Many people have been killed or seriously injured in terrorist attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station, Belgium's PM says.You might have been appalled by Hillary Clinton's hardline AIPAC speech, but, for better or worse, this is why she thinks hawkishness makes political sense for her. Yes, Barack Obama positioned himself as a peacemaker and won two elections anyway, but he won them during a period in which Americans distrusted hawkishness, and that period seems to be ending. Every terrorist attack pushes the bad memories of the Iraq War further into the past for a lot of Americans. When majorities favor sending ground troops to fight ISIS in some polls, it's hard to say that Americans are still wary of war.
Two explosions hit Zaventem airport at about 07:00 GMT, and another struck Maelbeek metro station an hour later.
... Brussels transport officials say 15 died at Maelbeek and media say up to 13 died at the airport.
I know -- obviously you can deal effectively with jihadist terrorism without being a down-the-line Likudnik. The two are unrelated. And Donald Trump is a bizarre moving target in the area of foreign policy, sounding like General Jack D. Ripper one day and like Ron Paul the next.
But his saber-rattling -- "bomb the shit out of them" and all that -- is much more memorable than his occasional paleoconservative skepticism about certain hawkish policies. Trump comes off as a tough guy. After a terrorist attack, Americans are primed to want a tough guy.
And Hillary Clinton has worked hard to seem tough. She's instinctually more hawkish than the average Democrat, but she's also fighting the stereotype of Democrats, especially Democrats of her generation. Even John McCain, who knows she's not a dove, portrayed her as a '60s hippie in an online ad during the 2008 campaign.
But people know that, on foreign policy, she's no sandal-wearing hippie. Whether we like it or not, that's probably smart political positioning in a world where a terrorist attack can happen at any time.
