Ignoring The Red Flags

It's Time to Listen to the Afghans

We’re Americans, dammit. We excel at everything we do—like ignoring red flags.

Sometimes the impact of our willful ignorance is fairly innocuous, like when Obama flouted common fashion sense with his infamous tan suit. Other times, it can enable an attack on our homeland, the likes of 9/11.

Oof. That one still hurts, doesn’t it? So why bring it up now?

Because we may very well be poised for another similar and imminent attack.

Last week, my BFF Will Selber published an article with The Bulwark entitled “The Threat of Terrorism in America Has Returned.” (You can check it out here.) There’s no equivocating here; instead, Will writes: “[M]y mental warning lights have been blinking red recently: There is increasing reason to believe that there could be a terrorist attack on the United States in the months ahead.” 

Where’s the evidence? Just take a look around. Earlier this month, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested eight Tajik nationals with ties to the Islamic State. Some of these men had already crossed the Southern border, requested asylum, AND passed their initial screening. All eight were arrested in major U.S. cities, specifically Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia.  

Just one week prior, Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior Taliban official with ties to Al Qaeda, conducted a state visit to the United Arab Emirates in his capacity as Afghanistan’s Minister of Interior Affairs. (I talk about the multitude of ways in which this visit caused mental harm to veterans here.) Haqqani—a specially designated terrorist with a sizable FBI reward on his head—used this visit to conduct his first hajj (the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca) with up to thirty thousand “pilgrims” in attendance.  

And in a series of pamphlets recently released by Al Qaeda’s as-Sahab Media (that’s right, folks, Al Qaeda has its own media division, so have your people call their people), senior leader Sayf al-Adl issued an open call for supporters to travel to Afghanistan to gain the knowledge and experience to attack Western targets around the world. (Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss address this topic more in-depth here.)  As he calls for our annihilation, al-Adl enjoys protection in Iran.

They walk among us.

How can this be? Aren’t we the nation whose leader once promised: “We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” So how did we get here?

As with all things security-related, the answer is neither clear nor concise. However, it’s easy to presume that Biden’s seeming policy of non-engagement with Afghanistan has played a role.

(Seattle Times - Aug 2021)

I get it. I really do. Before he’d even taken office, Biden faced immense pressure to “bring the troops home!.” Thousands of servicemembers were killed abroad in a war with an inconsistent mission, unclear metrics, and rapidly decreasing public support. Following the disastrous U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, I’d hazard a guess that Joe would be happy never to hear the word “Afghanistan” again.

But in turning a blind eye to the ongoing threat of global Islamist terrorism, Biden may just be emboldening these bad actors: “We see you, but we don’t care. You do you, boo.”  At a minimum, there’s little evidence of any meaningful deterrent.  

So what should we do?  Per Will’s assessment, “For the first time in our long, sordid history in Afghanistan, we should listen to our Afghan allies. They have been warning about the threats from these groups for months, long before others started sounding the alarm. They know these groups because they grew up with them. They still want our support in fighting against these groups. We should give it to them.” 

It’s a tricky ask. Public and political attention is oriented towards other world crises right now, including Ukraine and Gaza. And given that our prior engagement in Afghanistan didn’t exactly land us a massive “Mission Accomplished” poster (Iraq really went easy on us), we’re reluctant to reengage.  

But we must. The threat of Islamic terrorism is once again mounting, and we already know the ending of that story. 

Afghanistan must be brought back into our national consciousness and conversation. In doing so, we must publicly denounce the Taliban government and offer more meaningful support to existing resistance groups—after all, the Afghans were our allies once before and would like to be again. GCV is partnering with multiple organizations to make this a reality. We can write about it, but we must also be about it. More to follow soon. 

Back home, the intelligence community must reorient towards this threat, which now extends beyond the Middle East and South Asia into Central Asia. As we know, terrorism is not contained by borders.  

There’s really only one wrong move here. So, while I do hope that Will’s prediction of a possible imminent attack is wrong, I’d urge our president to see the situation for what it truly is: a blazing red flag warning us of danger. Failure to do so could have catastrophic consequences.