Loud & Clear radio host Becker was joined on Monday by John Kiriakou, the CIA analyst-turned-whistleblower who exposed the US torture program at Guantanamo, and Dr. Douglas Weeks, a counter-terrorism expert and visiting research fellow at the London Metropolitan University.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump quickly responded to the bombings and arrest by blaming what he referred to as the "extremely open immigration system" in the United States.
"We're allowing these people to come into our country and destroy our country, and make it unsafe for people," he said.
While Trump criticized US immigration policy, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticized Trump.
"We know that a lot of the rhetoric we've heard from Donald Trump has been seized on by terrorists, in particular, by [Daesh], because they are looking to make this into a war against Islam, rather than a war against jihadists, violent terrorists," Clinton said. "The kinds of rhetoric and language Mr. Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries."
Both candidates, however, failed to address the terrorist's motivation to attack. To properly understand a why a terrorist attacks, one must clarify the definition of terrorism.
"The easiest definition of terrorism is the simplest," Kiriakou said. "Terrorism is any action whose purpose is to inflict terror among the populace. It doesn't matter if a person is Muslim or from the heart of the United States."
"More appropriately, terrorism is a mechanism to inflict a political will and political change," Weeks said. "There are a lot of bombs and explosive devices that are used for any number of reasons and that have nothing to do with terrorism."
Is it far-fetched to opine that terrorists sow chaos in Europe and the US because they want to counter a US-led invasion and continuous military presence in their home country? Or is it easier to believe that a "terrorist" kills people purely out of hatred and bloodlust, and because they are inherently evil?
Kiriakou agreed, admitting that the current state of the War on Terror, as waged by the United States, is played by politicians as a "clash of civilizations," a fight of incompatible cultures and religions. But that clash image is far from the truth.
"The truth is that we don't live in that neighborhood and eventually we will have to go home," he said. "And the ‘bad guys' know that eventually we are going to go home. So their idea is, as long as it is possible, kill as many people overseas as possible so that American society, the American people change their mind and eventually go home and stay home."
There are few "Muslim" terrorists in the United States, he says, and most attacks have been conducted by home-grown far-right or anti-government radicals. Seemingly-normal, radicalized, white Americans are considered to be the main terror threat by law enforcement.
"Interestingly enough, if you look into the statistics about who actually engaged in a majority of the attacks in the US since 9/11, it has actually been the far-right," Weeks said. "It is often conveniently left out, and very few people actually know about it, but it's not typically the Muslim terrorists that most in law enforcement are worrying about."
It is very difficult, however, to profile an actual home-bred terrorist, both experts state.
"A few years ago," said Kiriakou, "the US Senate Foreign Relations committee came up with a report that has been largely overlooked by the press, that [the terrorists] were not foreign-born or US-born children of foreign people, but there are dozens and dozens of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Americans who convert to Islam — sometimes in prison — and then go to places like Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen where they are further radicalized, sometimes they marry the local women, who come back by the US passport."
"It's those native-born Americans, if you will, who pose a more dangerous and more immediate threat than foreign nationals," he stated.
