Bergen: 10 things that can be done
After the Nice attack: 10 things that can be done
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A
photo from the Twitter account of a reporter for CNN affiliate France 2
shows witnesses being interviewed inside the Hotel Negresco after the
attack. According to Alban Mikoczy, these people are not injured.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Wounded people are evacuated from the scene where the truck drove into the crowd during the Bastille Day celebrations.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Armed French police move people away from the Promenade des Anglais in Nice in the aftermath of Thursday's attack.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Medical workers attend to an injured woman.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Police security forces deployed in the center of Nice.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Tony
Molina, a U.S. police officer on vacation in Nice, witnessed the
terrible scene from his hotel room. He told CNN he thought he heard
between 30 and 40 gunshots. "I saw the truck right below us and it had
already driven down the boardwalk for a half a mile."
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
BFM-TV, a CNN affiliate in France, reported that police shot at the truck to try to stop it.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Rescue workers move a victim from the scene.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Soldiers, police officers and firefighters walk among bodies covered with blue sheets on the seafront Promenade des Anglais.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Police
seal off the area around the scene. A witness said at first it seemed
like an accident, but then it became obvious it was a deliberate act.
Hide Caption
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
"I
wasn't sure what to do, in that situation. No one knew what was going
on. We just knew we had to run for our lives," said Paul Delane, an
American who witnessed the attack.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
French President François Hollande said the country would now extend its state of emergency for three months.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A doll is seen at the scene of the attack on the Promenade des Anglais.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Baby
strollers are seen on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, on
Friday, July 15. A 31-year-old native of Tunisia and resident of Nice
drove into a crowd during the southern French city's Bastille Day
celebrations around 10:45 p.m. on Thursday, July 14, killing at least 84
people and leaving around 202 injured.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A woman cries, asking for her son, as she walks near the scene of the attack.
Hide Caption
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A forensics team inspects the scene of the attack.
Hide Caption
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A man looks at the scene of the attack on the Promenade des Anglais.
Hide Caption
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Forensics investigators examine a truck at the scene of the attack.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Bodies of victims covered by sheets remained at the scene of the attack early Friday.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A man sits next to the body of a victim following the attack.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Authorities confirmed that the driver of the truck was killed by police.
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
The
truck plowed into a crowd leaving a Bastille Day fireworks display in
the French resort city of Nice. One witness, an American who was about
15 feet from the truck, said the driver accelerated and pointed his
tractor-trailer into the crowd, mowing people over.
Hide Caption
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A man lies near a covered body at the scene of the attack on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
Hide Caption
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Emergency teams assist wounded people at the scene.
Hide Caption
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Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A
photo from the Twitter account of a reporter for CNN affiliate France 2
shows witnesses being interviewed inside the Hotel Negresco after the
attack. According to Alban Mikoczy, these people are not injured.
Hide Caption
13 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Wounded people are evacuated from the scene where the truck drove into the crowd during the Bastille Day celebrations.
Hide Caption
14 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Armed French police move people away from the Promenade des Anglais in Nice in the aftermath of Thursday's attack.
Hide Caption
15 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Medical workers attend to an injured woman.
Hide Caption
16 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Police security forces deployed in the center of Nice.
Hide Caption
17 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Tony
Molina, a U.S. police officer on vacation in Nice, witnessed the
terrible scene from his hotel room. He told CNN he thought he heard
between 30 and 40 gunshots. "I saw the truck right below us and it had
already driven down the boardwalk for a half a mile."
Hide Caption
18 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
BFM-TV, a CNN affiliate in France, reported that police shot at the truck to try to stop it.
Hide Caption
19 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Rescue workers move a victim from the scene.
Hide Caption
20 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Soldiers, police officers and firefighters walk among bodies covered with blue sheets on the seafront Promenade des Anglais.
Hide Caption
21 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Police
seal off the area around the scene. A witness said at first it seemed
like an accident, but then it became obvious it was a deliberate act.
Hide Caption
22 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
"I
wasn't sure what to do, in that situation. No one knew what was going
on. We just knew we had to run for our lives," said Paul Delane, an
American who witnessed the attack.
Hide Caption
23 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
French President François Hollande said the country would now extend its state of emergency for three months.
Hide Caption
24 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A doll is seen at the scene of the attack on the Promenade des Anglais.
Hide Caption
25 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Baby
strollers are seen on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, on
Friday, July 15. A 31-year-old native of Tunisia and resident of Nice
drove into a crowd during the southern French city's Bastille Day
celebrations around 10:45 p.m. on Thursday, July 14, killing at least 84
people and leaving around 202 injured.
Hide Caption
1 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A woman cries, asking for her son, as she walks near the scene of the attack.
Hide Caption
2 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A forensics team inspects the scene of the attack.
Hide Caption
3 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A man looks at the scene of the attack on the Promenade des Anglais.
Hide Caption
4 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Forensics investigators examine a truck at the scene of the attack.
Hide Caption
5 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Hide Caption
6 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Bodies of victims covered by sheets remained at the scene of the attack early Friday.
Hide Caption
7 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A man sits next to the body of a victim following the attack.
Hide Caption
8 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Authorities confirmed that the driver of the truck was killed by police.
Hide Caption
9 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
The
truck plowed into a crowd leaving a Bastille Day fireworks display in
the French resort city of Nice. One witness, an American who was about
15 feet from the truck, said the driver accelerated and pointed his
tractor-trailer into the crowd, mowing people over.
Hide Caption
10 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A man lies near a covered body at the scene of the attack on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
Hide Caption
11 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
Emergency teams assist wounded people at the scene.
Hide Caption
12 of 25
Photos: Bastille Day terror: Harrowing images of truck attack in Nice
A
photo from the Twitter account of a reporter for CNN affiliate France 2
shows witnesses being interviewed inside the Hotel Negresco after the
attack. According to Alban Mikoczy, these people are not injured.
Hide Caption
13 of 25
Story highlights
- Peter Bergen proposes 10 things that could be done in the wake of the attack in Nice and other recent terrorist acts
- Proposals by Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich miss the mark, he says
Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of "United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists."
(CNN)Donald
Trump wants to declare war. Newt Gingrich wants to test all Muslims in
America for their views on Sharia law. And Hillary Clinton wants to take
stronger measures against ISIS' online presence, which is radicalizing
militants around the globe.
Thursday's
terror attack in Nice predictably provoked rapid responses from the
presidential candidates and other political figures. Yet, of the views
from Trump, Gingrich and Clinton, only her proposal makes any sense.
Peter Bergen
The
investigation of the Nice attack is still in the early stages and we
don't know the motivation of the killer. It is likely a case of
homegrown terrorism, perhaps inspired by ISIS, similar to what we saw a
month ago in Orlando. Also, in the past month we have seen ISIS-directed
attacks in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Baghdad and very likely in Istanbul and
Medina, Saudi Arabia.
All of these attacks have moved terrorism to the forefront of political debate.
As
both Trump and Clinton head into their respective conventions over the
coming days, hopefully we will hear more specific and realistic
proposals about what to actually do about the scourge of terrorism.
Hillary Clinton on France attack: I am sick at heart 07:13
Here are 10 things that can be done:
1. Either through electronic warfare or bombing, take out ISIS' propaganda production facilities in the Middle East. Two weeks ago, ISIS announced its involvement in the attack at the café in Dhaka,
Bangladesh, that killed 20 through Amaq, which is effectively ISIS'
news agency. Why does Amaq continue to exist? Also ISIS continues to
pump out online videos, audios and webzines. These require crude
production facilities of some kind. These, too, should be eliminated.
2. Intensify the military campaign against ISIS.
The less the ISIS "caliphate" exists as a physical entity, the less the
group can claim it is the "Islamic State" that it purports to be. That
should involve more U.S. Special Forces on the ground embedded with
Iraqi and other coalition forces and more U.S. forward air controllers
calling in close air support strikes for those forces.
U.S. sending more troops to Iraq 02:01
3. Institute a no-fly zone in northern Syria as Clinton has demanded. This
will reduce the battlefield success of Syrian dictator Basher al-Assad,
who is the principal driver of the Syrian war and also will reduce the
flow of refugees into Europe.
4. Build a database of all the "foreign fighters" who have gone to Syria to fight for ISIS and the al-Qaeda affiliate there.
This is one of the recommendations of the House Homeland Security
Committee's 2015 report on foreign fighters in Syria and it is a very
good one. How can you prevent an attack by returning foreign fighters if
you are not cognizant of their names and links to ISIS? Right now,
Interpol has a list of some 5,000 foreign fighters, but that is dwarfed
by the estimated 30,000 foreign fighters who have gone to fight in Syria.
5. Enlist defectors from ISIS to tell their stories publicly. Nothing
is more powerful than hearing from former members of the group that
ISIS is not creating an Islamist utopia in the areas it controls, but a
hell on earth.
The flow of foreign
fighters to ISIS from around the Muslim world has been estimated to be
about 1,000 a month. Reducing that flow is a key to reducing ISIS'
manpower. Muhammad Jamal Khweis, 26, of Alexandria, Virginia, was held
by Kurdish fighters after allegedly deserting from ISIS in early 2015. Khweis gave an interview to a Kurdish TV station
in which he said: "My message to the American people is: the life in
Mosul [the Iraqi capital of ISIS] it's really, really bad. The people
[that] were controlling Mosul don't represent the religion. Daesh, ISIS,
ISIL, they don't represent the religion, I don't see them as good
Muslims."
U.S.
prosecutors could throw the book at Khweis for joining ISIS, and he
could get 20 years or more, but, alternatively, they could try something
more creative -- a deal in which he tells prosecutors what he knows
about ISIS in return for a reduced prison sentence. And one more thing:
He would also have to appear before the American public, explaining that
ISIS is creating hell in the areas it controls.
6. Amplify voices such as that of the ISIS opposition group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.
The group routinely posts photos online of bread lines in Raqqa, the de
facto capital of ISIS in northern Syria, and writes about electricity
shortages in the city. This will help to undercut ISIS propaganda that
it is a truly functioning state.
7. Support the work of clerics such as Imam Mohamed Magid of northern Virginia,
who has personally convinced a number of American Muslims seduced into
support for jihad by ISIS that what the group is doing is contrary to
the teachings of Islam.
8. Keep up pressure on social media companies such as Twitter to enforce their own terms of use to take down any ISIS material that encourages violence. Earlier this year, Twitter took down 125,000 accounts used by ISIS supporters, but the group continues to use Twitter and other social media platforms to propagate its message.
Terror victim's widow sues Twitter over ISIS 03:24
9.
Amplify support to the Turks to help them in their mission to tamp down
the foreign fighter flow through their country to ISIS in neighboring
Syria. Turkey, which had long been criticized by Western
countries for allowing foreign fighters to move through its territory on
their way to Syria, has started to clamp down on that traffic into
Syria. Those efforts by the Turks are paying off, according to ISIS
itself. In 2015, ISIS posted advice in one of its English-language
online publications to would-be foreign fighters, saying, "It is
important to know that the Turkish intelligence agencies are in no way
friends of the Islamic State [ISIS]."
10. Relentlessly
hammer home the message that while ISIS positions itself as the
defender of Muslims, its victims are overwhelmingly fellow Muslims.
As
for the views of Donald Trump, who told Fox News "this is war" and that
he would seek a declaration of war from Congress, here's a news flash:
The Obama administration has repeatedly asked Congress to pass a
resolution authorizing the wars in Syria and Iraq, but Congress has
abdicated this responsibility.
Also,
the Obama administration has been waging various forms of war in seven
Muslim countries for years, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan,
Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Are there other Muslim countries Trump would
like to go to war with?
(There is
something of a law in American politics that the louder you call for war
the less likely you are to have spent any time in the military or in
war zones. Trump is a perfect exemplar of this law having avoided
service in Vietnam though various deferments and there is no evidence he
has visited any of the war zones in which he wants to wage a war.)
Trump
has also said he would ban travel from countries where there is a
terrorism problem. Is he seriously proposing that French citizens be
barred from traveling to the United States? After all, France clearly
has a major terrorism problem.
Extreme authority: France's 'state of emergency' 01:06
Newt
Gingrich, who lost out in the competition for the veep slot on the
Trump ticket, said Thursday that all Muslims in the United States should
be interviewed about their views on Sharia law and should be deported
if they give the wrong answer.
It's
hard to imagine any Muslim fessing up to their secret proclivity for
Sharia law knowing they would be deported if they gave the wrong answer.
In any event, this would be like asking Christians if they believed in
purgatory; just as Christians have many different conceptions of
purgatory, there are many different interpretations of what Sharia
means.
Then
there is the, ahem, small matter that the Republic was built on the
idea of religious tolerance and that the religious test that Gingrich is
prescribing would be unconstitutional. Gingrich, a sometime history
professor, seems to have forgotten a key reason why these United States
were founded: So folks can practice whatever religion they want.
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