Terrorist Attacks in Brussels: How did the Media React?

(Аccording to the RIA Novosti’s analysis)

The leader of Washington Journalism, the Washington Post published on its website an article entitled “Why is Brussels under attack?” “Brussels was hit by a number of deadly explosions on Tuesday in a coordinated terrorist attack, now being claimed by the Islamic State.
It's a shocking turn of events, but for anyone closely observing the city over the past few years, it wasn't exactly a surprise: The Belgian capital was once best known as a center for European culture and politics, but its reputation has been tainted recently because of links to extremism and terrorist plots,” said the article. It was noted, “It has been known for months that Abdeslam traveled back to Belgium after the attacks, but it was only in the past few weeks that Belgian authorities got a lead and captured him and an alleged accomplice. While the capture of Abdeslam was touted as a success, it also appeared to show that the number of people involved in the Paris attacks could be far larger than first thought.”
The Washington Post’s article “How the Brussels attacks could force Obama to betray his policy instincts” published pictures of US President Barack Obama and his national security adviser, Susan Rice, in Cuba discussing the situation by telephone with United States Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco. “Obama has been making the case for months that his strategy to defeat the Islamic State and protect Americans at home is slowly working. White House aides speak repeatedly of the 40 percent of the Islamic State’s territory taken back from the group in Iraq and the 20 percent wrested away in Syria. They cite the impact of more than 11,000 U.S. military airstrikes, which they say have killed more than 10,000 front-line fighters,” the article reads. The publication claims: “The reality — as Obama learned in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. — is that impressive battlefield statistics and reasoned calls for restraint mean little in the climate of fear generated by terrorist strikes.”
“The fundamental problem for Obama is that he is convinced, on the basis of his experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, that intensifying the fight against the Islamic State with more American troops, more airstrikes and raids would be counterproductive. The White House and Pentagon have studied options that would accelerate the timeline for major attacks designed to clear the Islamic State from its main strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. Such plans could include increasing the number of U.S. combat advisers, pushing them closer to the front lines and loosening combat rules designed to minimize civilian casualties. But Obama has rejected those options, arguing that if there are no Iraqi or Syrian forces to hold the seized territory and provide humanitarian assistance, the gains will be short-lived, said senior administration officials,” the newspaper notes.

The New York Times also published an article entitled “Brussels Attacks Underscore Vulnerability of an Open European Society.” The article reads:  “The new attacks again underscored not only the weaknesses of Belgium’s security services, but also the persistence and increasingly dangerous prospect of what several intelligence experts described as a sympathetic milieu for terrorist cells to form, hide and operate in the center of Europe.”
It goes on to note that “The attacks have set off a new round of soul-searching about whether Europe’s security services must redouble their efforts, even at the risk of further impinging on civil liberties, or whether such attacks have become an unavoidable part of life in an open European society. At the very least, they have exposed the enduring vulnerability of Europe to terrorism in an age of easy travel and communications and rising militancy.”
Politico newspaper subsequently asked: will terror help Trump? “In his victory speech after last week's Florida primary, Donald Trump pinpointed the key moment in his meteoric political rise: "Paris happened."
Trump said, as the article quotes, that after the November terrorist attacks that left 130 dead in the French capital, soon followed by a terrorist massacre in San Bernardino, California, his campaign "took on a whole new meaning. ... And all of a sudden the poll numbers just shot up.” It notes further: “Now many national security specialists fear that further attacks like the bombings that killed at least 30 people in Brussels on Tuesday will fuel Trump's further rise, drawing more voters to his clenched-fist approach of closed borders and retribution killings — and could ultimately pave his unlikely path to the White House.” Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has written about Trump’s strongman political style, writes that “In a climate of fear, Trump's semi-authoritarian, unilateralist approach may be more appealing," said Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has written about Trump's strongman political style - “I don't think so. But I might be wrong. It may be that people are so frightened that they’re willing to endorse policies that nobody over the last 50 years has even raised as remote possibility.”