Multiple Bombings Brussels

[CharlesHarris]

Comment from former CIA Director Michael Hayden:

"This attack was not surprising. It was somewhere between expected and inevitable. It’s right in that band of what we expected—the country that was targeted, the specific facilities that were targeted, even the success of the attacks in terms of the relative damage it caused. All were within the range of things I think we knew were coming at us.

What made it happen now was simply the arrest of one conspirator last week; I think that prompted his co-conspirators to shove this one out the door. But it had already been underway in terms of serious planning. It was reasonably sophisticated, sequential, well timed, well carried out. All that happened because of the arrest is they accelerated their timeline...

We need to have the adult conversation about Islam in the modern world and not pretend this has nothing to do with Islam. And remind some other folks, who may or may not be running for president, that this is not about all of Islam, and it’s certainly not about all Muslims. But there is a space in the middle where we do need to talk about things and not run away from them...I do believe we need to take the fight to the enemy and inflict losses on him and make him far more concerned about his safety than focused on ending ours."