Tag Archives: Osama bin Laden

local news, military news

What if Trump shows up … ?

Two weeks from takeoff from Love Field and I am beginning to run some things through my noggin and I should vanquish them … because none of them could actually take place.

Then again …

I am leaving on Sept. 11 for an overnight trip to Washington, D.C. I will be one of 45 veterans taking part in an Honor Flight, an event devised to salute military veterans for the service they gave to the country. I served for two years in the Army, from 1968 until 1970. I was sent to Vietnam for a time to work on airplanes and then assigned to the tactical operations center in Da Nang.

I came home and was greeted mostly with shrugs from friends. I didn’t get any “thank you for your service” greetings from strangers. That’s all changed. No longer do we treat service personnel as being at fault for our planners’ failures.

Honor Flights are designed to demonstrate a nation’s gratitude. Some of us on this trip are old enough to remember how we were treated when we completed our service in S.E. Asia.

OK, now about those thoughts.

Our trip coincides with the 25th year since the 9/11 attack by terrorists. My thought involves the four former presidents of the United States, all of whom should be honored for the work they did to bring the terrorist in chief, Osama bin Laden, to justice.

Will any of these men be around to greet us, or to receive our thanks for their service to the country? That’s what I am hoping will happen. Furthermore, I have a bit shared history with one of these gentlemen. I met then Texas Gov. George W. Bush in a personal 90-minute session I had with him in the summer of 1995. I have been hoping to see him again and remind him of that meeting and hope he remembers me.

The 9/11 attacks occurred during the first year of his time as president.

Barack Obama was on duty when the SEALs found bin Laden in May 2011. I have seen viral videos of him greeting veterans on earlier Honor Flights. Maybe he can find some time to do it again. Bill Clinton felt bin Laden’s wrath in 2000 when al-Qaeda terrorists blew a hole into the Navy destroyer USS Cole. Joe Biden was in the Situation Room as vice president the night of the SEAL raid. The former 46th president is ill with cancer, so I don’t expect to see him … but I would love to shake his hand and thank him for his 50 years of public service.

That brings us to the current president. What if he makes an appearance? My gut struggles with my brain. I detest the guy who is in office now. I respect and revere the office he occupies. What would I do if were standing in front of me? I would shake his hand … and that’s all I will say about that.

Will any of this occur? Probably not. I just wanted to let you know once again that am taking part in this Honor Flight with great pride and thanks of my own.

religious news

Islam is not our enemy

Very soon, Americans are going to commemorate a date that is every bit as infamous as the date that saw the United States plunge into World War II … the day Japan’s naval and air forces attacked our Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Just mention “9/11,” and the whole world knows what you mean. We went to war on that day because terrorists flew commercial jets into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and into a Pennsylvania field when passengers aboard a fourth jetliner sought to wrest control of the doomed plane from hijackers.

President Bush, barely nine months into his job on Sept. 11, 2001, spoke eloquently in an effort to rally the nation behind the fight against international terror. One of the major takeaways from the president’s speech that evening was that “we are not at war with Islam.” The nation was taking aim at the terrorists who masquerade as Muslims.

I mention this today because we are hearing throughout North Texas language that suggests that not all Americans heard the message that President Bush sought to convey. Islam, Bush told us, is a religion of peace.

President Obama also reminded us that the leader of the terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 — Osama bin Laden — was “not a Muslim,” but that he was a terrorist who killed thousands of Muslims during his reign of terror, before U.S. commandos brought justice to the head of al-Qaeda.

And yet, we hear rumblings in North Texas about efforts to ban Sharia law, a tenet practiced by some Muslims. I hear rumblings in small communities such as Sachse. In McKinney, the city council might face a recall effort by residents angry over some council members’ support of a proposed mosque in that city.

I must be clear on this. A mosque is a house of worship where Muslims are guaranteed their right to pray as they see fit. It’s in the Constitution’s First Amendment. As for Sharia law, the Constitution also prohibits the any religion in our public schools. This all strikes me as a cause in search of a villain.

As Americans prepare to commemorate 9/11, a date that will — as Dec. 7 has done — be remembered as a “date which will live in infamy,” may we also remember that our enemies are not Muslims. They are those who have perverted a great religion for a dastardly political cause.

military news

What about the oath?

Every so often I spend part of my day at home watching YouTube of news events, many of which involve the president of the United States acting in his role as commander in chief.

I saw one the other day and it compels me to share something that President Obama said while awarding the Medal of Honor to a Navy SEAL. He said the special forces that operate in all our military branches adhere to a code that says they shouldn’t seek attention or glory for the actions they perform in defense of our country. They operate in the shadows, he said, eschewing the limelight.

The comments drew me immediately to the conduct of a SEAL who took part in the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The individual apparently didn’t adhere to the special forces vow to remain anonymous.

Oh, no. Instead, this fellow decided to make a big deal out of what he said happened that night in Pakistan when SEALs and their Army pilots landed in the compound where bin Laden was hiding. This guy claimed to have fired the shots that killed bin Laden. He’s written a book about it. He’s appeared on TV talk shows to tell the world about what he said he did.

The young man who received the Medal of Honor from President Obama is what is described as a “special warfare operator.” Obama made the point that the fellow, who’s now retired from the Navy, would rather be anywhere else in the world than at the White House surrounded by officials, well-wishers and TV cameras.

That’s the way heroes roll. They do their job at great risk to their own safety. Then they go home. They await the next order to suit up and deploy into harm’s way.

The SEAL to seemingly boast about his role in taking out bin Laden only cheapens what went down that moonless night in Pakistan. I just wish he would have kept his trap shut.

Uncategorized

How did she escape blame?

I want to revisit one of the darker chapters in our nation’s glorious story, the 9/11 terror attack that killed 3,000 or so innocent victims.

Netflix has produced a three-part documentary that chronicles the effort to hunt down Osama bin Laden, mastermind behind the 9/11 attack. It’s more than four hours of really gripping TV. It takes the viewer through all the pre-9/11 attempts to hit the United States. There are interviews with key officials from the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.

We remember what happened that day. It was a gorgeous September morning in New York. A jetliner crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Then a second plane tore into the other Tower. A third plane smashed into the Pentagon. A fourth jet crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought with hijackers for control of the doomed craft.

The documentary sought to assess responsibilty for the catastrophic intelligence failures that produced the tragedy. I didn’t hear one time the name of an individual at the center of the intelligence network, nor did I hear a single reference made to anything she did or didn’t do: Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser for President Bush.

It has been a major puzzle to me how in the world she has escaped any recrimination for the failure to detect or act on any clue that might have materialized prior to the events of that horrifying day. I recall at the time as the nation endured the shock of what happened that no one seemed to mention Rice’s name publicly. My goodness, she was at center of our nation’s intelligence-gathering network.

President Bush selected Rice to be his national security adviser because she is known to be a deep thinker, a critical analyst, one who studies her craft thoroughly … and for my money, someone who should be held accountable for whatever failings occurred on her watch that led to the mass murders and destruction of the World Trade Center.

The series concludes with a detailed look at the planning that went into the eventual killing of bin Laden by the SEALs. I was struck by this nugget as well. President Obama was told that his national security team had less evidence of bin Laden’s presence in that Pakisani compound than what was used to persuade Americans that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn’t have the WMD and we went to war in March 2003. All Obama had was purely circumstantial evidence that bin Laden was in the compound.

I am still waiting to learn, though, whether Condoleezza Rice ever will be asked to answer this question: Did you do all you could have done to prevent 9/11?

International news

Avoid victory declaration

It is tempting to declare victory and call it all good now that the latest international terrorist leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been blown to smithereens.

Just as it was tempting to do the same when the SEAL team shot Osama bin Laden between the eyes in May 2011, or when commandos took out Islamic State honcho Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019.

President Biden ordered the drone strike that killed the latest al-Qaeda leader — al-Zawahiri — as he stood on the porch of his house in Kabul, Afghanistan.

But let’s be clear: Many of us warned that there would be other leaders to step forward to succeed bin Laden, al-Baghdadi and now al-Zawahiri.

The war against international terror will be on-going. We must remain alert, vigilant and ready to respond to any threats that present themselves. That is what President Joe Biden pledged we would do when he ended our troop involvement in Afghanistan in 2021.

The “over the horizon” hit on al-Zawahiri demonstrated our nation’s astonishing capability to find and dispatch international terrorists. What’s more, this hit was carried out reportedly with zero collateral casualties. 

These kinds of opportunities don’t present themselves every day. When they do, we must be prepared to take full advantage of them … which is what occurred this past weekend.

The fight must go on.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

U.S. takes out major terrorist

Ayman al-Zawahiri never obtained the same high-profile notoriety as his international terrorist predecessor, Osama bin Laden.

However, as of today, the two terrorists share an important trait. They both are dead! Al-Zawahiri is just as dead as bin Laden.

The news today marks a significant victory for U.S. intelligence officials who located al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan and then launched a drone strike to take the bad guy out.

I want to make an important point that, yes, is going to remind readers of this blog about a pledge that President Biden made a year ago when he announced the sudden withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

He told us that the United States would not relent in its hunt for international terrorists, even as we removed our troops from the battlefield in Afghanistan.

Ayman al-Zawahiri happened to be bin Laden’s successor as the leader of al-Qaeda, the monstrous terrorist organization that carried out the 9/11 attack on our nation and dragged us into a global war against those who would seek to do us harm.

President Barack Obama ordered the SEAL team strike that killed bin Laden in May 2011. It was a huge moment of victory for this nation’s war on terror. Many of us cautioned, though, in real time that someone would emerge to take bin Laden’s place.

That someone proved to be al-Zawahiri.

Now a new president, Joe Biden, gave the OK to launch a drone aircraft into Afghanistan, where it killed al-Zawahiri.

Does this mean the end of al-Qaeda? Hardly. We can expect another hideous animal to take the reins of the terror network.

All of this also illustrates what many of us have said since the immediate aftermath of 9/11, which is that we are likely entering an endless conflict against the forces of evil.

As Politico reports:

“The strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is a major success of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. A result of countless hours of intelligence collection over many years,” said Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and retired CIA paramilitary operations officer. “The message for all al-Qaeda and its affiliates should be that the U.S. will never relent in its mission to hold those accountable who would seek to harm the United States and its people.“

I’m all in.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Wow! We did learn this guy’s name

Eleven years ago, I posted an item about a seminal event in our ongoing war against international terrorism.

I wrote: I would pay serious money to shake the hand of the young man who took out bin Laden. But we’ll never know his name or see his face. Wow! What a turn of events.

Man, was I ever wrong about that, about not knowing “his name” or seeing “his face.”

Would I shake his hand now? No! Why? Because the special forces operator who claims to have fired the shot that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011 violated what I always have understood be part of the Navy SEAL ethos, which is that no one should take individual credit for a mission that was executed by an entire team.

I won’t write this guy’s name here. He’s written a book about what he did and, I presume, made a ton of cash on his role on that mission.

I certainly want to offer a salute to our national security team for finding bin Laden, for working out the immense detail needed to accomplish the mission, for the incredible work that occurred during two presidential administrations since 9/11 to find this demon and for ridding the world of an existential menace.

Meanwhile, I will continue to scorn the nimrod who decided to make a spectacle of himself.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Fight goes on and on

Americans of all stripes, be they Republican or Democrat, today are cheering the death of the leader of the Islamic State at the hands of U.S. special forces.

The nation’s elite warriors stormed a compound in northern Syria, cornered the ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, who then blew himself up, killing himself and his wife, small children and others.

This raid, while spectacular in its execution and the success it achieved, does not signal the end of the Islamic State as a terrorist threat to this nation and others around the world.

“The fight against ISIS continues. Their leader may be gone, but their twisted ideology and their intent to kill, maim and terrorize still threaten our national security and the lives of countless innocents,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

So, the fight goes on. Still, it is heartening to know that this nation has the capability to bring a form of justice to murderous terrorists. We did so in May 2011 when SEALs killed al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and again in 2019 when our troops killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS leader in Iraq.

Joe Biden now becomes the third consecutive president — Barack Obama and Donald Trump were the other two — to order our men into harm’s way to protect us against the horror of international terrorism.

Well done, men … and thank you.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

9/11 reminds me why I am glad we left

The commemorations we have witnessed today as the nation marks the 20th year since the 9/11 attacks have taken us — in my mind at least — on a dual-track remembrance.

I am reminded of how unified we were immediately after the attacks. President Bush called us to arms to fight the terrorist network that launched the attack. We stood behind the wartime president … for a time.

Then he took us into Iraq. The Iraq War was launched on false pretenses. We invaded a sovereign nation, removed a hated dictator and then got bogged down in another conflict with no clear motive for engaging the Iraqis in the first place.

We took our eyes off the key enemy: the Afghan terrorists.

President Bush infamously said at one point during his time in office he didn’t think much about Osama bin Laden. His successor, President Obama, made it the nation’s mission to bring justice to the mass murderer. Our special forces did so in May 2011.

Yet the war in Afghanistan dragged on.

And on and on …

Which brings me to the second track. President Biden ended that war. I am more glad today than ever that he acted when he did. It is true the withdrawal could have been executed more cleanly. But our troops are off the battlefield.

We have removed the world of thousands of terrorists. No, they aren’t exterminated. Others have stepped up to replace them. Indeed, the Afghan War had turned into a never-ending struggle against an enemy that cannot possibly be wiped off the face of the planet.

However, we retain — throughout unsurpassed military and intelligence capability — the ability to search out and destroy anyone who intends to do us harm the way Osama bin Laden did on 9/11.

May always remember the attacks of that horrific day. May we also always remain alert to the danger that lurks.

However, let us also avoid the kind of quagmire — and that’s what it became in Afghanistan — that always exacts too heavy a price.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

We are changed forever

We know where we were and what we were doing when we got the word 20 years ago today … correct?

On that landmark Tuesday morning I was sitting at my desk at work in Amarillo, Texas. A young man with whom I worked on the editorial page of the Globe-News, came to work, stuck his head in the door and said, “Did you hear the news? A plan flew into the World Trade Center.”

That’s about all Dave Henry knew at the moment. I asked him about the weather. It was sunny and clear in New York, Henry said. My first thought was that a moron had flown the plane into the WTC by mistake.

I turned on the mini-TV I kept in my office. The “Today” show came on and a few minutes later, all hell broke loose as the second plane flew into the other WTC tower. We heard later that morning about the Pentagon and then about the crash in Shanksville, Pa.

Terrorists had hijacked four jetliners intending to do serious harm to this nation. They succeeded perhaps beyond the wildest dreams of the mastermind, Osama bin Laden, who would be delivered justice a decade later by special operations forces sent to kill him by President Obama.

I don’t know what lessons we learned from that horrifying event. I can think of only one constructive lesson, which is that terrorism is a threat that cannot be extinguished. It will lurk in the evil souls of individuals for as long as they exist among us. The lesson will be that we must maintain the highest level of alert. Always and forever.

They paid tribute this morning in our North Texas community to the lives lost and the heroism displayed by firefighters, police officers, first responders and those passengers who fought the terrorists before crashing the plan in Pennsylvania.

They lowered the flag to half-staff at the Princeton Fire Department Station No. 3, the newest such station in our city. The ceremony was brief, but poignant. We learned about a firefighter who died in NYC on 9/11, Anthony Rodriguez, whose sister lives in Princeton and that the fire station we visited this morning was built in his memory.

The ceremony was brief. Our hearts will remain broken for as long as we remember the events of that day and the war that followed for two decades after the attack.

Mostly, though, I choose to salute the brave men and women — such as Anthony Rodriguez — who ran into the flames.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com