Donald Trump has finally announced the names of five of his foreign policy advisers, and at least one member of his new team is sure to raise eyebrows.
Walid Phares, a Lebanese academic who advised Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012, is one of the five names Trump gave to the Washington Post during a meeting with the paper's editorial board on Monday. As Mother Jonesreported
in 2011, Phares was a major player in the Lebanese Forces, one of the
Christian militias that fought in Lebanon's brutal 15-year civil war.
According to Toni Nissi, a colleague of Phares' at the time, Phares
helped the group's leader, Samir Geagea, steep its fighters in religious
ideology.
"[Samir Geagea] wanted to change them from a normal militia to a
Christian army," Nissi said. "Walid Phares was responsible for training
the lead officers in the ideology of the Lebanese Forces."
Title: Dr. Walid Phares: Jihad in Europe -- Implications for European and American Security. Source: securefreedom. Date Published: February 9, 2015. Description:
Recorded at Center for Security Policy's National Security Group Lunch on Capitol Hill on Thursday, February 5, 2015.
Dr.
Walid Phares, Advisor to the Anti-Terrorism Caucus, U.S. House of
Representatives; Co-Secretary General, Transatlantic Legislative Group
on Counter Terrorism; Author, The Lost Spring: U.S. Policies in the
Middle East and Catastrophes to Avoid (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014);
Commentator on terrorism and the Middle East, Fox News
Jihad in Europe -- Implications for European and American Security
