Keelan: Where will the next attack occur?

By Don Keelan

As if we all don’t have enough crises to confront — Covid-19 and the Delta variant, wildfires, climate change, increase in crime statistics, economic issues from material and labor shortages — we now have the fall of Afghanistan and looming expectations of Taliban retribution.

From the list of issues we already worry about, we can add that, once again, America will have to deal with a potentially devastating terrorist attack. Furthermore, we should not discount that an attack could come on or near the 20th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Don Keelan

The fall of the Afghan government was expected, according to the experts. What shocked the President and those surrounding him is how quickly the fall took place. This surprise raises three significant questions.

Of course, the first is why the President and his advisors were deaf to the military field commanders and our NATO partners? The list of experts must be enormous and their expertise ever so costly, but all failed miserably, as was the case in September 2001.

The second question is, what form of Taliban retribution can we expect? Twenty years ago this fall, the U.S. and its Allies went into Afghanistan with an overwhelming force and, along with the Afghanistan Northern Alliance, crushed the Taliban bringing an end to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. For the next 10 years until May 2010, al-Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden (he escaped the invasion forces) created numerous off-shoots of al-Qaeda in Somalia, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Chad/Mali, and Yemen, among other places.

Even with bin Laden’s capture and death, the Taliban subsidiaries continue to proliferate. The picture becomes even direr now that the Taliban can openly work with nuclear-armed Pakistan, their safe-keeper since 9/11.

The third question is, what message does America’s unceremonious withdrawal from a country we invested so much treasure tell our friends and Allies, many of whom directly depend on us for their defense?

Let there be no doubt: as soon as the first C-17 USAF plane lifted off from the Kabul airport, China and Russia were working the phones describing how America “protects” its friends.

I will leave it up to the historians to decipher what took place on August 16, 2021, in Kabul. However, historians cannot tell us what will occur next. It is disconcerting that the army of intelligence experts might be unable to tell us either.

The Taliban will seek revenge for what they encountered in 2001. They are now in an even stronger position to carry out more devious attacks than what took place in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA.

However, retaliation can be avoided or at the least interrupted if our leaders begin to focus on their first and primary responsibility: the safety of the United States and its people.

The endless discussion of racism, climate change, budget-busting spending programs, Trump’s Presidency, and other issues must be placed in order of priority: below our national security. What took place in Afghanistan will not be confined to its borders, 8,000 miles away. The terrorists have been waiting a long time. The adage is, “while we had the watch, they have the time.”

As we come to the 20th Anniversary of 9/11, let’s put ourselves back in time to the days and weeks that followed: when we said, we will never forget. We have forgotten, and we need to remember those tragic weeks after September 2001. I can’t imagine, nor would I wish to witness, thousands of Americans running down the tarmacs at Kennedy, O’Hare, and Logan airports.

When will the U.S. come to adopt what the late George Shultz (former Secretary of State) once said and which was recently noted in the Wall Street Journal, “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table”?

Don Keelan writes a bi-weekly column and lives in Arlington, Vermont.

Image courtesy of Public domain

6 thoughts on “Keelan: Where will the next attack occur?

  1. Everyone needs to see this Stephen Miller, former senior advisor to President Trump and founder of America First Legal details Biden administration intends to create a permanent pipeline of Afghan unvetted ‘immigrants’ to US begins @3:50
    STEPHEN MILLER ON BIDEN’S COMING REFUGEE CRISIS: “THIS IS NOT ENDING WITH 50,000, NOT EVEN CLOSE”
    America’s Voice Admin
    September 2, 2021
    https://americasvoice.news/stephen-miller-on-bidens-coming-refugee-crisis-this-is-not-ending-with-50000-not-even-close/

  2. It would be refreshing if the question actually, genuinely comes from: Where will the next random act of love and kindness come from.
    Where focus goes, energy flows.
    Choosing this is predictive programming and sets it up in the future.
    What we support today becomes our future tomorrow.
    I’m pretty sure we’re fielding the endgame of the patriarchy now – death and destruction at all costs (aka human depopulation agenda) – and whether we get loved to death or attacked to death…is our choice to choose the outcome for.
    So love the grooming embedded in this oped…not.

  3. Now that isis has some of our high tech drones, it would be easy for them to deliver an undetectable attack with the us. Good call Joe.

  4. Yes it’s inevitable that it will happen as the bumbling idjit in the White House and his handlers have left the southern boarder wide open for any world wide terrorist to simply walk on in as the boarder patrol is overwhelmed and can’t check everyone..
    On top of that fiasco the dolts of his administration have imported the three major terrorist groups in under the guise of rescuing Afgan translators.. there’s undoubtedly hundreds of taliban al quida and isis pukes that flew in on our planes, and our tax money will support them.. a vote for a democrat is a vote to destroy America…

  5. I suspect the attack was begun when bioweapons were released to combat the pandemic that never existed in the first place. Consequently Taliban retribution is but another maneuver of the same attack.

    It is clear we are in a war of epic proportions and. have many enemies both foreign & domestic.

    The tools employed to wage this war against our liberty are the institutions charged with our protection, but it is difficult to defend against theses tools turned against us, when they have already been removed from our control.

    In my opinion the domestic regiment operating against us is our greatest threat, they are seen as our protectors when in fact they are the enemy of our liberty, sadly, these people may not even realize how important individual liberty and informed consent are to our survival as a free people!

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