Washington – Leaders Of ‘9/11 Commission’ Recommend New U.S. Approach To Extremism

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    FILE - Handcuffed, blindfolded and earmuffs-wearing Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq (L) is escorted from a police helicopter, in Hamburg, Germany, 15 October 2018. The 9/11 terrorists helper, who was jailed in the Hamburg Fuhlsbuettel prison, is being deported to his birth country Morocco. EPAWashington – Leaders of the commission that recommended changes in U.S. counterterrorism strategy after the Sept. 11 attacks called on Tuesday for another shift, saying the country still falls short in preventing, rather than striking back at, extremism.

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    “The hope is that if we do this right, the military will always be the last resort, rather than the first resort,” Thomas Kean, co-chairman of the “Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States,” told a news conference.

    Kean, a former New Jersey governor, led the task force with former Representative Lee Hamilton. The two also chaired the 9/11 commission, which released the 2004 report delving into security failures before al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon that killed almost 3,000 people.

    Task force members and foreign policy heavyweights from Congress discussed the report’s recommendations for using foreign aid to stabilize fragile states, developing their economies to create jobs, fight corruption and alleviate underlying causes of extremism.

    The report was presented weeks before President Donald Trump is due to release his budget request to Congress. In his past two annual requests, Trump proposed – and Congress largely rejected – cuts of up to 30 percent in the amount of money sent abroad.

    The report presented on Tuesday did not take a political position. It was backed by influential foreign policy figures from among Trump’s fellow Republicans as well as Democrats.

    Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, said he was working to get the president’s support for foreign assistance by convincing him the new approach would save money in the long run, after the country has spent trillions on military action since the 2001 attacks.

    “It’s got to be a win-win in his eyes. You have to make more of a business case,” said Graham, who chairs the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign aid. He said he already had State Department support for the plan and would discuss the plan on Wednesday with acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

    Representative Eliot Engel, Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Mike McCaul, its senior Republican, told the news conference they would reintroduce legislation that passed the House last year linking foreign aid to the fight against extremism.

    Graham and Democratic Senator Chris Coons, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said they would also introduce the measure in the Senate with several co-sponsors from both parties. The measure never came up for a vote in the Senate last year.


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    6 Comments
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    5 years ago

    Yes we need to work more on preventing. That’s done thru cracking down on free speech. Whether it’s Nazis or Muslims we need to rethink how much freedom we offer to free speech especially in such a high charged world where one video on you tube can influence lots of crazies. If democracy and affording free speech leads to such many deaths what’s the virtue of democracy?
    And I’ll repeat it should include both a Muslim jihad and Nazis ban

    Normal
    Normal
    5 years ago

    If a frum Muslim is repeatedly told that the Halacha is to kill the infidels, there’s nothing much you can do.

    5 years ago

    I was not that impressed with Governor Kean’s final 9/11 Commission report, as he refused to pinpoint blame on the CIA and the FBI for their shortcomings and failures of leadership, and intelligence, pertaining to preventing the 9/11/01 attacks. Some sixty years earlier, when the US Congress held extensive hearings and an extensive investigation into the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admirel Kimmel and General Short were held accountable. However, in reference to 9/11, not one bureaucrat was ever reprimanded, suspended, or terminated, because of inaction, and intelligence failures leading up to that fateful day. Congress even protected the commercial airlines (United and American), from punitive legal action by establishing a fund, to buy off the families of the victims. Therefore, we don’t need Gov. Kean’s “advice”, at this stage.