Reports today have confirmed that a branch of the Islamic State has seized Tora Bora, once the stronghold of the iconic founder and leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. The terrorists of al-Qaeda used this remote and forbidding mountain fortress, honeycombed with caves and tunnels, as protection against airstrikes and ground assault in the weeks after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.”

D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion in history since King Xerxes’ 480 bc combined sea and land descent into Greece. The Americans, especially General George Marshall, had wanted to invade France as early as spring 1943, still confident from their World War I experience that they could land easily in France and within a year push back the German army to end the war.

In my review of the documentary Hypernormalisation, a quote from Hoover fellow and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, regarding suicide bombers and Middle East diplomacy during the Reagan administration, has stayed with me: “We were paralyzed by the complexity we faced.” I believe we still are.