Politics

Micah Zenko marks the fifth anniversary of the Libyan intervention by poking holes in the official justification for the war:

In truth, the Libyan intervention was about regime change from the very start. The threat posed by the Libyan regime’s military and paramilitary forces to civilian-populated areas was diminished by NATO airstrikes and rebel ground movements within the first 10 days. Afterward, NATO began providing direct close-air support for advancing rebel forces by attacking government troops that were actually in retreat and had abandoned their vehicles.

A Israeli security firm with a shady past handled the security operations at Brussels airport, the scene of the terrorist attack on Tuesday.  Security firm ICTS have a trouble history, managing services that ‘coincidentally’ happen to be the scene of some of the biggest terrorist incidents of recent times. ICTS security missed several of the 9/11 hijackers who flew out of Boston’s Logan airport on September 11th 2001. The same Israeli security team also handled security for London’s bus network during the 7/7 London bombings.

Belgian and Western authorities knew the details about the ISIS attack in Brussels on Tuesday, but failed to do anything about it.  The Belgian security services knew precise details about the attack plan, which was formulated at the de-factor ISIS capital of Raqqa, in Syria. Haaretz.com reports: The security services knew, with a high degree of certainty, that attacks were planned in the very near future for the airport and, apparently, for the subway as well.

The Pentagon have confirmed that they knew about the Brussels attacks in advance saying that they had foreknowledge that ISIS had planned to launch an attack on the city. Despite the intelligence the U.S. were still unable to prevent Tuesday’s tragedy.  Three officials told Reuters that whilst the United States government knew the attacks were going to take place, they did not know exactly when or where they would occur.

The US Republican presidential race got even nastier on Wednesday when two main contenders exchanged cryptic tweets and Donald Trump threatened to ‘spill the beans’ on Senator Ted Cruz’s wife. A naked photo of Melania Trump set off the latest Republican presidential dispute on Twitter. Senator Cruz sent a Tweet to the Donald warning him to lay off his Mrs and to google his facts before launching cowardly attacks. The Independent reports: Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife! — Donald J.