Views & opinions

9/11: What Would Trump Do?

It’s the totally unthinkable question that Americans find themselves confronting this week: What would President Donald Trump do in a genuine national crisis?

After a series of overseas terror attacks and some startling statements about nuclear weapons and torture, the world’s attention has turned to Trump’s foreign policy—an area where he has few advisers, no experience and a tendency to fire off answers and deal with the fallout later. The reality of a Trump candidacy has begun to set in: If Trump is elected and a major national crisis hits, he’ll be the one with his hands on the button. He’ll be at the head of the table in the Situation Room. His decisions would steer America’s immediate response and could set the course of American policy for years.

Views & opinions

Former Spy Chief On Britain's 'Libya Mistake'

Ephraim Halevy has warned that Libya will be the "biggest problem for Europe in the months to come".

The former head of the Mossad gave a forthright assessment of the situation in an exclusive interview with Sky News.

He said: "I believe the trouble coming from Libya is going to be immense.

"I think the operation originally launched by Britain and France turned out to be the biggest mistake committed by western Europe in recent years.

"I think the result we are now seeing in Libya is a direct result of the policies that were initiated by Paris and London at the start of this campaign."

Views & opinions

JOHN McAFEE: Here's why US intelligence is failing

America's cybersecurity is fragmented, inconsistent, and dysfunctional. Terrorist attacks occur as if they were lightning strikes — unpredictable and indefensible. Yet this is not true.

Mathematical models exist, using pattern recognition, point-set topology, and Boolean algebra, that can easily identify every terrorist cell on earth within minutes of the cell's organization — providing that sufficient raw data is available.

In addition to identifying terrorist cells, these formulas could predict a nation's troop movements, military plans, political moves, and nearly everything else — without having to read a single word of communication, parse a single sentence, or intercept a single message.

Views & opinions

What could French political culture have to do with Islamist violence?

The recent attacks in Brussels and those in Paris in January and November 2015 underscore an unsettling truth. “Jihadists pose a greater threat to France and Belgium than to the rest of Europe," wrote William McCants and Christopher Meserole of the Brookings Institution in an article called “The French Connection" published on March 24 in bimonthly magazine Foreign Affairs.

According to the two researchers, “As strange as it may seem, four of the five countries with the highest rates of radicalisation in the world are Francophone, including the top two in Europe (France and Belgium)."

There are an estimated 1,700 French and 470 Belgian individuals who have travelled to join the Islamic State group and other violent extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, according to a report by the Soufan Group published in December 2015. The Soufan Group also reported that France and Belgium have the highest number of fighters per capita.

Views & opinions

Deadly Blowback from Neo-Imperial Wars

In what may be the most dramatic blowback yet from Western military intervention in the Middle East, terrorism and the mass influx of foreign migrants are now putting the very existence of the European Union at risk. Foreign wars fanned by European and American interventionists in the name of democracy and humanitarianism now threaten those same values in Europe as never before since the end of World War II.

This threat comes at a time of popular discontent over the region’s chronic economic weakness, caused by Germany’s austerity policies and the straightjacket of the euro monetary union. The region has been further buffeted by the rise of right-wing parties, confrontations with Russia over Ukraine and NATO expansion, and the potential withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the E.U. In short, Europe faces a perfect storm.

Views & opinions

My Journey Through Brussels’ Terrorist Safe Haven

A former U.S. counterterrorism official says a recent visit to Molenbeek shows why ISIL is thriving in Europe.

The office of the mayor of Molenbeek municipality sits alongside a picturesque, typically European cobblestone square. Across the square, within plain view of the municipal government, sits the family home of Salah Abdeslam, the Islamic State terrorist who was finally captured two weeks ago after evading authorities since the November Paris attacks.

Nothing separates the two buildings, but they are a world apart.

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This is the bifurcated Brussels I saw when, coincidentally, I was in Belgium a few days before the terrorist attacks that killed 31 people and wounded hundreds. I was there to meet with senior counterterrorism, intelligence and law enforcement officials, as well as with local officials in the troubled municipality of Molenbeek, the subsection of Brussels where Abdeslam grew up and which even Molenbeek’s mayor, Francois Schepmans, describes as “a breeding ground for violence.”

Views & opinions

Obama’s going to PARTY after his ‘solemn’ defense of ISLAM in ISIS speech tonight…

Our idiot-in-chief gave a speech largely in defense of Islam when it was supposed to be about the jihadist attack in San Bernardino, but he won’t let him stop his partying!!

But hey, we know that Obama is taking this terrorist threat seriously because he’s honoring the guy that gave us the Star Wars prequels tonight...