Washington Post to West: Drop dead. Lie down and die. Don’t you dare fight back against jihad terrorism — that will only lead to…jihad terrorism.
“Fighting terrorism may actually increase the risk of terrorist attacks. Here’s how,” by Thomas Jensen, Washington Post, March 29, 2016:
Days before the Brussels attacks on March 22, Belgian authorities raided the attackers’ safe houses and arrested Salah Abdeslam, who had helped organize the Paris attacks in November. Because of the raids, according to media reports, the attackers struck sooner than they’d originally planned.
Here’s what that shows: Terrorists are rational actors in many ways. They react predictably when circumstances change. To be effective, anti-terrorism authorities need to better understand how terrorists respond when the government acts.
In a recently published research paper, “The timing of terrorist attacks: An optimal stopping approach,” I use a simple mathematical model to study the decision making of autonomous terrorist units. And what we’ve just seen in Brussels illustrates the main finding. As authorities close in on terrorists, uncovering plots and arresting suspects, they will attack sooner so that they’re not caught first. Unfortunately, increasing efforts against terrorism may, in the short term, increase the risk of attacks.
That doesn’t mean anti-terrorist efforts are useless or, worse, dangerous. Belgian authorities found large amounts of explosives and other materials to make bombs – such large amounts, in fact, that apparently the Brussels attackers had originally planned an even more spectacular act, perhaps even an attack on nuclear facilities, although that’s currently just speculation.
But the Brussels attack isn’t the first or only such response as authorities were closing in. Only two weeks after the July 7, 2005, London subway and bus bombings, another terrorist cell tried to carry out a similar plot. The bombs didn’t detonate, however, so no one was hurt or killed. Did that second cell hurry to carry out its attack before it was ready, because London had boosted its anti-terrorism efforts after 7/7 bombings? If so, the British investigation – and the attackers’ rush to stay ahead of the authorities — may have saved lives….

ICH says
HOLY COW
this cant be real
someone needs to interview this guy
maybe that someone should be Robert Spencer
jiad3tracker says
PLEASE, WHEN YOU HAVE A FEW SPARE MINUTES — As of now (9 A.M. Eastern) there are NO comments in reply to this item in the Post.
As an experiment to see whether the Post has any testicles, post a comment at the box designated for feedback on Thomas Jensen’s piece.
And be sure to mention THAT THE QUR’AN is the source of motivation for “terrorists”. Cite a few verses — not too many. Chapter Nine has some great ones, including the Verse of the Sword.
Also stress that Muslims who kill are DEVOUT FULLY-ENGAGED believers in Allah’s “commands”. They slaughter innocents because it is pleasing to be obedient to the entity which is supreme.
Go, folks, go !!!!! Give the clueless Post readers a huge dose of reality.
linnte says
Emailed! Thanks for the kick in the batootie!
Frank Lasac says
And this guy is a newspaper man? I think he should followed as possibly terrorist disguised as a reporter.
Sandra Lee Smith says
More like another apologist; doubt he has the intestinal fortitude to be an actual jihadi. What a fool! Appeasement certainly has not, and will not, work as a strategy!
jihad3tracker says
The Washington Post is published within an hour’s ride from my hometown. It was once a great source for truth, breaking the Watergate coverup — bringing president Nixon’s resignation. Of course, Obama is far more corrupted in soul and cynical about his fellow Americans than Nixon ever was.
How the “editorial board” of this newspaper can be so utterly stupid and seditious can serve as the strongest example of why vanity is almost always welded onto the self-concept of ordinary people who happen to get a grasp on what they perceive to be their own importance.
Ahem says
The Washington Post would never have reported anything about the Watergate scandal if Nixon were a member of the Democratic Party.
If the “heroes” of this episode, Woodward and Bernstein, had dared to conduct an investigation against a Democratic Party President they would have been fired by the WaPo and no one would have ever heard of those “reporters”.
Sandra Lee Smith says
How right you are! That the “victim” in that crime was Dem party headquarters also helped boost their ascent to fame. WaPo has been heavily lib for decades.
Laurence says
“Unfortunately, increasing efforts against terrorism may, in the short term, increase the risk of attacks.”
Yup, it very well may – what’s your point. The alternative of doing nothing, so as to merely hope against hope that the terrorists may decide not to inflict acts of terror upon us is utterly ridiculous, and goes against the rule of law, which by the way the terrorists want no part of (especially man-made law).
And just like some people, some headlines are unbelievable!
Nietzsche says
Leftism is a brain disease.
Polk1970 says
Is it ever
This “writer” is likely a product of a brainwashing institution masquerading as a university and than in Journalism School they really took his sense of right and wrong.out of him,in order to serve the Progressive puppeteers
What an example of today’s media
Atheist kaffur says
Too idiotic to comment. Too much double speak and double think.
Baucent says
” I use a simple mathematical model to study the decision making of autonomous terrorist units.”
Good grief! Save us from uninformed amateurs like Thomas Jenson
TheOldOligarch says
Sounds good to me, the terrorist get spooked and act early, before they’re really ready and so have a much higher chance of botching the attack and killing fewer/no people than if the plot was left to develop. What is this idiot’s point?
Lucretius says
Exactly. What does his ‘mathematical model’ tell him the ‘optimal time’ is? Let him turn his skills to the futures markets where the only thing that will be lost is this joker’s money.
dumbledoresarmy says
My thoughts exactly.
Isn’t it one of the oldest techniques of warfare, to rattle your enemy, keep him on the hop, push him into acting before he’s ready and, therefore, increasing the likelihood that he will make STUPID MISTAKES [damn my old keyboard, the shift key has stopped working so I can’t type question-marks].
The more rushed and rattled the jihadi plotters get, the better.
Sandra Lee Smith says
Um, yeah; probably dates back to when humans were fighting wars with sticks and stones….
Bill says
The author of this piece argues a decidedly narrow “cause and effect” relationship. He claims that the terrorists struck earlier than planned in response to Belgian raids on their safe houses. That may be true. Fearing that their grand plans for murder might have been foiled, they struck while they had remaining capacity. That does not at all lead to a conclusion that the terrorists, had they not been raided, would never have struck. One might easily surmise that, left unhindered, they would have planned and executed even more damaging attacks. Usually, when dedicated enemies are given full time and freedom to plan an assault, the assault is better prepared, more comprehensive and more deadly. The author acknowledges this possibility but then brushes it off as speculation. The author provides no real answer to the problem he posed. How silly and superficial! What is the point of this piece? The ivory tower elitists of the mainstream media (safely ensconced in their secure buildings, elegant neighborhoods and haughty celebrity echo chamber social gatherings) are so far distant from any kind of harsh reality that they are comfortable in spouting such nonsense regularly. I
Mirren10 says
”The author provides no real answer to the problem he posed.”
Ah, but he does. If you read to the end of the article, this moron’s parting shot is;
”So we have to learn to live with the threat from terrorism. It may help to remind ourselves that the risk of becoming a victim is very small.”
See ? No problem. And if you’re *not* prepared to ”learn to live with the threat of terrorism”, well, that just makes you a bigoted, racist, greasy islamophobe.
Wicked of me, I know, but I do hope Jensen is in the next airport, or the next train station, or the next metro, or the next restaurant, or the next music concert, or the next Park, that murdering jihadists attack. And there *will* be one. And I do hope he is a victim.
But we just have to learn to live with it, right, Jensen ?
dumbledoresarmy says
I must say I am inclined to agree with you. Though I wouldn’t wish him to be killed; just injured, and/ or given a really good fright.
I feel the same way about our Aussie ABC’s current middle-east correspondent, based in Israel, one Sophie McNeill, who is totally in the corner for the poor dear little ‘palestinians’ and their murderous jihad against the Jews. Her coverage of the stabbing/ axe-hacking/ car-ramming/ molotov-cocktail-and-rock-throwing/ shooting Jihad that started last October has been ABYSMAL.
Well, I can find it in me to hope that one fine day soon, whether she’s in Jerusalem or, preferably, on the beach at Jaffa or Tel Aviv, Ms McNeil finds herself right next to an allahu-akbaring jihadi or two or three running amok with a great big knife… and that SHE is the person the knife-man is aiming for … two seconds before a well-aimed IDF gun blows the jihadi stabber to Hell and gone, dead on the pavement. I’d like to see her try to trot out the narrative of disproportionate force and IDF brutality when she has had her nose rubbed in the plain fact that if the IDF guy HADN’T blown the jihadi away SHE could very well have been dead, dead, dead with a big nasty knife stuck right into her throat or her chest or her guts.
Jaladhi says
Words of wisdom from the School of Morons!!
They are so disgusting and stupid that we can’t consider them at all.
Keys says
“Fighting terrorism may actually increase the risk of terrorist attacks. Here’s how,” ….
December 8, 1941, a day that shall live in infamy. FDR to congress:
“Fighting the Japanese may actually increase the risk of Japanese attacks. Here’s how …”
Sarc/off
Peter says
Classic multicultural, leftist, nonsensical and illogical drivel.
Does WAPO believe that doing nothing will end “terrorism”? Does “terrorism” just happen by itself, and become exacerbated if attention is drawn to it, or attempts are made to counter it?
“Terrorism” is, in any case, a tactic, a means to an end, not an end in itself as some many delusional idiots pontificate. It is a tool that serves a purpose, which is political. The terrorism that threatens non-Muslim societies worldwide today is motivated by Islam, a religious-political-social totalitarian ideology. “Predatory Jihad” would be a more realistic term to describe Islam-inspired or mandated Islamic terrorism.
Fools (e.g., Obama) who conclude that more people are killed in auto accidents or by smoking or whatever than by “terrorism” or “extremist violence” ignore the simple fact that entire societies, civilizations, religions, and ways of living are not threatened or undermined by auto accidents, smoking, or random gun violence.
Predatory Jihad, on the other hand, which is a fundamental tenet (orthodox) of Islam, has as its purpose to make Islam “superior to other systems of belief” (Qur’an 9:33), and to do so by whatever means necessary, including violent, murderous Jihad fi sabil allah.
Angemon says
Oh, good, a mathematical model trying to mimic human thought and decision-making. And a simple model – how can it possibly give us anything other than an accurate outcome, right?
If you suspect you have a cavity and decide to go to the dentist to treat it, there’ll be a small amount of discomfort in your near future. Letting it fester and pretend it isn’t there, on the other hand, will lead to much more discomfort in the long run. What’s the preferable choice?
Huh? And now he’s contradicting what he said to begin with? Is he off his meds or something?
Sandra Lee Smith says
Libs compartmentalize, a lot. He probably just shifted compartments.
G179 says
The last paragraph of the article left me speechless:
” Obviously such extreme measures can be used only rarely. So we have to learn to live with the threat from terrorism. It may help to remind ourselves that the risk of becoming a victim is very small. “
Mirren10 says
”The last paragraph of the article left me speechless.”
It didn’t me. I’ve been waiting for, and expecting this. It’s the latest trope from the left.
Terrorism is the new norm. We just have to learn to live with it.
gravenimage says
Yes–and it is grotesquely appalling, Mirren.
First the denial that Jihad terror is a real problem, and then, once it has become too massive and too frequent for even apologists like this one to ignore, the sick demand that we simply acquiesce to being butchered in the streets as the “new normal”.
Not only is this horrific enough by itself, but it is false–for two reasons. Firstly, any appeasement and weak response will just embolden Jihadists–the idea that Jihad terror will somehow hold steady at even this shocking level is absurd.
And–even more important–is that none of these idiots seem to understand that murdering innocent Infidels, as much as they relish it, is not an end in itself. It has the purpose of terrorizing the victims into surrender to Islam, which means the imposition of Islamic rule under brutal Shari’ah law.
Is the witless Thomas Jensen sanguine about living as a humiliated dhimmi or being forced to convert? He better be, with what he counsels…
Mirren10 says
Excellent points, graven.
gravenimage says
Thanks, Mirren. I hate this dhimitude with a passion.
Jay Boo says
Double messages don’t work
Rather than bomb a few sand piles in Iraq, Obama should blow up the bridge in Istanbul, Turkey and mine the land and sea borders around Turkey instead of welcoming Muslims and fawning at their sick ideology.
dumbledoresarmy says
AND kick Turkey out of NATO. No more aid, trade or weapons sales. The sinister Fethullah Gulen and all his operatives could be rooted up and turfed out of the USA, with a kick up the backside; back to Turkey they should go, never to be permitted to return. Tell Turkey, flat out, they will NEVER be let into the EU. CANCEL all the bribes/ Jizya/ Tribute-by-any-other-name that the EU has just agreed to pay Turkey and CANCEL the permission for Muslim Turks to waltz into Europe. NO admission for any Turkish Muslim, not anymore.
Greece and Cyprus and Bulgaria, all of whom have land borders with Turkey, could be assisted to fortify and defend their borders, and Greece could be helped to round up and turf out all the Muslim INVADERS – mostly Afghan and Somali Muslim males – who have flooded into their struggling little country. American navy could help the Greeks close and patrol their sea border.
Sandra Lee Smith says
I think you may have a somewhat inflated view of our present Navy. We have a smaller fleet now that at the start of WW II, and many of our carriers are getting pretty old, not to mention our support vessels. O has hollowed out military our badly.Even our top brass are beginning to say we’d be hard pressed to defend ourselves, let alone aid allies, a situation not a few of us who have served in the past were suspecting some while back. And we are past broke!
Mirren10 says
That should be **Islamic** terrorism.
Jay Boo says
Belgian authorities took months to find the fugitives because of the active complicity of other Muslims. (Our Muslim “friends and neighbors”) as Obo would say.
Not confronting this hard reality may actually increase the risk of terrorist attacks.
ProudAmerican says
Shouldn’t have let the fuckers in in the first place. Then you don’t have to worry about what’s an appropriate amount or the timing of your anti-terrorist activities cuz there’s no terrorists in your country. Now of course for anyone (Trump) to suggest this very practical approach is given all the labels (you know them) and that in and of itself is supposed to end the argument. The labelers have no solutions, to do so would cause them to actually look at facts, something they hate to do, because facts don’t fit in with their kum by ya world view.
It’s clear our collective lefty govs have no comprehensive plan and won’t be able to come up with an effective one bcuz they refuse to acknowledge Pisslam’s central role in all of this BS going on everyday all over the damn world.
The West needs energy independence, and needs to close its borders to the Middle East and especially Mudslime migration.
Let them fight it out in the Middle East, and we can stay out, accept in the case where Israel or other countries that have shown themselves to be true friends and allies are concerned. Not like this Mudslime medieval monarchy known as Saudi Arabia, that gives money to Hillary and any other Western politician they can buy, then supports terrorism, where did most of those 911 assholes come from again??
This and the wholesale nuking of vast areas of Mudslime territory are the only solutions that will really work. Unfortunately, we are going to have to go through ______________(insert ridiculous number of avoidable terrorist attacks here) before the powers that be will even start to consider option #1.
davej says
Terrorism is just like the weather, nothing we can do, we just have to live with it. Just have to live with the perpetual risk of being blown up at the airport or subway, being stabbed in the street or having our women molested and raped due to their missing black headbags.
So submission is our only option? What about demolishing the mosques, banning the Koran and deporting all who have a higher allegiance to the devil Allah than they do to their host country or to civilized behavior.
Sandra Lee Smith says
Much too common sense for the PTB and its subsidiary governments to consider, of course!
davej says
Note that the weather is essentially a random event but Islamic attacks are a highly organized plan committed by devoted acolytes of an evil “religious” empire.
So just maybe something can be done to isolate this mental virus and eliminate it from our Democracy before we succumb by suicide.
Vyx says
How long before the MSM and US Government decides that the only way to stop terrorism is to make everyone convert to Islam? That is the next logical step, isn’t it?
if everyone is a Muslim, no terrorism.
Mirren10 says
”if everyone is a Muslim, no terrorism.”
If everyone is a muslim, then muslims will kill each other for being of the wrong sect, insufficiently Islamic, etc, etc.
As we can see throughout the mohammedan world.
gravenimage says
Yes–the countries that are closest to being 100% Muslim are also the most violent places on the face of the earth–Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia…
This would not be true if Islam were the “religion of peace” it claims to be.
davej says
That is exactly the idea of Islamic terrorism: To reduce the number of infidels while pushing the rest to accept Sharia and conversion as the price of “safety”.
But this is illusionary of course, look at life in the 100% Muslim countries, they are hellholes of infighting and religious police enforcers chopping off hands and heads.
Jaladhi says
Muslims love hell holes and that’s why they come to the West to convert them to hell holes.
gravenimage says
True.
Voytek Gagalka says
So, according to them, better is to surrender, recite shahada in front of imam and hope that you did that in front of the PROPER one, otherwise you can become just yet another victim of Muslim-on-Muslim assassination.
Mary C says
The title of the piece makes one think he’s recommending submission, but then near the top he’s talking about his mathematical model published as: “The timing of terrorist attacks: an optimal stopping model.” Here we need “stopping” in all caps and italics and bold face. He is all for stopping them, but he’s saying let’s be clever to the point of employing mathematics to predict terrorists’ behavior and respond to that behavior in the most effective way. I like that he also acknowledges that arresting the Paris bomber likely sped up their agenda, which meant a smaller-scale attack, so less loss of human life and less property damage, which is better than more loss of life and more property damage. I get it, we prefer NO loss of life and NO property damage. Perhaps he should have recommended raising the alert level in Brussels after they arrested the Paris bomber in Brussels. Mostly the title is at fault here. Quite possibly some editor at the paper with a different agenda than the author of the piece wrote the title.
Mirren10 says
Did you fail to notice the last sentence ?
”So we have to learn to live with the threat from terrorism. It may help to remind ourselves that the risk of becoming a victim is very small.”
Sounds like submission to me.
Angemon says
It’s rabbit-like thinking. “There are so many rabbits in this grove that the chances the foxes get me are slim, so I can get back to eating, s***ting and f***ing and ignore the ever-looming danger”.
gravenimage says
Mary, click on the link and read the rest of the article. As Mirren and Angemon point out, counseling submission is *exactly* what he is doing.
mortimer says
The proviso in the article is that ‘IN THE SHORT TERM’ terrorists may resort to ‘PREMATURE EXPLOSIONS’ if they are being pursued by law enforcement.
The conclusion is that “the attackers’ rush to stay ahead of the authorities — may have saved lives….”
In other words, they EXPLODED PREMATURELY.
John says
This is so out of touch with reality, it’s pathetic.
Truth Seeker says
This Shows the Influence of Infiltrated Islamic Trojan Horses in Washington Post who are able to write their JihadI Interpretations, to Be-fool everyone.
Jack Holan says
It will be best for Mr. Jensen to hold on to his day time job! There is nothing to refute or counter since the entire article that I read is flawed. As far as the just discovered mathematical model,equation, or whatever I’f love for him to Jet across to Israel, show the Shabak and Mossad what they’ve been missing in their War on Terror, the one they’ve been fighting since before 1948 and this may be the ‘Golden Key” to unlock the entrance point to the logical, unemotional mindset of the Hamas Jihadist. This article that I kept referencing to be sure it’s not in the ‘Funny’ Section may sell an extra newspaper or gain a few readers online but how it will fit in the World of espionage and counter-espionage, it will promote a belly-laugh and then File 13.
DFD says
Mickey,
don’t knock the free press. The reporters freely submit their stories to the editors. The editor in chief freely decides in correspondence with the instructions of the owners. These freely make the rules according to their own political preferences, and those of their advertisers and shareholders, and financiers of course.
How much freer can they get?
DFD says
Hmh, I wonder. How will they promote peace with the jihadists? Preventing jihad attacks.
I know, they’ll publish plans for DIY guillotines, you lay yourself into one of these, and have the release button in your hand, once comfortable, click.
The luxury version will have an explosive, slightly delayed charge, for added effect.
No more jihadi attacks, now completely unnecessary! And thus no risk of the backlash, which the Muslims are so terrified of. Peace at last. Problem solved. If that doesn’t get me a Pulitzer prize…
LR says
DFD,
You are ready for PRIME TIME!
That is some of the best dark humour I’ve come across on this topic. It’s not an easy topic to make fun of, of course, and I can’t find much funny stuff on Jihad. I think we need some more!
I suggest you find some friends, and elaborate on this, and make a you tube video or something.
Here is one funny one I’ve seen so far:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X2kitYUbHBM
Carolyne says
This man is an idiot. If one of the terrorists was arrested prior to the completion of the planning of the attack, which made the attack take place earlier than planned, wouldn’t that make the attack less deadly because they were forced to commit it before they were ready?
Carlos Danger says
Useful idiot is useful.
thanks, Jeff Bezos.
Pathfinder0100 says
Looks to me as if the pussyfied reporter (reporters?) just have NO ball at all, doesn’t it??
citycat says
This form of reporting is weird
It’s not like they’re surrounded by guns, is it?
Or are they?
By the unseen guns of whom?
Who will speak truth about wot’s here today?
And not about some peer pressured perception of Islãm about what should be happening and with disregard for the violent words against Infidels in the Qur’an. And then there are the attention spliters, 5 pillars and 7 phases, sunni and shi’ite, pairs to confuse so that one can’t get one’s head around the war manual in order to say, with respect to what is written therein, that this is very wrong.
It seems that the news people are helping their own people to fall to Islãm.
Very advanced civilization, i must say.
Sheila says
You are a tea total complete moron. The jihadist will come to rape, bomb, and kill whether we attack them or not. Your opinion is so beyond reality I think you must be on meth. Put your big boy plants on and wake up and smell the carnage these Muslims are causing. You are about the least professional newsman I have ever read or have had the displeasure of reading. You are political correctness on steroids.
ninetyninepct says
” a simple mathematical model ” – How amazingly ignorant and stupid of this jerk. Of course it is simple math – 1 Muslim islamic terrorist + 1 bomb or weapon = many dead and injured humans.
gravenimage says
Washington Post: “Fighting terrorism may actually increase the risk of terrorist attacks”
………………………………
How often have we heard this? Don’t fight Jihad terror–it will only add to more of the same.
More:
Here’s what that shows: Terrorists are rational actors in many ways…
………………………………
Only if you consider mass murder in the name of their foul deity “rational”…
More, from the Washington Post article not included above:
How do you defend against apparently random attacks on ordinary city streets? You can’t, without very serious consequences for ordinary life — at enormous economic cost.
………………………………
In other words, Resistance is Futile.
More:
Obviously such extreme measures can be used only rarely. So we have to learn to live with the threat from terrorism.
………………………………
We should learn to be sanguine about Muslims raping and murdering us in our streets…
dhimmitude of the most repulsive kind.
More:
It may help to remind ourselves that the risk of becoming a victim is very small.
You’re more likely to be fatally crushed by furniture than killed by a terrorist
………………………………
And Jews in Nazi Germany were more likely to die falling off a ladder or slipping in the bathtub than at the hands of Fascist violence…until they weren’t…