George Washington University
A former CIA counter-terrorism analyst, Aki Peritz is a fellow at George Washington University's Center for Cyber and Homeland Security and the co-author of Find, Fix, Finish: Inside the Counterterrorism Campaigns that Killed bin Laden and Devastated Al-Qaeda.
Will the State of Emergency Never End? We’ve heard from Nice about the day after the 3rd major attack in France in just 19 months. Now, more on the investigation and what might come next…
Why Defection Stories Could Battle ISIS Propaganda By the deft use of social media, the Islamic State has projected an image of unity and determination that's helped to recruit new members. Now, there's a report that 58 ISIS defectors are speaking out about why they've left. It comes from the International Center for the Study of Radicalization in London. Aki Peritz is a terrorism analyst, formerly with the CIA now a fellow at the George Washington Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.
Who Is Khorasan? The U.S. launched an airstrike campaign against ISIS in Syria yesterday. But that wasn’t the only group that was targeted. The U.S. also went after the Khorasan Group, and Al Qaeda affiliate based around the city of Aleppo that hadn’t been the focus of much attention until recently.
ISIS Beheads Second Journalist According to Video The ultra-extremist Islamic State has released a video that appears to show the beheading of Steven Joel Sotloff, a 31-year-old American journalist. His life was threatened two weeks ago in the execution video of reporter James Foley. Aki Peritz is a former CIA counterterrorism analyst and co-author of Find, Fix, Finish : Inside the Counterterrorism Campaigns that Killed bin Laden and Devastated Al Qaeda.
ISIS and the Rise of Social Media Terrorism The video of reporter James Foley’s beheading is the latest evidence that the ultra-extreme Islamic State has mastered social media. High-quality propaganda, well designed for intended audiences, went viral—matching the most sophisticated campaigns of multinational corporations. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube will be hard-pressed to block such messages in the future—however grotesque they might be. We look at the impact of this technological expertise, how it serves the Islamic State and how it might be combatted.
Is the threat from Russia missing from the Russia meddling probe? There's much being made about the Trump administration's possible ties with Russia. But the bottom line is Russia's effort to influence American democracy. Do the President and his aides care enough to take action before voters go back to the polls?
Trump plays scolder-in-chief with NATO allies At the opening of NATO’s dramatic new headquarters in Brussels today, President Trump acknowledged that Article 5 — promising that “an attack on one nation is an attack on all” -- has only been invoked one time: in the aftermath of September 11. But the President failed to provide what 27 other Alliance members have been waiting for: a re-commitment by America’s new leader to Article 5. Instead, they got a scolding.
Terrorism and tweets, hate speech and murder Just days before an election, Britain is coping with a rash of deadly terrorism, and Prime Minister Theresa May is on the defensive. And again today, President Trump has tweeted criticism of the Mayor of London. Later, a double murder in Portland, Oregon has revealed the ugly past of a supposedly “progressive” city. One immediate question: is “hate speech” protected by the First Amendment?
Janesville and the American Dream Janesville, Wisconsin is the hometown of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. But he couldn’t prevent the closing of the General Motors factory after 100 years. On this Memorial Day rebroadcast of To the Point, we hear what’s happened to what once was a model of American middle-class unity.