Offer Revoked

For John, BLUF:  The Department of Defense seems to be in administrative chaos.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plotters

Here is the sub-headline:

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III assumed direct oversight of the case and effectively put the death penalty back on the table.

From The Old Gray Lady, by Reporter Carol Rosenberg, Reporting from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 2 August 2024, Updated 8:41 p.m. ET.

Here is the lede plus three:

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday overruled the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices.

The Pentagon announced the decision with the release of a memorandum relieving the senior official at the Defense Department responsible for military commissions of her oversight of the capital case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his alleged accomplices for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.

The overseer, retired Brig. Gen. Susan K. Escallier, signed a pretrial agreement on Wednesday with Mr. Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi that exchanged guilty pleas for sentences of at most life in prison. In taking away the authority, Mr. Austin assumed direct oversight of the case and canceled the agreement, effectively reinstating it as a death-penalty case. He left Ms. Escallier in the role of oversight of Guantánamo’s other cases.

Because of the stakes involved, the “responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Mr. Austin said in an order released Friday night by the Pentagon.

This is embarrassing.  Why did SecDef Lloyd Austin not knonw about this before it went public.  This suggests very poor staffing.

The other side of this is that given an offer was made, and accpeted, and should it not have been peremptorily revoked?  It strikes me as going against our tradition of English Common Law.  I will ask a lawyer .

Hat tip to the Citizen Free Press.

Regards  —  Cliff

Shanksville Monument

For John, BLUF:  A quick loook at the monument outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to the passengers aboard Flight 93, who took down the hijacked airliner, at the cost of their own lives.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A SHANKSVILLE MEDITATION

Here is the sub-headline:

It took the passengers of Flight 93 less than 20 minutes to decide that they would rather risk death as free men and women than submit to certain destruction as submissive captives of evil men intent on mass murder.

From The Pilot, by Mr George Weigel, 27 October 2021.

Here is the lede plus two:

The most moving feature of the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, are the pictures of the 40 brave men and women who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, while preventing al-Qaeda terrorists from destroying the U.S. Capitol.  At this moment of intense divisiveness and polarization in America, it's important to reflect on those images and learn from them, however peripheral they may be to the memorial's design.

At 8:42 a.m. on 9/11, United 93, a Boeing 757, took off on a flight from Newark to San Francisco.  The north tower of the World Trade Center was struck by a hijacked airliner four minutes later.  At 9:03 a.m., the south tower was hit.  Some 25 minutes after that, terrorists seized control of United 93.  And a few minutes later, the Pentagon was struck by another hijacked plane.  The next 20 minutes wrote an epic story of courage and resolve into the annals of American history.

Thanks to cell phones and on-board airphones, Flight 93's passengers, who were herded to the back of the plane after the hijackers seized the cockpit, learned what had happened to the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.  Thirty-seven phone calls, plus the fact that the plane had reversed its course and was heading east toward Washington, convinced the passengers that the hijacking of United 93 was part of a coordinated terrorist plot to cripple the United States.  After discussing their situation and responsibilities, the passengers voted to try and retake the plane, tackling the hijacker who remained in the passenger cabin (and claimed to have a bomb), and then forcing their way into the cockpit to regain control of a 65-ton jetliner careening through the sky.

Passenger Todd Beamer, whose call, "Let's Roll" has lived beyond the day is the known hero.  That said, all the passangers on that flight acted like Americans and came together to do the right thing I thank them for their fine example.

Mr Weigel is not all that impressed with the Shanksville Monument.  But he is very impressed with the dignity of those passangers on that flight.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Free to Express Your View

For John, BLUF:  Different people see 9/11 through different lenses.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Student government official caught red-handed yanking flags from 9/11 memorial

From The College Fix, by the Staff, 11 September 2021.

Here is the lede plus four:

A student senator at Washington University in St. Louis was nabbed red-handed removing American flags from a 9/11 memorial on this day of tribute.

According to The New Guard, a member of the WashU College Republicans recorded Fadel Alkilani carrying trash bags full of the flags he had just yanked.

Alkilani told the person filming that the memorial was “in violation of school rules” and he “expressed no remorse” for his actions.

When the Young America’s Foundation contacted Alkilani about the incident, he told the group “I did not violate any university or legal policy.  Now go away.”

The senator said in a now-protected tweet that he plucked the flags as a “protest against American imperialism and the 900,000 lives lost as a result of post 9/11 war.”

I am sure that Washington University Student Senator Fadel Alkilani is one American who is a celebrant of the First Amendment.  And he is right to be so.  On the other hand, pulling up someone else's tribute to the dead on 9/11 seems a little narrow.

All that said, I wonder from where he gets the "900,000 lives lost".  Yes, lives lost, but that seems like a miscount.  And I wonder where on the ledger he puts the Yazidis.  And other minority groups?  And what he thinks of the ravanchism within Islam, and how much space should be allow for it?  And what he thinks of Charlie Hebdo?

I do think yanking up US Flags at a memorial for 9/11 victims does seem tacky.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

9/11 Remembered, Again

For John, BLUF:  A sad memory, not made better by our withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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9/11 Anniversary

A friend of mine has his Birthday on 11 September.  On that day, 20 years ago, he was heading North on Interstate 395 (Shirley Highway), up where it does an almost 90° turn to the East, near the Air Force Memorial, when he saw American Airlines Flight 77 crash into the Pentagon.  He said it looked like a thousand pound bomb going off.  Having been a Navy Attack Pilot during the Viet-nam War, he knew whereof he spoke.

Of course, traffic came to a halt and continuing into DC made no sense.  My friend took things into his own hands, like a good American and a good fighter pilot.  He maneuvered his car to head South in the Northbound HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) Lane and led a string of vehicles back South and away from the disaster area.

That initiative on the part of Americans on the Shirley Highway, at the Pentagon, in New York City and aboard United Airlines Flight 93, over Southwest Pennsylvania, prevented things from being even worse.  We should be thankful for that and take a moment to appreciate that individual initiative.

Regards  —  Cliff

9/11 Again

For John, BLUF:  The attack on 11 September 2001 was a traumatic event for almost everyone in the United States, and the larger West.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Today is the 18th Anniversary of the 9/11Attack.

A terrible event.  And now, 18 years on, do we still want to be fighting in Afghanistan?  In The LA Times Retired Historian and Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich talks about pulling out of Afghanistan.

Our failure, their catastrophe

Here is the sub-headline:

When Americans finally leave Afghanistan, we won’t look back. It will be Vietnam all over again.

Ending a war with someone who has a radically different view of culture and government can be difficult and the outcome may not be what we desire.  However, this isn't World War II and we are not going to crush the opposition, the way we did Japan and Germany.

The other side of the coin is that we need to do some strategic study, thinking about what is the best way to engage in these kinds of wars.

That is, we need to ask, now, what we will do the next time.  There will be a next time, because the ISIS crowd is intolerant and we are not knuckling under.

Yes, I am a Viet-nam Veteran, and was part of the force supporting Cambodian forces against the Khmer Rouge, by flying Close Air Support and Air Interdiction missions.  I was not there for the last day of Us Operations, having chosen to take leave and avoid the reporters, lest I say something untoward.

Regards  —  Cliff

A 911 Awakening

For John, BLUF:  Not everyone in Europe suffers from groupthink.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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How 9/11 Made a European Upper-Middle-Class Radical a Conservative

Here is the sub-headline:

‘Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.’

From The National Review, by Annika Hernroth Rothstein, 11 September 2018.

Here is the lede plus four:

On September 11, 2001, I was sitting on the floor of my sister’s living room, babysitting her one-year-old daughter.  We were lazily playing, with the afternoon news on the TV in the background.  The first thing I noticed was how the anchor’s voice changed.  The woman was saying “Wait, wait,” while staring to the side of the camera.  There had been a horrible accident, she said, as I watched the smoke pour out of the first tower.  When the second plane hit, I hoped beyond hope she was right.

I had just gotten back from a year in France. A few months earlier, I’d been standing in a crowded bar on Place de Clichy, celebrating my 20th birthday.  I remember that night, although several bottles of bad white wine say I shouldn’t.  I was surrounded by my peers, other upper-middle-class liberals who had fled to Paris to fulfill their fantasy.  We had come to this historical city to live the life of songs and books and Technicolor movies. We were radicals.  We were heroes.  We were going to change the world.

The people with me in that bar were a random sample of the political atmosphere of Europe at the time.  Militant feminists, pro-Palestinians, members of the autonomic environmentalist movement, and your run-of the-mill anti-government thugs.  Having a friend who had been jailed for rioting was as necessary as a Malcolm X T-shirt and a back-pocket paperback of Catcher in the Rye.  I gladly picked up that uniform, just as I picked up rocks and banners knowing that this was the ticket to ride.

Raised in a family of academics, this was a natural evolution on my part and a result of a serious political interest.  I identified as an intellectual and as a political thinker with a critical mind.  What I failed to acknowledge at the time was that my country was a controlled environment and that the spectrum on which political analysis took place was limited.  Not unlike The Truman Show, where the choices you think you are making were already made for you long ago, and any dreams of a different fate are swiftly corrected.

I left my one-bedroom apartment in the chic slum of the 19th Arrondissement in June 2001.  I was headed back to Gothenburg, Sweden, and the mass protest against the EU summit and George W. Bush.  I planned to be back in time to see the first leaves fall on the Champs Elysées.  Turns out, that didn’t happen.

What happened was the ends of 911.

Sometimes you have to adjust who you think of as friends.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

9/11, Seventeen Years On

For John, BLUF:  We stay in Afghanistan because no President, or his advisors, trust others to support him in good faith.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Real Lesson of Sept. 11

Here is the sub-headline:

I went to war to avenge my brother’s death.  But the only person I truly wanted to kill died 17 years ago.

From The Old Gray Lady, by Mr Joe Quinn, a United States Army veteran, 10 September 2018.

The OpEd ends:

But the main reason I wanted to stay quiet is because it has embarrassingly taken me 17 years to realize something, and what I realized was this:  Seventeen years ago, staring at that picture of Mohammad Atta, I wanted revenge against the people who killed my brother.  But what I finally realized was that the people who killed my brother died the same day he did.

I refuse to take Atta’s orders, or Bin Laden’s.  I will not “stay quiet.”  End the war.

I tend to agree with Mr Quinn, but it isn't that easy.  Being in Afghanistan (and Iraq and Syria) is our entrée in the event more bad Guys pop up there.  See, for example, the policy position of Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA).

Tim Kaine, a Virginia senator on both the Senate’s armed services and foreign relations committees, believes that the strikes on Syria in April 2017 amounted to an act of war, and because the Constitution says only Congress has the right to declare war, President Donald Trump exceeded his authority.

Let President Trump pull out of Afghanistan and we experience another significant attack planned out of Afghanistan and then listen to the uproar and the charges of stupidity, or worse.  It could lead to another ranchorus debate like that in the 1950s over who lost China.

Thank you to the Service members, and civilians, who answered the call after 9/11.

Regards  —  Cliff

Proposed CIA Director to be Grilled Today

For John, BLUF:  This is a very important issue, because it is about accountability in our secret services, which in turn reflects on accountability in the Deep State.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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This is about the nomination of Ms Gina Haspel to be the next Director of the CIA.  She is an Intel Progressional, who has worked her way up to be the Deputy Director (and Acting Director).

Gina Haspel and the Elusive Shadow of CIA Torture:  A Response to Ben Wittes

From Just Security, by Professor Steve Vladeck, 9 May 2018.  Mr Vladeck is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Just Security and Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law.

Here is the lede:

At Lawfare, Ben Wittes has a long post up titled “Why I Support Gina Haspel—Despite a Big Reservation.”  It’s worth reading in full, because it makes about as strong a case as can be made for Haspel’s confirmation for folks who are, to put it precisely, less than enthusiastic about the wisdom, morality, or legality of the CIA’s Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation (RDI) program—in which Haspel played a major role.  (For those, like President Trump, who see her role in CIA torture as a feature, not a bug, well, that’s another matter.)

Yes, this is about the fact that in the wake of the 9/11 Attacks we went with torture to obtain the information we wanted on our enemies.  We have since come to the conclusion that it was illegal and immoral to torture people for information.  There are those who would argue that it was also ineffective.

The Senate hearing on Ms Haspel begins today.

Part of what this is about is sweeping history under the rug.  Another part is if having sinned once, one is forever denied absolution.  That is, is atonement possible?  The way we are pulling down Civil War statues in this country, one wonders.

Regards  —  Cliff

Remembering 911

TRIGGER WARNING:  In which I say, in essence, we have a right to grieve.

For John, BLUF:  Martha says folks who say September Eleventh don't understand.  It is 911.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Yesterday, Hanscom AFB, all flags at half-staff.

Regards  —  Cliff