Posted on 07/08/2021 5:15:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
As the Biden Administration withdraws U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan, the prevailing media headline declares, with panicked certainty, that America has failed and suffered a strategic defeat. All is lost out there. Trillions of taxpayer dollars were squandered. Our killed and wounded in action suffered in vain. Etcetera.
That loser narrative ignores the historical fact that occupying and governing Afghanistan was never America's objective. Stabilizing? Yes, but I'll get back to that in a moment.
Fact: When U.S. military personnel entered Afghanistan in September 2001, America's goal was to cripple and destroy the communication, supply and personnel networks supporting Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaida brand of global Islamofascist terrorism. Bin Laden's zealots were global guerrillas whose victory was ordained by God. Destroying the World Trade Center demonstrated al-Qaida could destroy America as a world power, to be replaced by the global caliphate.
Al-Qaida's 9/11 massacre taught open-minded Americans that anarchy in even the world's most remote and impoverished corners provided anti-American terror cults with a base of operations. If you read anti-American as also meaning anti-modern and anti-personal freedom, by George you've got it.
Between October 2001 and March 2002, in geographically fragmented Afghanistan, American military personnel dealt al-Qaida two major defeats. U.S. Air Force B-52s and Army Green Berets with radios crushed the Taliban of 2001's attempt to destroy the Northern Alliance. In case you've forgotten (like the prevailing media), prior to 9/11, al-Qaida murdered Afghanistan's Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Massoud. Massoud presented a popular political and military challenge to the Taliban of 2001. Bin Laden bet Massoud's assassination would cause the anti-Islamist Afghan opposition to collapse. Besides, the Taliban had superior weapons and mobility (artillery and trucks).
As the Biden Administration withdraws U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan, the prevailing media headline declares, with panicked certainty, that America has failed and suffered a strategic defeat. All is lost out there. Trillions of taxpayer dollars were squandered. Our killed and wounded in action suffered in vain. Etcetera.
That loser narrative ignores the historical fact that occupying and governing Afghanistan was never America's objective. Stabilizing? Yes, but I'll get back to that in a moment.
Fact: When U.S. military personnel entered Afghanistan in September 2001, America's goal was to cripple and destroy the communication, supply and personnel networks supporting Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaida brand of global Islamofascist terrorism. Bin Laden's zealots were global guerrillas whose victory was ordained by God. Destroying the World Trade Center demonstrated al-Qaida could destroy America as a world power, to be replaced by the global caliphate.
Al-Qaida's 9/11 massacre taught open-minded Americans that anarchy in even the world's most remote and impoverished corners provided anti-American terror cults with a base of operations. If you read anti-American as also meaning anti-modern and anti-personal freedom, by George you've got it.
Between October 2001 and March 2002, in geographically fragmented Afghanistan, American military personnel dealt al-Qaida two major defeats. U.S. Air Force B-52s and Army Green Berets with radios crushed the Taliban of 2001's attempt to destroy the Northern Alliance. In case you've forgotten (like the prevailing media), prior to 9/11, al-Qaida murdered Afghanistan's Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Massoud. Massoud presented a popular political and military challenge to the Taliban of 2001. Bin Laden bet Massoud's assassination would cause the anti-Islamist Afghan opposition to collapse. Besides, the Taliban had superior weapons and mobility (artillery and trucks).
A grueling offensive by Iraqi troops militias -- supported by U.S. airpower -- retook Mosul. U.S. and coalition forces continue to battle terrorists in Syria's cauldron. Russian and Turkish forces confront others.
Yemen is anarchic. U.S. commandos and armed drones still wage war on al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, but off media radar.
What goes on in Iraq, Syria and Yemen is a form of guard duty. Add Somalia to the list. In case you've missed it, the U.S. has withdrawn from Somalia.
What's the difference between Afghanistan and these other chaotic, anarchic hells?
Afghanistan is landlocked. A nation can employ a punitive raiding strategy if it has a navy and the anarchic area has a coastline.
The war in Afghanistan isn't over. U.S. airpower and special ops must remain on guard duty. Turkish troops may guard a couple of key airbases. That's a good idea.
I knew the whitewashes would come on hot and heavy. The interventionist mindset has to be propped up to keep those Defense dollars flooding.
Afghanistan intervention was a massive waste of American lives and dollars and no amount of long-winded justifications can change that. Now the JCS and the arms industry begin the psyops campaigns to protect their rice bowls.
This is revisionist history at its best. The only legitimate reason for the US military to be in Afghanistan was to capture Osama Bin Laden who was reported but never documented to be hiding in Afghanistan. It appears that soon after the ruling Taliban in 2002 acknowledged that this “guest” of their violated their hospitality and were about to turn him over to the Americans, he fled to comforts and shelter of America’s good friend Pakistan. Soon the US military invaded in force, killed many Taliban and began their tortured, long involvement. Of course the Taliban were medieval fundamentalists, very distasteful to America’s chattering classes, especially when they became aware of how they treated women. How they treated young boys did not concern the chattering classes. Anyway over three thousand brave young American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, tens of thousands more were physically and forever psychologically maimed and of course trillions were squandered. As predicted the backward ,uneducated Afghan masses were immune to all this nation building and maintained their values, customs and way of life.They preferred to cling to their guns and religion. Now they get to deal with the Chinese who no doubt will sign contracts as they are doing in Africa, mine what they want,and have their own effective security. Doubtful that things will change foerwomen, young boys and the Afghan masses.Suspect that ~20% of the population will leave and end up in the EU and the US.
Wonder who really wrote this article? Doubt Dick Cheney or George Bush could do it. Nice if the neo con would identify himself.
Even that is a false media narrative put up by the Dims during the early stages of the war to make the US military's goal a near impossible one (and to make Bush look unsuccessful). Look at all of the wars in history that successfully ended an aggressor nation's attacks without capturing or killing the head of state. Al Qaeda may not be a literal nation and Bin Laden a "head of state", but the principle still applies.
The only legitimate reason to go into Afghanistan was to kill as many people as it took for Afghanistan and/or the Taliban to surrender and for us to trumpet loudly to them and everybody else paying attention that attacking the U.S. is unhealthy. If I had my way we would have gone into Pakistan too, given how much we knew even then that Pakistan was as in bed with Al Qaeda as Afghanistan was.
That's how we went into war against Japan after they attacked us. That's why our part of WW2 didn't last forever. And that's why it was a loooonnnnnng time before someone else attacked us again.
I don’t care whose watch it occurred on, since Afghan is a no-win I’m glad we’re getting out.
Would agree with you if you were talking about Saudi Arabia.
If all we've got is that most of the 9/11 attackers were born in Saudi Arabia, that's not enough for me.
Think of the American born spies who worked for Russia or China. That's enough to be mad at the nations of Russia and China over, but not America.
Most of the hijackers were Saudi nationals that received funding from Prince Bandar & others.
https://nypost.com/2016/07/15/yes-the-saudi-government-helped-the-911-terrorists/
Yes, the Saudi government helped the 9/11 terrorists
By Paul Sperry July 15, 2016 | 8:02pm
Now we know why the missing 28 pages on 9/11 were kept under lock and key for 15 years: They show the hijackers got help across America from Saudi diplomats and spies in the run-up to the attacks. Because of the coverup, a Saudi terror support network may still be in place inside the United States.
A CIA memorandum dated July 2, 2002, stated unequivocally that the connections found between the hijackers, the Saudi embassy in Washington and Saudi consulate in Los Angeles are “incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists within the Saudi government.”
“Numerous” FBI files also fingered two Saudi government employees who assisted the 9/11 hijackers as “Saudi intelligence officers,” the newly declassified documents reveal.
Though much is still redacted, they also show the Saudi government’s ties to the hijackers and other al Qaeda suspects were so extensive that the FBI’s Washington field office created a special squad to investigate the Saudi angle.
But this special focus on Saudi Arabia occurred belatedly, only after the 9/11 attacks, “due to Saudi Arabia’s status as an American ‘ally.’ ” Astoundingly, investigative resources were not dedicated to Saudi involvement in financing and supporting terrorism prior to 9/11.
The explosive information was locked up in a top-secret, highly secured room in the basement of the US Capitol for the past 15 years, ostensibly to protect the Kingdom from embarrassment. (The Post helped get the declassification ball rolling with the December 2013 piece, “Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup.”)
That means for 15 years, 9/11 victims and their families have been denied by their own government critical evidence they’ve sought to sue the Saudi government for responsibility in the death of their loved ones.
It also means Washington has misled the American people about foreign sponsorship of 9/11. For 15 years, we’ve been told that al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. We were led to believe that 15 Saudi nationals who barely spoke English received no help while in America; that they operated in isolation, like visitors from outer space.
It was all a monstrous lie.
FBI files show Saudi agent Omar al-Bayoumi provided “substantial assistance” to Saudi hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi after they arrived in San Diego in February 2000. Hazmi was the leader of the cell that attacked the Pentagon, while Mihdhar was one of that cell’s muscle hijackers. The two even stayed at Bayoumi’s apartment, working out in his gym.
At the same time he was aiding the hijackers, Bayoumi was getting large salary increases from a Saudi defense front company tied to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, where he worked as a ghost employee. Another alleged Saudi intelligence officer who handled the hijackers, Osama Bassnan, worked closely with Bayoumi.
Congress releases classified chapter of 9/11 report about Saudis
According to a CIA memo, cited by the now-uncensored 28-page section of the 9/11 report, “Bassnan reportedly received funding and possibly a fake passport from Saudi government officials.”
More alarming, “he and his wife have received financial support from the Saudi ambassador to the United States and his wife.” That would be Prince Bandar, who was promoted to Saudi intelligence minister after 9/11.
The same report says Bassnan, described as a “supporter of Osama bin Laden,” also got “a significant amount of cash” from another “member of the Saudi Royal Family.”
FBI documents and a CIA memo further indicate that the hijackers had contact with Shayk Fahad al-Thumairy, then a Saudi consular official in Los Angeles. Records show the accredited Saudi diplomat had dozens of phone conversations and at least one meeting with Bayoumi in advance of the hijackers’ arrival.
But wait, the Saudi-9/11 conspiracy gets even worse.
A Saudi interior ministry official stayed at the same hotel in Herndon, Va., with Hazmi and other Pentagon cell hijackers on the night before they hijacked the plane that departed that fateful Sept. 11, 2001, morning from nearby Dulles airport. FBI agents felt Saleh al-Hussayen lied about not meeting with or even knowing the hijackers, but when they tried to re-interview him, it was too late — he had been spirited out of the country along with dozens of other Saudi VIP suspects at Bandar’s request, and with the White House’s permission.
Speaking of Bandar, it turns out that an unlisted phone number connected to the good prince’s Aspen chalet was found in the phone book of senior al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaida when he was captured in Pakistan in 2002. Zubaida also just happened to have a contact number for Bandar’s bodyguard at the Saudi Embassy.
Mind you, these stomach-turning revelations are gleaned from merely summaries of FBI case files and CIA memos. There is much rawer intel that remains classified about the Saudi government’s role in 9/11.
The treachery may still be worse than we know. And it may be ongoing. As the 28 pages warn: “Saudi government officials in the United States may have other ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”
Sperry is author of “INFILTRATION: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington,” which exposes the Saudi terror support network in America.
How about doing this....Any Muslim or Muslim sympathizers are shipped out to the Middle East somewhere we can keep an eye on them. Allow no communication from this country to any of them. Lock down the borders. Realizing some of the “deportees” could be U.S. citizens, they would only remain here if we know exactly where their loyalties lie. That could take awhile, I know. In that meantime, they would be closely monitored. I know this sounds really harsh, but so would losing our beloved country be harsh.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.