7,629 days have passed between the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack against America and the firing of the missile that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri. He is the last of the 9/11 killers’ leadership who roamed the earth freely.
al-Zawahiri was an Egyptian who was inspired by the insanity of his teacher, Sayiid Qutb, who is the ideologue who invented the modern version of radical Islam that led in a straight line to Al-Qaeda, ISIS and chaos around the world. The Egyptian extremist invented much of his twisted theories as a graduate student at the University of Colorado. The story of the road to 9/11 is told in Lawrence Wright’s epic “The Looming Tower,” which was turned into an equally epic television series on Hulu.
It tells the long story of the long lead-up to the day where a cell of terrorists, led by Egyptian Mohamed Atta, killed thousands of Americans. American myopism is not among our greatest national virtues. Americans do not speak often enough about the 115 different nationalities that were murdered in an attack on civilization, humanity and brotherhood. There was only one target in the world where the citizens of nearly all of the Earth’s nations could be killed at once. It was why the World Trade Center was the most spectacular target. It led to the historic invocation of Article 5 by NATO and a generation of global war that turned in a thousand unexpected ways.
The story is far from over. al-Zawahiri commanded an organization with 40,000 fighters, as Lawrence Wright points out yesterday’s edition of New Yorker. He struck America with Osama bin Laden when there were 400 fighters. The American people are blessed to be protected by a different caliber of people than most of those elected to federal office — especially the 98 per cent of elected Republicans who dominate the ranks of Washington, D.C.’s Coward Militia.
Among the 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists, 15 were Saudi nationals. There is no question about the collaboration of senior Saudis connected to the Saudi royal family. It is a disgrace that the American families of murdered Americans don’t have the satisfaction of the whole truth. The fact that the 9/11 file hasn’t been fully declassified is an American disgrace that does nothing to obscure the blood-stained hands of the Saudis.
The first leader of Al-Qaeda was bin Laden. al-Zawhari was his loyal deputy and the second emir of the terror group. His obliteration on the 7,629th day after the attacks on the order of the President of the United States of America should not be obscured in our rush to move on to the next story or titillation.
This one has deep meaning.
There have been many mistakes made by America’s war leaders over the last 20 years of war. Yesterday was a reminder of the lethality of the dedicated men and women who protect America’s security. Yesterday was a reminder to the world that if you kill Americans there is no place to hide, that you will be killed – one day, somewhere. Yesterday wasn’t just about the delivery of justice. It wasn’t just a surgical display of America’s power, reach and restraint. It was a declaration of resolve that transcends partisanship and division. It was a good day for the American people. The timing seems more providential than coincidental, having occurred in such close proximity to the conclusion of the Saudi/Trump LIV Golf series in Bedminster, New Jersey. The toxic venue was none other than Trump’s Bedminster golf course and cemetery.
The ticket prices dropped to an overpriced $1 on StubHub before the first has-beens teed off. The immoral sports-washing of the murderous Crown Prince’s despotism and human rights travesties is a lucrative business for a gaggle of greedy hustlers who have permanently defined themselves.
So long as the putrefying nonagenarian from Melbourne is breathing, and Lachlan is in residence, it will be impossible for LIV Chairman Greg Norman to get to the top of the leaderboard for grubbiest Australian polluting the United States.
Greg Norman was the greatest choker of his age. It is said that golf is a character test. If so, it explains everything regarding Norman, who calls himself the Great White Shark. Just this week, the world was treated to a rare video of orcas preying on a hapless white shark. The gory end of the predator fish at the hands of the superior, smarter and fiercer mammal is arresting. (Tigers are mammals also, but more on that later.) The orcas bite the great fish in half, gorging on its liver, which appeared less pickled than the one belonging to the Aussie choker and figurehead of the preposterous yet somehow inevitable, if not preordained, merger of Trump and Saudi golf. The fruits of the Abraham Accords, no doubt.
It was fitting that the event took place in New Jersey, a state where so many of the 9/11 victims and their families lived and their lives were permanently shattered by Saudi perfidy and terror. New Jersey was the sight of one of Trump’s most racist and disgusting slurs. Jersey City was the place where Trump said Muslims were cheering the fall of the towers. He made that up. American Muslims and Muslims all over the world were weeping. The cheering was in Afghan caves and the cavernous palaces of the Saudi royal family.
Tiger Woods was offered $700 - 800 million to hit golf balls for the Saudis and to sports-wash the lies of a savage and murderer, who is responsible for mass starvation of children in Yemen. The greatest golfer who has ever lived and the greatest champion of his age said no.
Let this end any talk and disparagements about the character of Tiger Woods. Tiger is imperfect, like all of us. He is mortal like all of us. He has been injured, scandalized, rehabilitated, castigated, lectured, smeared and jeered at various times. He has known the greatest of heights and the deepest of valleys. His resiliency, toughness, courage, discipline and perseverance have long been legend. There is something else about Tiger that counts. There is something else about the son of Earl Woods that stuck in his upbringing. Tiger Woods is a good American.
This is the difference between him and all of the useful idiots swinging golf clubs like Jihadi John of ISIS. The PGA Tour is the custodian of a sport in which integrity and decency are fundamental. It is no place for the bloody hands of Saudi Arabia, its sociopathic Crown Prince and his assemblage of stooges and paid whores.
The Crown Prince can make thousands of has-been golfers, their caddies, agents and PR hacks rich beyond words and their imaginations. That applies to even the richest among them, like the principle-less Phil Mickelson.
Human beings have always been willing to make a trade on their souls for a price. This might well have a warping effect on the murdering MBS in forming his opinion about Americans. His impressions are formed by his association with Americans like his fellow ‘dauphin’ Jared Kushner. He meets the Americans with their paws out looking for a little Saudi bling.
Those aren’t the Americans who define the United States, though they are part of us. It’s regular Americans who MBS should get to know. They are more interesting. They are a people who won’t even pay $1 to go watch the merged Saudi/Trump golf tour. They are the people who waited 7,639 days for justice. Americans have a long memory. It is fitting that the world’s greatest golfer is an American and that he will be until the day he dies. His disapproval of LIV Golf says it all.
There was never a phrase that Greg Norman heard on a Masters Sunday when it mattered. It seems appropriate to wrap some people together in that spirit – Naval Special Warfare Development Group in 2011, CIA on day 7,629, President Obama, President Biden, the PGA Tour and Tiger Woods – who all crushed the obscenity and stood tall, “Nice shot”.
I’ll never understand how TFG was allowed to move past “Now I have the tallest building in NYC” on the morning of 9/11.
Having been a U.S. Marine for twenty-one years, having lived and worked in the Middle East for the past twenty years (Qatar & Bahrain), I've seen and heard a lot. Looking at the US from the outside, and seeing the ME from the inside, lots to say however, will be after I leave this part of the world. Don't want any knocks on doors during the middle of the night. Thanks Steve for your Astute Insight! Sad that the families, and the American people still don't know what happened. We keep A Lot of unnecessary Secrets.