Antonio Navalón
On a day like today, but twenty years ago, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad – considered the “architect” of the attack – was in contact with the Egyptian Mohamed Atta, and him, in turn, with Osama bin Laden. The preparations to carry out the plan of the most significant attack perpetrated against the Western world had been concluded. At that time, it was of no use that the pilots who trained at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who perpetrated the attack would have been struck by the fact that those strange Arabs had not shown interest in how to land a plane.
Those teacher pilots astonished that those who were their students at that time did not want to know how to land an aircraft, reported the case to the FBI. The FBI investigated them. Amazingly, they did not reach any conclusion that would allow them to interrupt or prevent the attack on the Twin Towers. All this leads me to a conclusion that I had when in 1984 – for professional and academic reasons – I had to make a stay in Washington.
The intelligence and military services of the United States know everything, but they know it wrongly. The conclusions that they usually draw as a result of the information they gather are often wrong. It was in Vietnam. When the attack on the Twin Towers was carried out, despite the various signals around the world that predicted that something would happen through the use of airplanes and that it would cause a massive terrorist attack. There were enough signs to know that what the mujahideen had learned in Afghanistan would move directly into the heart of the empire and the radical Muslims’ most significant rival, that is, into the guts of Israel’s main allies. Some of these signs were the attacks on the US embassies of Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 or the attack on the USS Cole that was anchored in the Yemeni port of Aden.
All this, which, when viewed with perspective, has a logic, at the time – despite the countless resources and dollars invested in information agencies, military parallel services, and even diplomats – did not serve to reach the proper conclusion.
Today, two decades ago, it was only five days before the world would change forever. It was five days before, suddenly, the lights of a carefree world would go out, causing the end of an order that seemed to have been established by God. The world was five days away from the worst of wars, the religious one, to emerge with unprecedented success. And all through the simple, elementary – and already studied by the American intelligence services – deflection of planes to crash them against emblematic buildings.
Past water does not move mills. However, as the story is cruel and has a particular sense of humor, everything seems to have aligned itself with the coincidence that supposes that, just as twenty years and five days ago, everything began in Afghanistan, at this moment everything will also end in Afghanistan. This is the time to start realizing where we are and the dimension of the war we are about to face.
In total numbers, there are more than four hundred and sixty-nine million Arabs and more than one billion eight hundred thousand Muslims in the world. If one analyzes – in terms of penetration spaces – one will realize that there are places like Europe inhabited by more than nine million Arabs and approximately twenty-five million Muslims. If you focus on the United States and the journey twenty years later, you will realize that – contrary to the operation’s objective against Afghanistan – neither freedom has been lasting nor justice has reached its last stages. All this has allowed atrocities such as Iraq to demonstrate that, without conviction or the ability to resist any unforeseen event, the best weapons and the latest technologies will never be enough.
This is the moment to understand that today – when twenty years ago we were five days away from the United States and the Western world losing their first great battle – we are faced with the greatest challenge of intelligence, of ability to foresight, and change of systems to analyze reality and the military structures to defend ourselves.
They’re inside. They are our neighbors. If you see London, you will notice that the main neighborhoods and the suburbs are full of Arabs and Muslims. I want to recall that the most brutal attacks in London were produced by British citizens who were Muslims and who, misusing their British nationality, blew up buses and subways. Not all are terrorists, and not all are dangerous. But in the midst of this wave, it is necessary to solve the failure of intelligence and prevent – after their great victory in Afghanistan – these perpetuators of terror from retaking the course of the war that began twenty years ago. To give a few examples, a war that had its repercussions and that had to do, with the attack on March 11, 2004, in Madrid or the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
We have to be aware that these radical Muslims could eventually succumb to the temptation to enter the United States via Mexico – either by initiating their migration from Central America or directly from Mexican territory – perpetuating an invasion on the back of the great empire North. After what happened in Kabul, Mexico must take note that the threat is no longer cartels, arms trafficking, or money laundering. For the United States, Mexican beaches have become a major terrorist entry point, and – although a terrorist attack has never come from Mexico – this does not mean that it is not possible. Especially if situations such as the current migration crisis are considered; the internal American crisis; or, the undeniable fact that Mexico shares more than three thousand kilometers of border with the Americans. But, above all, there is something that cannot be ignored, which is the great desire for revenge behind the actions of the United States in Afghan territory since its invasion twenty years ago and which led to the overthrow of the Taliban government.
The Taliban are not the problem, and – beyond the domestic terror that exists in Afghanistan or the consequences of the contagion in Pakistan and other countries in the region – I do not think that we will suffer from the export of their terrorism. The problem is that the Sunni terrorist coalition, coupled with the Taliban and the demonstration of American vulnerability and Western military capabilities, is a great spur to the entire army of loose Islamic terrorists. They have the largest and most important source of inspiration in Kabul. A place that could be ideal this time to attack from within.
Sunnis and Shiites are divided and have been fighting each other for centuries. Saudi Arabia has its greatest enemy in Iran, while the Iranians have their most fierce opponents in many Sunni countries. But within that – thanks to the example of Osama bin Laden and after verifying the vulnerability of the West – a whole generation of new terrorists, martyrs, and new conquerors of the paradise of Islam has emerged who will be willing to use and sacrifice their lives in exchange for taking between their legs as many Westerners or infidels as possible.
China, Russia, the United States, and the countries that are part of NATO have no choice but to unify information, intelligence and join forces that aim to stop the atrocities perpetrated in the name of the Holy War. For the moment, the main target of radical Islamism and Arab terrorism is the Western world, which has the United States as its leader. However, China – with its Arab minorities – also has to be vigilant. On the other hand, Russia has already been able to see – both now and in the past – what these radical groups are capable of. This is a coalition that has to be consolidated to win the Holy War. Otherwise, it will not matter if the true God is Muslims, Christians, or anyone else; we will be the cannon fodder.
If the situation that is brewing is not resolved, we will once again be in a situation in which taking a train, an airplane, or sitting on a terrace will be actions that will be accompanied by the latent threat and the possibility of being the victim of a terrorist attack at any time.
Except directing drones against everything and everyone, I do not see an intelligence policy that begins with an exhaustive internal review of each of the countries where potential soldiers of the great army of terror live. At this time, the billions of dollars invested and the agreements do not weaken this great threat that does nothing more than get stronger every day. In addition, there is the possibility that any species of modern Osama bin Laden sees in the defeat of Afghanistan a desire for revenge. A revenge from which only a true and effective coalition and collaboration between the major powers could save us.
The consequences of the worsening crisis between Pakistan and India cannot be ignored. Imagine the growing problem between Muslims and Indians, both tempted to find themselves in a confrontational situation that, in addition, has the desire of thousands of martyrs willing to do anything and capable of causing chaos at any time and in any place.
We all have a problem, although the main problem is not wanting to see its dimension and not wanting to join forces to avoid it. A day like today, but twenty years ago, neither Osama bin Laden nor any of his people nor all the money provided by the Saudi hierarchy thought they would truly succeed. However, as the fate of the divine designs is never known, the plan was a great success, and now there is a new generation. That said, it is worth mentioning that half of those who perpetrated the recent terrorist attack at the Kabul airport that killed thirteen Americans and more than one hundred and sixty Afghans and people of other nationalities were just born when terror and savagery in its purest expression ended the lives of more than two thousand nine hundred lives on September 11, 2001.
Twenty years ago, in what could be seen as a kind of prophetic revenge, radical Islamism won its most significant victory. Today, let’s hope this is not the beginning of something we do not know when or how it will end.
Comments:
“The intelligence and military services of the United States know everything, but they know it wrongly.”
“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
Ecclesiastes 9:11
S.C.
The way we left Afghanistan was criminal. We should have left years ago, but the way we left is beyond criminal.
M.A.