horrific way.

And now these terrorists are vowing revenge?

Someone will have to explain to me how this makes any sense.

International news, political news

Killing top terrorists 'won't work'

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal knows a thing or two about hunting down and killing terrorists.

So, when he says that killing the top dogs in the terrorist chain of command won’t eradicate the organization, he deserves the nation’s ear.

http://news.msn.com/videos/?ap=True&videoid=f189696c-1d54-4eb9-8637-9c422da93289

McChrystal noted — as many others have acknowledged — that killing Osama bin Laden in May 2011 didn’t eliminate al-Qaeda. Others stepped up to replace him. Now some are saying that the terror group is stronger than before.

The general’s comments come in the wake of President Obama declaring war, in effect, against the Islamic State. The plan now is to go after ISIL’s top leadership, eliminate it, decimate the organization and then perhaps be able to declare some form of victory in this war against terror.

McChrystal is dubious of that strategy, as he said to CNN’s Erin Burnett.

I’ve sought to make the point on this blog that the anti-terror campaign is unlike any we’ve ever fought as a nation. There is no clearly defined enemy operating out of foreign capitals, funded openly by hostile governments. They operate in the shadows, seeking to keep their identity secret for as long as possible.

Yes, we know who ISIL’s leaders are, as we know the names of those who lead al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram or any other terrorist organization. If we kill every leader of every group, does that send the minions into hiding, dispirited? No. I enrages them and they find new leaders to step up.

The fight is worth waging and we must fight them with extreme prejudice.

However, as Gen. McChrystal has said correctly, killing the bad guys’ leaders isn’t enough.

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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?

 

International news, political news

What's this? Ted Cruz is right about something?

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Imagine my shock and horror when I read something that came out of Sen. Ted Cruz’s mouth that I found agreeable.

The Texas Republican says the United States should revoke the citizenship of any American known to have taken up arms with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Being a fair-minded guy, I want to stipulate that not every loathsome politician is utterly devoid of a good idea once in a while.

Cruz’s notion, as I understand it, is perfectly OK with me.

“There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt … to re-enter our country and carry further attacks on American civilians,” Cruz said.

Amen to that.

I’d like to take that point a step or two further.

First, we should revoke the citizenship of any American known to associate with any terrorist organization. Let’s not limit it to ISIL membership. Al-Qaeda has done terrible things to Americans, as we all know; it, too, has boasted of American-born members, some of whom have been killed by U.S. forces in the on-going war against international terror.

Second, revoking U.S. citizenship of known terrorists removes them from any effort to exempt them from becoming victims of military strikes. I’ve said already that I have no difficulty with American forces killing Americans who’ve taken up arms against their country. Others have questioned the correctness of killing U.S. citizens without giving them “due process.” By my way of thinking, those citizens gave up their rights to due process the moment they suited up in enemy colors.

These so-called Americans have all but renounced their citizenship. Ted Cruz’s idea takes that renunciation a key step further.

Now that I’ve said something in agreement with Ted Cruz, I’ll need some smelling salts.

Still, his idea is on point.

 

International news, national news, political news

GOP Rep. Cole tamps down Obama criticism

U.S. Rep. Tom Cole must be running a fever. Perhaps he’s been in the hot Oklahoma sun too long.

The Republican lawmaker actually said President Obama is being “commendably cautious” about developing a strategy to deal with ISIL.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/tom-cole-obama-isil-110443.html?hp=l4

Commendably cautious? What’s going on here?

Cole is one of the few GOP lawmakers to suggest that Obama shouldn’t be rushed into developing such a strategy. Indeed, Cole noted that the White House has crafted “the elements of a strategy” already.

I’m one of those who said the other day that the president needs to get cracking on a strategy to deal with ISIL, the notorious terrorist group that many experts say makes al-Qaeda look like a Boy Scout troop. I still believe the president shouldn’t waste time.

Then again, it’s refreshing to hear at least one leading congressional Republican suggest that critics are hyperventilating needlessly.

Cole takes appropriate note of the complexities facing the White House in the Syria conflict. Bashar al-Assad is fighting ISIL. The United States hardly is Assad’s friend. Indeed, President Obama has called for Assad’s ouster. Who should replace him? Certainly no one who’s friends with ISIL.

Therein lies the president’s “commendable caution.”

 

 

 

International news, national news

U.S.-born ISIS fighter is dead

All the hand-wringing over the use of drones to target terrorists who might be American citizens makes me angry.

U.S. airpower struck at a U.S. citizen who had been working with al-Qaeda in Yemen. Our ordnance killed him and civil libertarians and others lamented the lack of “due process” given to the young man before the missile blew him away.

Too bad for that.

Now comes word that another young American, someone named Douglas McCain, was killed in a battle among terror groups in Syria. McCain had been recruited by ISIS, which is fighting governments in Syria and Iraq.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/26/world/meast/syria-american-killed/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Will there more hand-wringing over this one? Probably not, given that he died at the hands of another extremist group. Suppose, though, he’d been killed by U.S. forces. Suppose further that those forces knew that an American was shooting back at him and that he intended to kill whoever he could hit.

Would we have legal and moral standing to kill someone who had renounced his country and taken up arms with the enemy?

Absolutely.

I’m as progressive as anyone on many issues. When it comes, however, to “protecting the rights” of Americans who turn on their country, all bets are off.

My curiosity goes only so far as to wonder what drives Americans to join forces with enemy combatants.

I don’t know the first thing about Douglas McCain and what lured him into the embrace of a hideous terrorist organization. To be honest, I don’t particularly care to know.

What’s left to ponder only is that someone who had declared himself to be an enemy of the country of his birth is now dead.

Whether he died at the hands of other bad guys or at the hands of our soldiers wouldn’t matter to me one little bit.

 

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U.S. responds correctly to ISIS threat

The Sunni extremists seeking to overrun Iraq have executed an American journalist, released video of his gruesome death and threatened to do the same thing to others until the United States stops its air strikes against military targets in Iraq.

The U.S. response? More air strikes.

It is absolutely the correct response to this hideous threat.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/20/world/meast/iraq-crisis/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

James Foley had been held for two years by ISIS terrorists before reportedly being beheaded by his captors. Foley has been saluted and eulogized as a courage chronicler of events in the Middle East who’s paid the ultimate price for doing his duty as a journalist.

ISIS has been characterized by experts as an organization far worse than al-Qaeda — and Americans know first hand what kind of outfit al-Qaeda has become.

ISIS’s advance on Iraqi installations and its assault on people needs to stopped. That is why President Obama has ordered the air strikes that reportedly have done grave damage to the group’s military capabilities.

For as long as ISIS continues to threaten to do harm to Americans and innocent Iraqis — namely Christians — then the United States has an obligation to protect these interests. We have paid too much in our own blood and money to let ISIS run rampant in Iraq. Obama says our nation’s ground combat role in Iraq is over, but the aerial campaign — along with the humanitarian effort to aid Yazidis and Kurds — is worth pursuing in an effort to pound ISIS into oblivion.

If ISIS responds with another execution, well, then the attacks should increase in ferocity.