Looking back today at our war on terrorism since the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is at hand. I thought about the timing of the growth of three terrorist organizations. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Isis.
Al Qaeda started in 1988 under Bush 41 but really didn’t
start to grow very much until the early 90’s.
At that time another group was forming, the Taliban. Both groups grew and were under the radar of
our then President Williams J. Clinton.
One could argue that because they were under the radar they were allowed
to grow and flourish under his administration culminating in Al Qaeda’s attack
on the US less than 9 months after President George W. Bush was inaugurated in
January of 2001. We know the outcome of allowing
or ignoring Al Qaeda’s rise to power when the Twin Towers came down, the
Pentagon was hit and a fourth plane that was headed for the Capital building in
Washington D.C. was thwarted by the heroic actions of the plane’s passengers
which prevented that group of terrorists from reaching their target.
President Bush’s administration waged what could be considered
a successful war against Al Qaeda and to some extent the Taliban for the next
seven years as well as the war in Iraq.
President Barak H. Obama continued to fight the war on
terrorism that was started under President Bush, but one could argue that it
was more half-hearted in its execution because of changes in the rules of
engagement the military was forced to fight under. While his administration made some strides
and had some success including the killing of Bin Laden. They also had a series of blunders and
failures in places like Iraq, Benghazi, and others. The Obama administration severely
underestimate ISIS, calling them the JV team and were not successful in
stopping the spread of ISIS throughout the middle east, not to mention the growing
strength of the Taliban again under the radar of a democratic administration
following the vacuum of leadership that remained after the Americans withdrew
from Iraq.
President Trump and his administration took over the fight
and took on ISIS and our military was unshackled and quickly drove ISIS back,
Freeing Iraq from ISIS rule as well as other areas of the middle east. He pushed for the end to fighting in
Afghanistan and developed a plan for a conditional withdrawal. While the date
was earlier than the August 31st that President Biden set, one could
argue if President Trump's withdrawal plan of civilians and allies first,
equipment next and military last, he may have well been able to complete it on
his timetable.
But elections have consequences, and we will never know If
he and his administration could have completed this withdrawal in the timeframe
he originally set. President Biden
decides to withdraw the military without coordination with our allies in the
middle of the might leaving civilians to the mercy of the Taliban. Now he said nobody could have predicted this
would happen. Apparently, he did not learn from the history of Vietnam in the
70’s or even the abandoning of Iraq during the Obama administration of which he
was a part. ISIS took over in record
time just as the Taliban did in Afghanistan. “Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it”, (George Santayana) who was later misquoted by
Winston Churchill saying that “Those who fail to learn from history are
condemned to repeat it”. Regardless of who said it or how they said it, President
Biden who lived through both tragic withdrawals in Vietnam and Iraq should have
learned from his own history as a participant in those historic events and
should have known this would happen again.
Islamist terrorists had been allowed to thrive and grow
under three presidents. Al Qaeda under
President Clinton, ISIS under President Obama, and now the Taliban has taken
over an entire country and is gaining strength beyond what they enjoyed under
the Clinton years under this president, Joe Biden.
Apparently, the democratic party and its leaders either
don’t care that these groups are brutalizing women and minorities, destroying
all of the progress made over the last 20 years just as long as it doesn’t have
an effect on the democratic party power base and their vision of a one-party
system of government for Americans under their own iron fist. Maybe
they are allowing this to happen to give them a road map for their own takeover
of our nation and how to take care of those who oppose them in the name of
freedom.
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