January 12, 2015 | Quoted by Victor Beattie - VOA News

US to Host Summit on Preventing Extremist Violence


The attorney general says information-sharing among nations is crucial in the fight against extremism.

“One of the things that we certainly gleaned from these interactions [in Paris] is there is a greater need for us to share information, to knock down these information-sharing barriers, so that we can always stay on top of these threats. One nation cannot by itself hope to forestall the possibility of terrorism even within its own borders,” he said.

Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department, and now vice president of research at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, says many of these efforts were started in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He says the Paris events appear to have focused the Obama Administration anew on the threat posed by terrorism:

“The problem is we may have lost a lot of valuable time and, I think, probably another important point to note here as well is just the way the topic is framed is somewhat problematic,” he said. “In other words, calling it violent extremism without talking about the ideology that spawns this violence I think does us no favors and ultimately, I think, will put us in a position where we will not be in a position to win.”

Involving religious leaders, teachers

Schanzer says the U.S. already has important bilateral and multilateral intelligence-sharing relationships. He also says religious leaders, particularly Muslim, have been involved for years in efforts to diminish the terrorist threat.

“Teachers, I think that could be a very interesting one. I think there probably has not been a lot of work with the public school systems or with the parochial [religious] schools,” he said. “The question is whether teachers are going to be able to be honest about what the challenge is without having to potentially insult students or their parents. Working with the tech community, this is incredibly important. The tech community can provide a huge amount of clues. We know, for example, Twitter and Facebook and other social media outlets have been providing assistance to the intelligence community for many years now. But, they have been fighting with one hand tied behind their back because they are not allowed to profile. There is extreme sensitivity about what we’re looking for in the first place.”

Schanzer says Europe has already been hit with high-profile terrorist attacks, noting the 2004 Madrid train attack and the 2007 London subway bombings. He is not sure the French attacks last week will fundamentally change Europe’s approach to terrorism.

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