The 9/11 attacks are described as having been a surprise. In the sense that the Intelligence Community had no hard, actionable intelligence on the specific attack plan that is generally accurate. In the sense that we had no idea we were about to be hit by Al Qaida that is a lie. We had all the warning in the world.
Prior to 9/11 Bin Laden had stated on numerous occasions that he was focused on hitting the “far enemy”. That was us. He had blown up two of our embassies in East Africa. He had come dangerously close to sinking the USS Cole in Yemen. If you followed the issue at all you knew he was just getting started.
We ignored the warnings. We turned down repeated plans to find and eliminate Bin Laden. We gave the enemy breathing room. Almost 3000 Americans paid the price.
And, now we are doing it again.
A recent intelligence alert put out by the Department of Homeland Security has this title “Al-Qaeda says upcoming attacks on US, possibly involving planes, will use new techniques and tactics.” Per multiple reports, the alert is intended to advise U.S. law enforcement officials that Al Qaeda fully intends to stage future attacks on the U.S. which will involve aircraft and tactics and techniques not previously seen.
Which really tells us what we already knew. Al Qaeda has not gone anywhere. Its intentions have not changed. Biden and company may have chosen to pretend otherwise. That does not make the danger in the real world any less.
This is exactly what we did in the run-up to 9/11. Bill Clinton was busy with his domestic agenda. Facing a foreign terror threat would be politically inconvenient. Better to ignore the warnings and wait for people to die before doing anything.
If anything the Biden administration has taken this “head in the sand” mentality to new extremes. Even as warnings of increased threats to civil aviation are coming in Joe is sending federal air marshals (FAM) off to nursemaid illegal immigrants at the border. The marshals are being used to help with hospital watch, transportation, security, and welfare checks at migrant facilities.
This practice is so egregious it has prompted the Air Marshal National Council, which represents thousands of air marshals nationwide to file a formal complaint with Homeland Security. That complaint accuses DHS of violating federal law. “The statute does not give the Administrator any authority to deploy TSA or FAM employees to the southern border to perform non transportation security related matters,” the complaint to the DHS IG says.
In the wake of the release of the recent warning about the Al Qaida threat, the Air Marshal National Council sent a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas explicitly warning that sending marshals to the border was putting the nation at risk. “We are once again requesting you immediately stop these dangerous and unnecessary deployments and let our FAMs do what the American taxpayers pay them to do, protect and defend our transportation system,” the letter reads. “We have to ask how can you justify sending FAMs to the border in huge numbers, when the border is in your words secure, and there is no emergency? Yet we have major security incidents happening right now affecting our aviation security.”
The stark reality is this. Afghanistan is now a terrorist super state that dwarfs anything ISIS ever created. Al Qaeda and a host of other terrorist groups have a safehaven there. They do not want peace or coexistence. They want to transform the globe in their image.
A group of former Afghan officials addressed all this head-on in a recent open letter.
"According to a 2021 UN Security Council report, the 'Haqqani Network remains a hub for outreach and cooperation with regional foreign terrorist groups and is the primary liaison between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.' After the Taliban's takeover [in August 2021], Khalil Haqqani, the brother of the Haqqani Network founder Jalaluddin Haqqani, spoke publicly in Kabul’s Pul-e Khishti Mosque despite a US$5 million bounty on his head saying that 'relations between the Taliban, especially the Haqqani Network and Al-Qaeda remain close, based on friendship, a history of shared struggle, ideological sympathy, and intermarriage.'
"According to the Taliban's spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban have established a battalion of suicide bombers that will be part of their Martyrdom Brigade in a clear sign of continued use of terrorist tactics rather than transitioning into a regular army. Normalization of relations with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan poses a clear and present threat to the stability of the region and the world.
"The IEA represents a concise model for jihadist takeover of a nation state which, in the event of normalization, would show that jihadists can not only seize a country, repress its people through violence and gender apartheid, but they can achieve the basics of statehood. This is when Afghanistan under the Taliban rule has increasingly turned into a safehaven for terrorists. Suicide bombers are being trained in large groups (by the thousands) in provinces such as Kunduz with the chief purpose of carrying out terror campaigns in Afghanistan as well as other countries.
"Normalization, creeping attempts at legitimization or any recognition of the Taliban-run IEA, in any form, including their right to travel, will embolden the Taliban and other terrorist groups in their pursuit of power, and reward them for their disregard and ignorance of international norms and universal human rights."
When we invaded Afghanistan in 2001 we did so for a very good reason. Al Qaida had declared war on us and had killed thousands of our countrymen. If we had not invaded, the next wave of attacks launched from Afghanistan would have made 9/11 pale in comparison. At the time we entered Afghanistan Al Qaida had active chemical and biological weapons programs and Osama himself was in direct contact with former Pakistani nuclear scientists discussing the possibility of building an atomic bomb.
Al Qaida has never abandoned these ambitions. It has never ended its war on the United States. It is emboldened and stronger than ever. It has forged an unholy alliance with the Taliban. It has freedom of maneuver, money, and access to boundless resources. Its mission remains to strike the United States and its allies and to kill as many of us as possible. In the end, what it wants is to transform the entire planet into one giant Islamic emirate governed by a particularly mad and barbaric version of Sharia law.
On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."
Fatwa issued by Osama Bin Laden. It remains in effect to this day.
Twenty years ago we watched and waited and allowed thousands to die needlessly. We are doing it again. The next mass casualty attack on the United States is being planned right now. Its scope may dwarf anything we have seen before.
And, we are doing nothing to stop it. Somewhere in Afghanistan, the Al Qaida planners of the next 9/11 are smiling.
Sam, Al Qaida seems like "old news" in light of our obsession with Ukraine and Taiwan. We have given them all the incentive they need to become headline news again. I feel like I am spinning in circles with so many potential wolves surrounding us.
Horrifying on so many fronts. I rage at 'Biden'. I disdain what our government has done in Afghanistan and to our country. I am scared for our world of people who are powerless over this s***. God help us all.
Thank you for writing the truth-some of us prefer knowing at least some of it some of the time. God Bless you. You are a hero to me.