RUTHFULLY YOURS

We’ve enabled political correctness to decide our anti-terrorism strategy.
Fifteen years after 9/11, we show no official signs of caring to defeat Islamic terror.

Yesterday was the fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that murdered 2,977 Americans. We have been at war since October of that year when we first struck the Taliban in Afghanistan after President Bush gave them the choice between surrendering Osama bin Laden and war.

In those fifteen years of war, we haven’t achieved victory over Islamic terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else. The threats of al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the other terrorist networks remain almost undiminished. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded bin Laden as leader of al-Qaeda, used the anniversary of 9/11 to issue more threats.

Where have we gone wrong?

We began with President Bush’s address to Congress on September 20, 2001. He said, “Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

But it quickly became clear that the president wasn’t willing to enforce that choice against Saudi Arabia, which has funded terrorism around the world, or against any nation other than Afghanistan or Iraq that harbored and funded terrorists. Mr. Bush led us into a confrontation-cum-engagement strategy that existed until Mr. Obama became president, when the confrontation part of the strategy was eliminated.

Mr. Bush made two cardinal mistakes. The first was his insistence that we could win the war without attacking the ideology of the enemy. He thus began to raise a generation of military leaders dedicated to that strategy. Thus crippled in their derivation of strategy, none of our generals has been able to produce victory.

Donald Trump’s statement that our generals have been reduced to “rubble” is unfortunate not because it is inaccurate but because of his terminology. Our generals and admirals cannot craft a strategy that leads to victory because, as I have written many times, we cannot defeat the terrorists unless we defeat them kinetically and at the same time defeat their ideology.

“I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat.” — That was Winston Churchill’s description of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s surrender to Hitler in the Munich Agreement of 1938.

Yet Churchill’s words also apply to where the United States is today.

Our men and women in uniform have been heroic.

Many have signed up to serve again even after being wounded.

Our tactical units remain the best in the world.

Our intelligence officers and diplomats have risked their lives in service to the country.

The problem is not with the sincerity, the courage, the energy or the effort of individual Americans.

The problem has been the approach of a bipartisan Washington political elite that has squandered 15 years, thousands of lives, many thousands wounded, and trillions of dollars with no coherent strategy, no honest assessment of the challenge, and no willingness to learn from failure and develop new strategies and new institutions.

Since September 11, 2001, we have moved from righteous anger and clarity of purpose against the forces of terrorism in the immediate aftermath of the attacks to now sending $1,700,000,000 in cash to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

We have watched our efforts in Iraq collapse while our efforts in Afghanistan decay.

We have seen the Middle East grow more violent, more chaotic, and more ungovernable despite 15 years of American and allied effort.

Fifteen years ago this week, terrorists killed 2,977 Americans in the worst surprise attack on our homeland since Pearl Harbor, 70 years earlier. In fact, 574 more Americans were killed on 9/11 than on December 7, 1941.

It was a huge, tragic, and deeply emotional shock. And yet the 9/11 attack was not the beginning of our war with Islamic supremacism.

By 2001, we had been at war with the Iranian dictatorship (still to this day listed by the State Department as the leading state sponsor of terrorism) for 32 years, when Iranians seized the American embassy in Tehran. Mark Bowden described the event appropriately in the title of his book, “Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam.”

From an American perspective, that war had continued in Lebanon in the 1980s and in Saudi Arabia, East Africa and Yemen in the 1990s.

In 2001, the terrorist war came to American soil with shocking results.

American anger was vivid and deep. President Bush reacted with powerful, clear, morally defining words.

In his address to the Joint Session of Congress, just nine days after the 9/11 attack, President Bush asserted “on September 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country.”

President Bush described a huge goal. “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated,” he said.

President Bush described the scale of the challenge, saying, “Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command–every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war– to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.”

Bush went on to warn that “Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have seen. …Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”

President Bush wisely warned that “the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows.”

Four months later, in his 2002 State of the Union Address, President Bush described North Korea, Iran and Iraq as an “Axis of Evil”.

Bush warned that “the United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.” The Congress applauded.

And that was the high water mark of the response to 9/11.

Just this week, North Korea had its fifth nuclear test. Last week North Korea launched three missiles in direct violation of United Nations Resolutions.

We now know that while deceiving the Congress and the American people, the Obama Administration has sent $1,700,000,000 to what even the State Department says is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, the Iranian dictatorship.

Iraq, at great cost in American lives, wounds and money, has degenerated into a mess dominated by Iran and by ISIS.

How did we go from brave words to defeat, dishonesty, and humiliation?

Tragically, after heroic leadership in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (who can forget President Bush in New York standing next to the fireman and promising that the people who attacked New York would hear from all of us?) and after delivering exactly the right words to Congress, the Bush administration failed to plan for how big, how hard, and how long the fight with Islamic supremacists would be.

Almost immediately, the lawyers began imposing rules and regulations.

It was decided not to declare war even though President Bush had described 9/11 “as an act of war” in his congressional address.

The State Department began pushing back against an honest, clear statement of who was attacking us.

The two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan were known as “Little Boy” and “Fat Man”. The world today has two new nuclear bombs.

One is named “Fat Bill”. The other is named “Little Hillary.”

The “Bill Clinton” bomb is the one getting the most headlines as North Korea continues testing its nuclear weapons. The Communist dictatorship is on its fifth test already and achieved an explosion almost at the level of “Little Boy” which was dropped on Hiroshima.

North Korea has let it be known that this test has allowed it to produce standardized nuclear warheads “able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets” so that it can “produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power.”

Kim doesn’t just want a nuke. He wants a lot of nukes. And at the rate he’s going, he will have them.

And the man to thank for all that is Bill Clinton.

In the fall of ’94, Clinton told the American people that his deal with North Korea would help bring “an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula”.

“After 16 months of intense and difficult negotiations with North Korea, we have completed an agreement that will make the United States, the Korean Peninsula, and the world safer. Under the agreement, North Korea has agreed to freeze its existing nuclear program and to accept international inspection of all existing facilities,” Bill Clinton assured the country.

He lied.

The North Korean Deal was as worthless as his wife’s Iran deal. North Korea never kept its agreement. Like the Iran Deal, the North Korean Deal was never ratified by the Senate. Named the “Agreed Framework”, it amounted to as little as its name implied. Clinton’s people knew that North Korea had a uranium enrichment program going but chose to look away from its violations of the agreement because it would have been a political embarrassment for their boss and his diplomatic achievement.

The already worthless deal quickly became even more worthless once it was implemented. Like the Iran Deal there were secret deals within the deal, some of which still remain secret, likely because they reveal the scope of the Clinton sellout to the Communist dictatorship.

Inspections were delayed indefinitely. North Korea’s nuclear program had become known when it had previously delayed IAEA inspections for seven years. This time around it refused to resume inspections until we built them a nuclear power plant. Seven years after the deal, the IAEA was still trying to get access. Toward the end, the projected timeline for full inspections had been pushed to 2009.

On January 2003, North Korea announced that “We have no intention of producing nuclear weapons and our nuclear activities at this stage will be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity.” In April, it announced that it had nuclear weapons.

ARLINGTON, Va. — President Obama said the U.S. has delivered “devastating blows” to al-Qaeda and stressed that America needs to lean on “our patchwork heritage” to resist terrorists’ attempts make Americans turn on each other.

Delivering remarks at the Pentagon to mark the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Obama paid tribute to “the nearly 3,000 beautiful lives taken from us so cruelly — including 184 men, women and children here, the youngest just 3 years old.”

“We honor the courage of those who put themselves in harm’s way to save people they never knew. We come together in prayer and in gratitude for the strength that has fortified us across these 15 years. And we renew the love and the faith that binds us together as one American family,” he said.

“…The question before us, as always, is: How do we preserve the legacy of those we lost? How do we live up to their example? And how do we keep their spirit alive in our own hearts?”

Obama said “we have seen the answer in a generation of Americans — our men and women in uniform, diplomats, intelligence, homeland security and law enforcement professionals — all who have stepped forward to serve and who have risked and given their lives to help keep us safe.”

“Thanks to their extraordinary service, we’ve dealt devastating blows to al-Qaeda. We’ve delivered justice to Osama bin Laden. We’ve strengthened our homeland security. We’ve prevented attacks. We’ve saved lives. We resolve to continue doing everything in our power to protect this country that we love,” he said.

The president emphasized a need to “stay true to the spirit of this day by defending not only our country, but also our ideals.”

“Fifteen years into this fight, the threat has evolved. With our stronger defenses, terrorists often attempt attacks on a smaller, but still deadly, scale. Hateful ideologies urge people in their own country to commit unspeakable violence. We’ve mourned the loss of innocents from Boston to San Bernardino to Orlando,” he continued.

“Groups like al-Qaeda, like ISIL, know that we will never be able — they will never be able to defeat a nation as great and as strong as America. So, instead, they’ve tried to terrorize in the hopes that they can stoke enough fear that we turn on each other and that we change who we are or how we live. And that’s why it is so important today that we reaffirm our character as a nation — a people drawn from every corner of the world, every color, every religion, every background — bound by a creed as old as our founding, e pluribus unum. Out of many, we are one. For we know that our diversity — our patchwork heritage — is not a weakness; it is still, and always will be, one of our greatest strengths. This is the America that was attacked that September morning. This is the America that we must remain true to.”

In the aftermath of 9/11, on September 20th, President Bush delivered the most inspiring speech of his entire career. My anger and grief gave way to some hope.

I was confident in our determination to defeat global jihad. I was certain that all victim nations would unite in a common front, setting politics and grudges aside. I predicted that all “root cause” cant would be dismissed. I was virtually certain that Israel, located in the belly of the Jihadist beast would gain understanding in its responses to brutal attacks.

And yet, only six months later in April 2002, President Bush- he of the inspiring address of September 20- invited the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia – the locus of seventeen 9/11 terrorists to a down home barbecue at his ranch in Crawford and the robed tyrant put forth his “initiative” for Mideast peace.” The President gushed to the assemble press:” Good afternoon. I was honored to welcome Crown Prince Abdallah to my ranch, a place that is very special for me, and a place where I welcome special guests to our country.” Special indeed.

For the rest of his term the President did not use terms other than “the religion of peace” which was “hijacked” by meanies who are the “enemies of peace.”

His generals applied rules of engagement that respected the mores of barbarians above the security needs of our troops.

That was the beginning of the appeasement of Radical Islam and Jihad that was followed by more threats and brutal attacks throughout the West and within our borders. And Israel, the only nation that has battled and confronted terrorist carnage with war and deterrence is routinely castigated for “disproportionate” responses.

Now President Obama has elevated that appeasement to an art form.

So, fifteen years later, have things really changed? Are we more cautious or far more concerned with political correctness and concerns for the sensibilities of potential enemies rather than our security? I fear it is the latter.

Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Cynthia E. Ayers is currently Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. Prior to accepting the Task Force position, she served as Vice President of EMPact Amercia, having retired from the National Security Agency after over 38 years of federal service.

“Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

Indeed – there is no peace. There hasn’t been for a very long time. In spite of the peace that many world leaders thought was being ushered in following the destruction of the Berlin Wall, there has been no real peace. We discovered this much too late, when our country was attacked fifteen years ago, on September 11, 2001.

We were not really “at peace” during the years between November 1989 (when the Berlin Wall came down) and the events of 9/11 (2001). Acts of terrorism occurred throughout the 1990s, and at least some actors were supported by one or more nation-states. While Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was spreading nuclear technology around the globe, North Korea and Iran (with assistance from Khan) spent the decade rattling nerves with their progress on the nuclear weapons front. The Iranian regime continues to act aggressively in the belief that the United States has been in a state of war with them since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Similarly, North Korea’s dynastic rulers have used the notion of a war that never ended to poke, prod, threaten and try to provoke the United States.

Do we still have liberty? Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective. President Lincoln predicted that if war were to come to the shores of America, it would spring from within – a form of national suicide. Unfortunately, the partisan politics of our day would seem to add credence to that notion. The scandals of late have people wondering if we are sitting in abeyance like proverbial boiling frogs while our liberties are being systematically destroyed.

We fear more substantial and lethal attacks on the homeland, and the rising tide of global unrest may portend such events. There are credible threats from external sources of intent to attack us internally. Regardless, decisions recently made by U.S. leadership have raised concern as to whether we have already succumbed to the desires of our enemies.

No sane individual in Western civil society wants war. War is an vicious, destructive process in which disputes are generally terminated only long enough to re-arm. Miraculously, our country has, for the most part, escaped the violence of war on our soil for 150 years (relative to the turmoil that other countries have long endured).

Last week I wrote about the shortening odds of a war in Asia over China’s rapacious land claims. China is threatening war with Japan over Japanese-controlled islands that it claims, and is threatening war with Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and every major seafaring power over its claim to control the shipping lanes through the South China Sea.

Under President Obama, the U.S. has launched several freedom-of-navigation voyages and fly-overs of China-claimed territory to indicate our disregard of the Chinese position. But those saber rattles have been half-hearted: After a U.S. Navy vessel sailed past a Chinese artificial island, a Defense Department official told the U.S. Naval Institute that the voyage had been conducted under the principle of “innocent passage”: that a ship can sail through another country’s territorial waters so long as its intentions are non-belligerent. Of course, this concedes China’s control — and makes it look like the Obama administration is interested only in appearing tough to America, not to Beijing.

The Philippines have been less sanguine. They took China’s claim of sovereignty in the South China Sea to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in The Hague, and won, though China refuses to recognize the result. (Why should they? The Hague is a laughingstock.) More substantially, the Philippines have grounded a naval ship on a reef in the Spratly Island chain, in the South China Sea, and keep a permanent detachment of marines there. The physical Filipino presence is meant to dispute the Chinese position. The Chinese coast guard has blockaded the ship to prevent food and water from being delivered, and now the marines are resupplied by helicopter.

To this extent, the Philippines — a nation protecting its own claims — serves as our proxy in the South China Sea. But it’s not just a marriage of convenience: The Filipinos are our genuine, hard-and-fast friends. Pew Research regularly polls world opinion of the United States; as of last year, the U.S. had an approval rating in the 80s in just seven countries: Senegal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, South Korea, Israel, and Italy. There’s only one country where we break 90 percent approval: the Philippines, where 92 percent of Filipinos have a favorable opinion of the U.S. That’s 9 points higher than Americans’ approval of America. Statistically, the Philippines is the most pro-American country in the world.

The Philippines recently elected a new president, Rodrigo Duterte. He was elected thanks to the popularity of the ruthless anti-drug war he led as mayor of the Philippines’ fourth largest city, Davao. As mayor, he opened drug-rehabilitation centers, offered pensions to recovering addicts, and called for private citizens to murder drug dealers. He has continued the policy as president, openly advocating vigilantism.

On April 24, 2004 the USS Firebolt, a Cyclone-class coastal patrol boat in the Persian Gulf, launched a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RIB) when its crew observed a dhow — a traditional boat, in this case likely owned by Iran — fast approaching the Al Amaya oil terminal in Iraq. Suspecting an attempt to destroy the terminal, the RIB’s seven-man crew pulled alongside the Dhow in order to board it. The dhow blew up in a blast intended for the terminal. Two sailors, Navy Petty Officers Michael Pernaselli and Christopher Watts, were killed instantly. Coast Guard Petty Officer Nathan Brukenthal died when the RIB turned over in the water. Brukenthal was the first Coast Guardsman killed in action since the Vietnam War.

Last week, the USS Firebolt was back in the news.

On September 4th a swarm of seven Iranian fast boats, armed with guns and missiles and belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval force, harassed the Firebolt and forced it to divert from its heading to avoid a collision. In an incident that lasted some eight minutes, three of the Iranian boats maneuvered within about 500 yards of the Firebolt and then pulled away. Another Iranian boat sped in front of the Firebolt and blocked its path. From what can be ascertained, the Firebolt sent radio warnings that were not answered and then -– closing in at about 100 yards -– the Firebolt turned away to avoid the “parked” Iranian attack craft. The Firebolt did not fire warning shots or blast its foghorn.

The Iranians were once again clearly testing swarm boat techniques and seeking to provoke the United States. It was the fourth time in less than a month. American official said there have been 31 similar events this year, almost double the same period last year. This incident follows other recent harassment of vessels including the guided missile destroyer Nitze, the patrol ships Tempest and Squall and the destroyer, the USS Stout.

General Joseph Votel, commander, U.S. Central Command, said the Iranians are conducting “unsafe maneuvers” to exert their influence in the Gulf. He is correct.

There are major political, psychological, and military gains for the Iranians from these provocations.

On the military level the Iranians are learning a lot about the speed of the U.S. Command Structure –- how long it takes for a warning to be made and what happens when the first radio broadcast, foghorn, or gun is fired. One can imagine the Iranians with stopwatches. A successful swarm attack that can do real damage to major U.S. naval assets needs to be correctly sequenced, as the Iranians surely know. Even though U.S. warships are poorly equipped to deal with swarming fast attack boats, they are not without resources. And air power can be called in to augment U.S. ships under attack. If Iran’s objective in such a situation involving a real attack is to cause serious damage to a U.S. aircraft carrier or a guided missile cruiser, by now they know pretty much what they have to do and what price they will pay.

Fifteen years ago this Sunday, nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the deadliest attack on the U.S. homeland in our history. A decade and a half later, we remain at war with Islamic terrorists. Winning this war will require an effort of greater scale and commitment than anything we have seen since World War II, calling on every element of our national power.

Defeating our enemies has been made significantly more difficult by the policies of Barack Obama. No American president has done more to weaken the U.S., hobble our defenses or aid our adversaries.

President Obama has been more dedicated to reducing America’s power than to defeating our enemies. He has enhanced the abilities, reach and finances of our adversaries, including the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, at the expense of our allies and our own national security. He has overseen a decline of our own military capabilities as our adversaries’ strength has grown.

Our Air Force today is the oldest and smallest it has ever been. In January 2015, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno testified that the Army was as unready as it had been at any other time in its history. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert testified similarly that, “Navy readiness is at its lowest point in many years.”

Nearly half of the Marine Corps’ non-deployed units—the ones that respond to unforeseen contingencies—are suffering shortfalls, according to the commandant of the Corps, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. For the first time in decades, American supremacy in key areas can no longer be assured.

The president who came into office promising to end wars has made war more likely by diminishing America’s strength and deterrence ability. He doesn’t seem to understand that the credible threat of military force gives substance and meaning to our diplomacy. By reducing the size and strength of our forces, he has ensured that future wars will be longer, and put more American lives at risk.

Meanwhile, the threat from global terrorist organizations has grown. Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the House Homeland Security Committee in July that, “As we approach 15 years since 9/11, the array of terrorist actors around the globe is broader, wider and deeper than it has been at any time since that day.” Despite Mr. Obama’s claim that ISIS has been diminished, John Brennan, Mr. Obama’s CIA director, told the Senate Intelligence Committee in June that, “Our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability or global reach.”

The president’s policies have contributed to our enemies’ advance. In his first days in office, Mr. Obama moved to take the nation off a war footing and return to the failed policies of the 1990s when terrorism was treated as a law-enforcement matter. It didn’t matter that the Enhanced Interrogation Program produced information that prevented attacks, saved American lives and, we now know, contributed to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. Mr. Obama ended the program, publicly revealed its techniques, and failed to put any effective terrorist-interrogation program in its place.

We are no longer interrogating terrorists in part because we are no longer capturing terrorists. Since taking office, the president has recklessly pursued his objective of closing the detention facility at Guantanamo by releasing current detainees—regardless of the likelihood they will return to the field of battle against us. Until recently, the head of recruitment for ISIS in Afghanistan and Pakistan was a former Guantanamo detainee, as is one of al Qaeda’s most senior leaders in the Arabian Peninsula.

As he released terrorists to return to the field of battle, Mr. Obama was simultaneously withdrawing American forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. He calls this policy “ending wars.” Most reasonable people recognize this approach as losing wars.

When Mr. Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, Iraq was stable. Following the surge ordered by President Bush, al Qaeda in Iraq had largely been defeated, as had the Shiite militias. The situation was so good that Vice President Joe Biden predicted, “Iraq will be one of the great achievements of this administration.” CONTINUE AT SITE