Even Before Terror Struck, Brussels Was Under Attack

Austerity Cuts Launched My City's Descent Into a Constant State of Emergency

I am not a citizen of Belgium; I carry a French passport. But I am a citizen of Brussels, the most international of European cities.

This is first a matter of migration: Several waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th century—first from France, Italy, and Portugal, and then from Morocco, the Congo Republic, and Algeria—have shaped the population. It is secondly a matter of structure, since Brussels and the Capital Region stand apart by design from the other parts of Belgium, which is a federal constitutional monarchy. (Yes, Belgium …

There Is No ‘Muslim World’

Each Time Deranged Terrorists Invoking Islam Strike Against the West, 1.6 Billion People Get Lumped Together As If They’re All the Same

Here we go again. Each time deranged terrorists invoking Islam strike in the West, alongside the mourning of the victims comes the heated debate over how the world’s Muslims should …

The Marquis de Lafayette’s Great American Love Affair

Why a 19-Year-Old Frenchman Traded Versailles for Valley Forge

The 19-year-old Marquis de Lafayette had met only a handful of Americans when he signed up to join General George Washington’s army, but he felt certain that the people of …

The Morality of Murder

The ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Attackers, Like So Many People Who Use Violence, Probably Thought They Were Acting Righteously

The Charlie Hebdo massacre was utterly despicable. To nearly everyone, including nearly all Muslims, what the perpetrators did was a terrible moral transgression. From everything I’ve read about the events, …