As the entire civilized world is already well aware of, a total of four Islamic jihadists have effectively shut down the de facto capital of Europe. Only a few short days ago did the handful of ISIS terrorists launch simultaneous suicide assaults on the Maalbeek metro station and Zaventem airport, both serving the Belgian capital city of Brussels.
Because of a mere handful of terrorists, well over 300 innocents are either dead or wounded. Of the four, only one remains alive, and that particular individual is still at large, presumably in one of the many Islam-only enclaves peppered throughout the city. With the part-French, part-Flemish, part-German multicultural nation well known as the apex of European incompetence and inefficiency, the Haaretz news service of Israel has tagged Belgium as just another failed nation state that has for all intents and purposes, plays to the tune ISIS plays.
With Belgium serving as the home for 2,500 various international agencies and organizations as well as the headquarters for both the European Union and the NATO military alliance, Haaretz reporter Anshel Pfeffer compared the Western European country to Syria, Iraq and Libya; all nations with sizable swaths of their nations under the direct control of the Islamists of ISIS. Ad Pfeffer noted, the country is “the veritable nerve center of Europe. Its police authorities at the local level are poorly-funded, ill organized and riven with rivalry, which makes coordination difficult, and they are just as dysfunctional at the national level”
Pfeffer also stated, “And while it hosts the main pan-European institutions, they are also ill-equipped to help. The Eurocrats are efficient at enforcing trade regulations and economic policies, but near-helpless when it comes to security and emigration matters.” As it turns out, Peffer isn’t the only member of the Fourth Estate who shares the same observation.
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As reporters Anthony Faiola, Souad Mekhennet, Missy Ryan, Annabell Van den Berghe and James McAuley, all of The Washington Post published in a collaborative effort on Mar. 23, 2016, Belgium suffers from “security forces’ shortcomings” and “failures” in both monitoring violent jihadists as well as numerous flubbed anti-terror operations. Other than inept security and intelligence services, the nation also has some rather curious laws.
Case in point: “According to Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens, just two days after the Paris attacks Abdeslam was ‘likely in a flat in Molenbeek.’ But because of the country’s penal code, which prohibits raids between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. unless a crime is in progress or in case of fire, police were ordered to wait until dawn to pursue him. By then, Abdeslam was nowhere to be seen.”
And another Western reporter, Clarice Feldman of The American Thinker magazine reported on Mar. 27, 2016, a biting critique of “the incompetent Belgian authorities…” One particularly glaring example given was “The intelligence centers in Brussels, as well as in other Western countries, knew that terrorists would strike the Zaventem airport and, probably, the city’s railway in the near future. However, they did not properly appreciate the imminent threat and the limited follow-up investigation was insufficient to avoid the tragedy.”
The once almost entirely Catholic metropolitan Brussels area is now fully one-third Muslim. Yet unlike their British and French neighbors, Belgium never inherited a sizable number of Muslim immigrants from a former colonial empire. On the contrary, Belgium has allowed open borders under the auspices of the European Union. As reported, Belgium “has sent more foreign fighters per capita to the Islamic State than any other country in Europe.”
