There is blood on their hands.
There is no other way to say it. When law enforcement is warned that a dangerous wanted criminal has been traced to your neighborhood, and local authorities do nothing about it, what do you call it when that criminal starts taking lives? Especially if the one warning them is law enforcement from another jurisdiction. Isn’t culpable an appropriate word to use?
Now, what if that dangerous criminal was a jihadi, and those lives he started taking were as part of a suicide attack? Would that make the negligence of law enforcement worse? What would the victims of the families have to say about law enforcement’s inaction? Would they be justifiably angry? Should heads roll in law enforcement? Should the victims’ families lawyer up and raise hell?
Thirty two people in Brussels (not counting the terrorists) lost their lives that day. Ninety four others were hospitalized. But the officials in Brussels were warned beforehand.
Did you realize that fully six days before the attack, the had FBI specifically warned Belgium about the criminal background of two attackers, and the terrorist background of the third? They did, but that isn’t the warning I’m referring to. Brussels received another warning, far earlier than that one.
And that would be why no less than the President Erdogan of Turkey has publicly chastised various European nations for “failing to address the terror threat” and for doing too little to fight it. More than that, he holds them partly responsible for the continued spread of ISIS — especially since so many of the Jihadis came out of Europe to join the fighting in the Middle East.
The bomber of Brussels? The Turkish President tells he was arrested about a year ago, by the Turks. A Belgian national, he was sent back to Brussels, where Belgian authorities were notified of his connection to terrorism.
A YEAR AGO.
That’s where the story should end, right? You have a terrorist returning to his native Belgium. Here’s his name, and here’s his rap sheet. Be sure and follow up, ok?
This is why the Turkish President Erdogan is upset. The Turkish people did their job. They found a Belgian terrorist running around his backyard, apprehended him, sent him back home, and told the Belgians he was coming. A year later he and two buddies are exploding onto the front page in the most gruesome of ways.
Is Europe taking the terrorist threat seriously? Clearly not. They couldn’t even be bothered to pick up a terrorist that the Turkish pointed out to them. Between this, and Europe’s failure to bring overwhelming force to the destruction of ISIS in Europe, despite European nationals providing ISIS a lot of volunteer manpower, is it any wonder if Turkey thinks they’re in this fight themselves?
Imagine you were a family member of one of these victims (as sadly, some Americans are). What would you say to the officials of Belgium, who didn’t even pick up the terrorist Turkey gift wrapped for them?
