by Mary Claire Kendall
Operation Enduring Freedom, as our military engagement in Afghanistan was called, began 20 years ago today—October 7, 2001.Fittingly enough, the day we launched this fight for the West, was the 430th anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, in which Christian forces defeated the fleet of the Ottoman Empire at the Gulf of Patras in the largest naval battle ever, decisively ending Ottoman designs for Mediterranean military expansion. More of a moral victory, it paved the way to the more militarily significant Battle of Vienna, over 100 years later, on September 11, 1683, in which Christian forces under the leadership of the King of Poland, John III Sobieski, dealt a decisive blow to the Muslim Turks.
From that September 11th forward, the Turks ceased to threaten the Christian world, after which they retreated to their backwaters, plotting and planning when they would launch an offensive to weaken and try, ultimately, to defeat the West.
Some 300 years later, on September 11, 2001, at the dawn of the new millennium, they made their move. Without considering events since that horrific day in the light of this important centuries-long history, America and her Western allies will fail to capture the historic moment and understand the existential fight in which we find ourselves, a fight which includes the fact that many entrusted with our safety, in recent years, have, instead, given aid and comfort to the enemy on his long march to conquer the West. To wit:
During the storming of the U.S. Embassy on September 11, 2012, the U.S., under the leadership of Barack Hussein Obama, did not lift a finger to save four Americans who were brutally killed, including our U.S. ambassador. That, in turn, set the stage for America’s disgraceful cut-and-run this summer from Afghanistan, It began with the stealthy abandonment of Bagram Air Base under cover of night on July 1, 2021, after which, Americans, adhering to the Biden regime’s impossibly-tight self-imposed deadline, were forced to betray the code of American military conduct to never leave one of their own behind, even though, as in Benghazi, Special Forces had it in their power to go in and rescue them. In more echoes of Benghazi, servicemembers who lost their lives in Kabul were needlessly put into harm’s way. That morning, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin put top leaders on notice to prepare for an impending “mass casualty event,” Politico reported. As suspected, the ISIS-K attacker came from the prison population incarcerated at Bagram Air Base, released the day the Taliban took over.
“I love my job,” Marine Sergeant Nicole Gee wrote in an Instagram post, her last, accompanied by a photo showing her holding an Afghan baby. Not surprisingly, she worked late on the evening of August 26, to continue helping those seeking to flee Afghanistan as the sand slipped through the hour glass. Thus, did Gee give her last full measure of devotion, not long after she posted that photo, in the blast that also killed 12 of her fellow U.S. servicemembers along with hundreds of Afghans. Not coincidentally, the attack occurred at the very spot, the Abbey Gate, of Hamid Karzai International Airport where Marines were shown receiving Afghan babies their mothers had handed them in hopes their children would find better lives.
In contrast, Gee’s commander-in-chief, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., in a July 23 phone call offered Afghan president Ashraf Ghani continuing air support, vitally critical to the Afghan army’s preservation, only if he would address the Afghan government’s “perception” problem, Reuters reported exclusively. In the transcript of the call, leaked to Reuters, along with the audio, on condition of anonymity, Biden tells Ghani, as he listened from the presidential palace, “I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there is a need, whether it is true or not, (emphasis added) there is a need to project a different picture.”
Then, came the quid pro quo: “We will continue to provide close air support, if we know what the plan is.” Ghani refused and without air cover the Afghan army folded and the country fell within days. Thus was the way opened to mass executions at the hands of the Taliban as they go door-to-door, aided by the “kill list,” seeking out freedom-loving Americans and Afghans.
It is a horror not unlike what occurred under the Nazi reign of terror when Hitler’s henchmen brutally tortured and killed some 20 million souls including six million Jews, plus countless other civilian and military war-dead.
On the eve of our final departure, as reports of hundreds of Americans our government refused entry inside Kabul airport cascaded out, CENTCOM commander, General Kenneth McKenzie, Jr., claimed the administration wanted to help those “left behind” get out. Yet, when veterans sprang into action to save hundreds, if not thousands, of stranded Americans, the Biden State Department, effecting “the opposite of Dunkirk,” Erik Prince told Steve Bannon on the WarRoom (23:20-26:57) called regional governments and asked them “not to cooperate with these private organizations”—not to let their planes land. “Instead of tailwinds,” Prince said, “there’s a lot of headwinds.” It is a story that has been repeated over and over in recent weeks.
As these eyepopping developments in the U.S. surrender in Afghanistan continue by the day, it is undeniable that the whole Afghan debacle is a key piece in the extremist Islamic centuries-long push to conquer the West and its Judeo-Christian culture, underscored, in recent years, by the burning of churches in France, possibly including Notre Dame Cathedral, which mysteriously went up in flames on April 15, 2019, and miraculously survived, though not without significant damage.
The pièce de resistance is that, in surrendering in Afghanistan, whereas Biden unconscionably gave many Afghan allies the cruelest of pink slips, epitomized by iconic images of Afghans desperately running toward that American C-17, some falling to their deaths, which Biden unempathetically dismissed; he inexplicably gave the Taliban a huge golden parachute—$85 billion worth of sophisticated weaponry, after which images of military tanks and vehicles being transported to Iran surfaced.
Christian forces prayed the Rosary at the Battle of Lepanto then fought like hell and, aided by the Blessed Virgin Mary, won, after which, Pope Pius V, who had organized the coalition consisting of Spain and other small Christian nations, decreed October 7 the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, a.k.a. the Feast of the Holy Rosary.
Likewise, at the Battle of Vienna, King Sobieski prayed to Our Lady of Czestochowa for victory. Given Austria’s seriously depleted forces, the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, had implored the Polish sovereign to come to Austria’s aid in their fight against the barbarians. On September 11, 1683, 80,000 Christian troops, led by Sobieski and aided by Mary, defeated the 250,000-strong Turkish army.
The Virgin Mary was assumed, body and soul, into Heaven and, as Psalm 45:9 reveals, sits at the right hand of the Son of God. Not coincidentally, the Feast of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven is celebrated on August 15, the day the Taliban took over the Arg presidential palace.
Quite clearly, Mary is playing a powerful role in the victory of the West.
Postscript: On August 31, I posted Eric Clapton singing “Holy Mother” with Luciano Pavarotti on Facebook. As I wrote that day, “Beautiful! ‘Holy Mother,’ I feel confident, will bring us through the tragedy and uncertainty we are living through in the wake of the ill-conceived, catastrophic Afghanistan exit... that Eric Clapton posted this song on July 15, anniversary of my dear mother’s going to heaven, speaks to my heart... she had such a special devotion to ‘Holy Mother.’”
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Image #1: Sandro Botticelli’s “Madonna and Child” Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan.
Image #2: Painting of the Battle of Lepanto by an unknown painter.
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Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends, published in Madrid in 2016 under the title También Dios pasa por Hollywood. She recently finished Oasis II as well as a biography featuring the covert pre-satellite surveillance of the Soviets out of Midway Island.
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