At Stanford, Clinton assails ‘bluster’ after Brussels attacks
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday criticized Sen. Ted Cruz’s call to increase surveillance of U.S. Muslims after the terrorist attacks in Brussels as “foolish” and “incendiary” racial profiling that would be counterproductive in intercepting future attacks.
Tough talk about increasing surveillance of Muslims “doesn’t make you sound tough, it makes you sound in over your head,” the Democratic presidential campaign front-runner said Wednesday during a 28-minute speech on counterterrorism at Stanford University.
[...] she called for strengthening ties with America’s allies and tightening security at home.
Clinton, who was in California for fundraisers and scheduled the speech before 135 guests invited by the university at the last minute, sought to portray herself as offering a much more measured perspective than leading Republican presidential candidates Cruz or Donald Trump a day after terrorist attacks in Belgium killed 34 people, including three bombers, and injured 270 others.
After the attacks, Republican Cruz on Tuesday called for law enforcement “to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.”
[...] that is inaccurate: NYPD Assistant Chief Thomas Galati has testified in court that the surveillance program never generated a tip or sparked a terror investigation, according to an AP investigation.
At Stanford, Clinton said in response, “When Republican candidates like Ted Cruz call for treating American Muslims like criminals and for racially profiling predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, it’s wrong, it’s counterproductive, it’s dangerous.”
Cruz’s response to the Belgium terrorist attacks was echoed by Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who proposed that “we close up our borders ... until we figure out what’s going on.”
Trump, who has previously backed the torture technique waterboarding, said he would support torturing Salah Abdeslam, the suspected mastermind of last year’s Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people who was captured in Brussels Friday.
[...] Clinton on Wednesday called NATO “one of the best investments America has ever made” and said, “Our global network of alliances is a significant strategic advantage,” an organization that Russia and China can’t match.
“While other candidates talk about building walls,” Clinton said, “I want to ask them, how high does the wall have to be to keep the Internet out?” And in the heart of the nation’s tech capital, Clinton called for recruiting the “brightest minds in Silicon Valley” to help tap into the Islamic State’s recruiting through social media.