Wall Street Journal (March 22)
“Europe seems determined to keep treating this as a policing problem, or at least as anything other than a call to bolster military efforts in Syria…. There’s a role for policing in a counterterror strategy, but also a limit. Brussels…can’t live in perpetual lockdown. Until the West is prepared to fight this terrorist threat at the source, Tuesday’s victims in Brussels won’t be the last.”
Tags: Brussels, Counterterror, Europe, Lockdown, Military, Policing, Strategy, Syria, Terrorist threat, Victims
The New York Times (December 12)
“Canada’s generosity—and Mr. Trudeau’s personal warmth and leadership — can serve as a beacon for others.” Prime Minister Trudeau was on hand to welcome the first groups of Syrian refugees to Canada. He even helped one man find a winter coat that fit. Canada’s warm reception of refugees in need “puts to shame the callous and irresponsible behavior of the American governors and presidential candidates who have argued that the United States, for the sake of its security, must shut its doors to all Syrian refugees.”
Tags: Canada, Generosity, Leadership, Refugees, Security, Syria, Trudeau, U.S.
Chicago Tribune (November 20)
“How many refugees from Syria, Iraq or anywhere, for that matter, have committed acts of terrorism in the United States? Well, zero seems to be the answer.” And yet, out of an abundance of caution, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to restrict Syrian refugees. Talk about misplaced priorities. “When it comes to an actual threat — the near certainty that thousands of Americans will be slaughtered next year and every year going forward by guns in the wrong hands and by guns designed for the efficient killing of human beings — our lawmakers and state chief executives are inert.”
Washington Post (November 17)
“Fear does strange things to people” and in the aftermath of the Paris bombings some U.S. leaders have called for a moratorium on receiving refugees from Syria. But giving refugees a cold shoulder “is morally reprehensible, un-American and in some instances, legally untenable.” The “Syrian refugees deserve freedom from slaughter.”
New York Times (October 4)
Vladimir Putin is again “on the move.” This time it’s Syria. “Once again, American foreign policy analysts can’t agree on whether he’s acting out of brilliance or desperation.”
Tags: Analysts, Brilliance, Desperation, Foreign policy, Putin, Syria, U.S.
USA Today (September 11)
“Fourteen years ago, the United States suffered a shockingly successful surprise attack by a little known Islamic extremist group based 7,000 miles away in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.” Today, Al-Qaeda’s “influence lives on…through offshoot extremist groups,” especially the Islamic State (ISIL) whose “lightning spread” throughout “Syria and Iraq has been marked by medieval barbarity, adapted to the Internet age.” The U.S. must pursue ISIL as aggressively as it once pursued al-Quaeda. “ISIL represents the embodiment of evil in the modern world, and it mustn’t be allowed to establish a foothold from which to plot attacks against the United States or to inspire so-called lone wolf sympathizers to do so.”
Tags: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Barbarity, Extremists, Iraq, ISIL, Syria, Taliban, U.S. Islam
Institutional Investor (October 10)
“As refugees from Syria and Iraq flood across the border and, the real economy suffers, Lebanon’s central bank is looking to start-up lending as a way to boost growth.” Despite an influx of 1.3 million refugees (roughly a third of its pre-crisis population), Lebanon’s “economy has remained intact. Growth, while meager, is still projected to reach 1.8 percent this year….Much of this resilience is down to the creativity of the central bank” and the novel approaches it is adopting.
Tags: Border, Central bank, Creativity, Economy, Growth, Iraq, Lebanon, Lending, Refugees, Resilience, Start-ups, Syria
Financial Times (October 8)
Isis looks poised to capture Kobani and much of Syria’s border with Turkey. Will this finally jolt Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, out of his ambivalence? “If he is to retain the confidence of his longstanding allies, Mr Erdogan should move decisively against Isis and put an end to international perceptions that he is willing to dally with this deadly foe.”
Washington Post (September 8)
The Islamic State has already “seized far more of Iraq and Syria than is compatible with the safety and human rights of the people living there, and its sights are set on further destabilization in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kurdistan, as well as terror attacks in Europe and, if it’s capable of them, the United States.” It is delusional to think this “murderous terrorist army” can simply be “contained” or “managed.”
Tags: Contained, Destabilization, Europe, Human rights, Iraq, Islamic State, Jordan, Kurdistan, Managed, Safety, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Terror attacks, Terrorist army, U.S.
Washington Post (August 21)
“With each day, the barbarism of the Islamist extremists terrorizing Syria and Iraq becomes more evident—as does the need for the United States and its allies to act more vigorously to block their rise.”
