For those just joining us, it is midnight now in the east. 6 00 a. M. As morning dawns on the city of nice, france, along the mediterranean coastline, which last night was the scene of fireworks for their 14th of July Bastille day, celebration, a national holiday. Instead, it has ended with a death toll that has hovered all night long. Around 80 souls with about 50 more injured. A lot of the dead are members of families. They sadly include little children, because that was the nature of the gathering, the nature of the crowd. Here in our studio, we continue to watch along with us. What do you make of the last couple conversations we have had as while youre a young man, a veteran of the conflicts that youve witnessed in the middle east and the kind of constant tempo of warfare and terrorism there . You know, thats a really good question. I see a very sad, cyclical pattern that continues to unfold. It is. Why i say that is not so much in terms of the terrorism that is happening in western societies, but the reality of authoritarian regime that continue to perpetuate in the middle east and why those two are connected. If you look at the theme were hearing from all of our guests throughout the night, including earl in the last segment, the profile of these attackers, some are describing them as young and alienated. Weve heard from politicians saying theyre drawn to this ideology, weve heard Islamic Radical terrorism. All of those are valid, valid questions. At the end of the day x theres a reality, a cesspool. A swamp of this ideology that exists. You look at the region where so much of this violence is taking place on a daily basis, the iraqs of the world, the libya as of the world. This region of the world, the middle east is struggling just as much as anywhere else, if not more so in terms of the number of attacks. If you put in the last month, bangladesh, iraq, between syria, istanbul, tunisia, theyve all been stricken by these attacks. Yet, the government in those parts of the world continue to struggle to push any meaningful reforms. You were talking to the director of the cia, former director of the cia about what it takes to defeat this ideology. Theres a lot that comes on the shoulders of what the u. S. Can do with western allies in terms of military campaigns, in terms of resources, security at home. But i havent heard anybody talk about well, what needs to be done to push those societies to create more polical plurality, more freedoms, more fro gres, more interpretations and debates about their religion so this ideology cannot continue to be the most dominant force coming out of that region back on to our societies here in the west. Were also at war. I dont know what else to call this. While it may not feature beach landings or air strikes were allowed to see and while it may be in slow motion, i dont know what other name to call it. This is war. The danger, though, is this a war of civilization . This is something that isis wants and if you take the words of former speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich and potentially sharia test. Apply the test and he described it the western world is at war, this is a civilization war. This is a war that isis wants. Extremists want. It allows them to start saying to those individuals around the world that may be feeling alienated, you belong to our side. You need to come back to our side and this is where that fight is going to happen. Forget the religious dimension of the comments made by Newt Gingrich. From a practical point of view and i hate to say i dont think Newt Gingrich is an expert on sharia law. But whose sharia law are you going to test . When you ask an individual, do you abide by sharia law, the person intent on harming you is going to answer truthfully and say i do believe in sharia law, therefore, im going to be deported, the logic does not compute given some of the individuals, the profiles of the types of attacks that weve seen. So i think that theres a lot of questions that are being asked right now. This is becoming a serious situation thats extremely frustrating on so many levels. Were seeing this repeated over and over. Again, as we were hearing from the former cia director, you had a situation where france constantly uses the terminology islamic terrorism. That didnt prevent them from ing attacked. Theyre being attacked even though theyre still using the word islamic terrorism. Im not sure that the labels in and of itself are going to provide a clarity to. In the 50 years ive been a journalist covering the middle east has anything changed. I see the same authoritarian regimes practicing the same tactics and adding the same frustration to ordinary young people that in some ways is retarding a religion and more so creating it drive for terrorists groups like isis and others to include more and more people. One young mans view of the stakes, he happens to be a veteran of the region. And now to the ground. I mentioned Janet Shamlian made her way to nice, france, having stayed up all night and made her way to the foothills nine or ten miles outside of town. Janet, this may be the quietest morning along that promenade in the modern history of nice, france, of course, for a horrible reason. Reporter absolutely, brian. Usually, i mean at 6 00 in the morning here, you wouldnt see big crowds but people are running, theyre walking. Its never really silent here on this boulevard. People are definitely out at this point. Im going to turn this around and give you a little better view. There it is as you described. It is so glorious. This is about how it looks every morning in the summer. But this tranquility shattered by what has happened here. I am at a hotel. Where youre looking at is just about 30 feet to the right of the frame where the truck was. It was actually stopped in front of the hotel. I cant quite give you that perspective. But if you see that stoplight down there, about 30 feet to the right of that. If you look out into the water, you see kind of that white awning, its probably hard to see from that vantage point, but i can still see overturned bicycles, somebodys luggage. What you would describe as evidence here that they will be processing. They will not let anybody try to get on the promenade anglais. You see a police car going by. Theyre still processing the scene. Its going to be a long process. They have shut down the boulevard for the better part of a mile and a half. Ichts a very long stretch of this beautiful stretch of the mediterranean. Janet, going by your description earlier tonight, its not going to be hard for you to see and encounter americans. I also imagine its not going to be hard to find people who are in a kind of state of suspended animation and walking shocked for what theyve seen, been through and god forbid if theyre looking for someone. Reporter when i first got here about a couple of hours ago, the necessity gres coho tell lobby was full of people that looked like they were absolutely that, in shock. The hotel had brought down blankets and they were just sort of staring. They didnt look injured or look like they were looking for anybody. They were just in shock. I think that we will start to see a lot more video. I described one earlier that showed the truck taking gunfire from police. The gunman in the front wearing a helmet with his head, that helmet looking slumped over the top of the dashboard. And my guess is, as people who fled the scene and wake up this morning and realize what has happened, well get a better idea of how it unfolded from all those videos that surely were taken. Janet shamlian from her balcony. Again, its an incongruity. The words were speaking dont match the pictures were seeing. Sunrise, thats the mediterranean. Thats the french coastline. Not far from the border of italy. Some of the most beautiful coastline on earth where the latest and awful terrorist incident has happened overnight. Janet, thank you. We know you have to get to your reporting for tomorrow morning our time and the additions of the today show in addition to msnbc overnight. Steve clemons, he tore at large, the atlantic and msnbc contributor, he was with us early on in this. Now we can see him on camera. Steve, your thoughts since our last conversation, especially educated by the things weve learned about this. Brian, i think that the thing that goes through everyones mind and i was very moved listening to a monday mohyeldin. How do you deal with the problem in society in a way that doesnt aggravate and make this worse . I think its a very tough question. If this turns out to be the kind of terror we fear it may be. I think that one of the things we need to begin looking at is what is really a kind of Global Industrial level radicalization and ask ourselves how its happening. I was looking at the numbers today of foreign fighters that have gone to fight with isis that have gone into syria and iraq who are now many of whom have gone back into their countries and gone there. The scale is truly staggering. We talk about the numbers of people and they sound large. We havent looked at the fact that so many primarily young men but also some young women. But primarily young men been owe alienated or hijacked by an idealology theyre willing to be triggered into actions potentially if thats what this is as weve seen tonight. Theres no easy answer but we need to throw resources at it in a way we havent before. Its global. As isis is rolled back, they have ostensibly, theyre preparing to tell their people they may actually lose ground and lose muscle and territory and theyre calling on their followers to take action all over the world and to create incidents like the one weve seen unfold. This industrial level radicalization is something we need to aggregate and get our heads around. That message to the followers, its called by the u. S. Military a forced multiplier. In this case, it chills the blood. Oh, absolutely. I think that you and i in the past and others have talked about this. Were going incident to incident. When i was in brussels just moments after the bombs had gone off in the Brussels Airport and weve seen istanbul after that, we saw what just unfolded in bangladesh. And of course, incidents in the United States in belgium and other places. When you begin adding and looking it up, these are not boutique events. We need to begin looking at the equation of what this is happening, and i agree with ammon that, while many may be drawn into sort of a kinetic action, fehr rhett out or wall ones self out from other people, thats absolutely not the way. Theres a problem in my view of an alienated youth thats hijacked by a horrific code to go out and murder in a way that we havent seen in modern times. This is something that should not be happening in modern times. I think we need to get our head around that. That is what i fear is happening. Were seeing places that are paradise. Nice is paradise for many, many people at this time of year. Were seeing those places of joy, where families can come together and really be comfortable in what used to be a high trust world. A high trust world is being undermined by fear. Were going to have a high fear world. Thats a very dark place to live. We dont want to relitigate the past, nor can we change it. Where are you on the theory that americansponsored wars in the persian gulf an american tactics have been the biggest recruitment tools . Absolutely, i agree with that. I think many of my muslim friends and arab muslim friends believe that their lives are cheap in the eyes of the west. I think that becomes a frame through which many either tried to agitate positively for change or are agitating negatively and violently for change. In the middle of that, because in part of actions that not only we but others have taken in the region, is you have dynamics where, in my view, the distrust and paranoia of many sunnis for the rise not of americans, not of europeans, not of us, but iran i cants and shias in their mind, its created a paranoia about each other that will drive forward. While we may see french people and other International People dying in this particular case, in my view whats happened is an incredible tectonic battle within the region thats animating this violence in all of these other places. Until that driver in the 1950s, youre a student of foreign policy. You could imagine great leaders coming together and say, you know, the first place to start is to get the saudis and the iranians to dial down what theyre animating against each other. Because at some level, that is driving what young men are doing in airports and bombing and killing people and taking on action. It may seem distant, but it is connected at a level to the paranoia of the two sides of islam. I want to bring ammon into the conversation. Hes still with us in the studio. I heard the word cheap invoked for the second time tonight. The first context was one of our guests sake this is this was a cheap Delivery System for an attack that has taken so many lives in the name of islamic terrorism. Second steves point, the view by the young people in the region that their lives are considered cheap by the United States and other western powers. You only have to look at the recent events of the region to see the reaction of the international community. Its something that manifests itself in many different ways. You had the terrorist attack that happened in baghdad killing around 280 people. You had the attack in bangladesh, the attack in istanbul and the attacks in the western world. Theyve all generated different responses from everything from facebook turning on a safety alert to the highest levels of government in terms of their interaction. Now, all of that reinforces a point that steve made which i totally agree with having spent so much time in the middle east. The perception of what is taking place in the middle east is both a cheapness of the loss of life there. But also a double standard. An issue about values. We talk about the value that mattered to the western world. And the lack of those values in the middle east and what we are doing to suppress those values. You know, not to harp on this point that was brought up by Newt Gingrich about sharia law. You look at countries like saudi arabia, which is a critical u. S. Strategic ally, but saudi arabia has been involved in a war as steve mentioned in yemen against iranian proxies. Were on the side of the Saudi Arabians. For whatever reasons the u. S. Has taken. Its not driven out of values that we support the Saudi Arabian government. At least thats the perception among the young men being drawn to this ideology. They look at it and say were now involved in this sectarian war and the values that the United States as democratic, human rights, open society are not necessarily practiced in any part of the middle east to be quite honest. Not in the same way. People look at that and say this is something thats driven out of pure interest and not by values. As a result, the ideology becomes easier to recruit. It becomes easier to get extremists to buy into this narrative that whats taking place in the middle east, with many of the regimes and governments is not based on the respect of values but rather purely interests. Their interests dont lie with these regimes. You can find disgruntled youth, impoverished youth and exploit them with an ideology that your life does matter. It may not matter in your country but it matters in our caliphate. If you become part of our eye dealing, lash out against the countries supporting these regimes and thor tear zahn regimes back home. Mr. Clemons, a last word on the topic. I think weve got to really think this through and i dont think that as we learn more about this particular incident, as we prepare for the next incident that no doubt will happen, we need to begin connecting the dots here and saying that what is going on inside that region that is driving such radical violent behaviors is something that we need to throw resources, attention at and its not one that you can kill your way through. It is a different beast. We really, really need to get our head around it. Because its reached a level of terror in our societies, but look what happened in baghdad, what a man just said. Whats going on in the region. We need to demonstrate an empathy for whats happening, value them and basically detox fie this battle going on in the region involving so many others or this is going to be a story were at late nights many, many days ahead. That i fear a lot as we grieve for the victims in this yet another act ofter rich. Thanks very much for being patient with us and for joining us once again. Another break in our coverage. Well be back right after this. And can you explain to me why you recommend synthetic over cedar . Super food . Is that a real thing . Its a great school, but is it the right the one for her . Is this really any better than the one you got last year . If we consolidate suppliers whats the savings there . So should we go with the 467 horsepower . Or is a 423 enough . Good question. You ask a lot of good questions. I think we should move you into our new fund. Ok. Sure. But are you asking enough about how your wealth is managed . Wealth management, at charles schwab. Im terhe is. 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That said, here is one witnesss account from tonight. He lost control. And he was moving inside like this, like this. I saw hes like holding Something Like a cell phone. I thought he will call the entrance. This is what i thought. This is all what we thought. Even the police and in one second i saw him taking out his gun. Again no, no, no. Pistol. Even though i was naive to think that maybe someone is attacking him from the other side, trying to defend himself. Until i saw the police, he started to shoot the police. He saw the police going in a the window. In that moment, the officer asked me and the