Striking the heart of the European Union, Brussels, Belgium, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] showed its global reach, detonating two bombs at the Brussels’ airport and a metro stop near EU headquarters, killing 30, injuring scores more. Today’s attack came only four days after 26-year-old ISIS terrorist Salah Abdeslam massacred with his comrades 130, injuring 368 in Paris Nov. 13, 2015. Captured March 18 in Brussels Molenbeek district near his childhood home, the fugitive mastermind of the Paris attacks eluded capture for nearly five months before Belgium police tracked him down. Striking only four days after his capture shows that Belgium’s ISIS terror cells remain an urgent threat not only in Brussels but around the passport-free zone of the European Union. EU officials don’t have the intel or law enforcement resources to root out Islamic terror cells.
While small on the scale of Sept. 11, the EU’s terror problems have been exacerbated by the Syria war, driving hundreds-of-thousands of refugees from the Mideast into Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken nearly 1 million Mideast and North African refugees, over 500,000 from war-ravaged parts of Syria and Iraq. Whatever the humanitarian benefits, flooding the EU with unvetted Mideast refugees has created a security nightmare for European officials. Some EU countries, like Viktor Orban’s Hungary, Serbia’s Tomislav Nikolic or Slovenia’s Borut Pahor have sealed their borders. Merkel’s open-door policy has divided the EU and pushed U.K Prime Minister David Cameron to defend a concerted effort by his own Tory Party to exit the EU. Today’s ISIS terror attack in Brussels gives backers to the so-called June 23 “Brexit” referendum more impetus.
When former President George W. Bush was blindsided by Sept. 11, 2001 he mobilized the U.S. military to go after Osama bin Laden, given safe haven under Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. Operation Enduring Freedom went after Bin Laden Oct. 7, 2001, driving the Taliban from Kabul Nov. 12, 2001, about the same time Bin Laden disappeared into the mountainous hinterlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Whatever mistakes were made by the Bush, he realized the battle had to be taken to the enemy, in what became known later as the Bush Doctrine. Fifteen years later the U.S. still finds itself battling a stubborn Taliban insurgency. Bush’s detour to Iraq soured the country on the U.S. war on terror. When President Barack Obama was sworn in Jan. 20, 2009, he was committed to ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Getting out of Iraq Dec. 15, 2011 helped give rise to ISIS.
Whatever mistakes were made in Iraq, the Obama administration followed a path of disengagement or strategic retreat from Mideast war zones. With the public jaded, Obama lost sight of the ongoing battle against Islamic extremism. When ISIS swept over Iraq and Syria in 2014, they had a free hand to conquer some 30% of Iraq and Syria. Unlike Bin Laden, that parked his terrorists temporarily in various spots, ISIS did the unthinkable, declaring a caliphate June 11, 2014 on sovereign land in Iraq and Syria. When you look at today’s Brussels’ attack and those of Paris, it directly relates to allowing ISIS a safe haven in Iraq and Syria. Obama’s policy of strategic retreat paved the way for today’s ISIS massacre. “The terrorists are trying to undermine the democratic values that are at the root of our way of life,” said Democratic front-runner former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Spewing platitudes doesn’t begin to fix a failed policy of strategic retreat. Obama’s approach, backed by Hillary while Secretary of State [Jan. 29, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2013], relies on the U.N. or NATO to defend U.S. national security against terrorist threats. Obama and Hillary’s approach ceded U.S. national security in the war on terror to the U.N., NATO and other international bodies. When Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom it wasn’t through the U.N. “We cannot let them succeed. So we have to, you know, intensify our efforts to keep America safe and to work with our friends and allies to help them be safe as well from these threats,” said Hillary, admitting she’d continue as president to cede U.S. national security to the U.N and other foreign groups. Watching the U.S. and EU reel from today’s terrorist attacks shows the White House learned little from Sept. 11.
Responding to the Brussels’ ISIS attacks, 69-year-old real estate mogul and GOP front-runner Donald Trump contrasted his approach with Hillary. “I would be very, very tough on the borders and not allowing certain people into this country without absolutely perfect documentation,” urging the White House to halt any program to bring in Syrian refugees. Trump’s called for a strong military response to get rid of ISIS, in addition to clamping down on the borders and refugees. Relying on the U.N. is not an anti-terrorism policy but a prelude for disaster. “We’ve got to stand in solidarity with our European allies,” said Hillary, showing no stomach for taking the battle to the enemy. Hillary backs the Saudi’s five-year-old Saudi proxy war against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Obama and Hillary’s policy of backing the Saudi proxy war in Syria has fueled ISIS and given rise to today’s Brussels’ terror attacks.
