Representatives from the Combating Terror Center at West Point gave a talk to a small but intellectually stimulated cadre of students and professors in Martha van Rensselaer Hall yesterday. William Braniff and Alex Gallo, both West Point graduates and former service men in the United States Military, hoped to codify and illuminate the nature of a Middle Eastern terrorist threat that, according to their organization, remains obfuscated to the general public.
“[Our goal] is to help you get through the contextual layers in order to understand what Al-Qaeda is,” Braniff said. “The threat derives its legitimacy … from much more than a little bit of 18-year-old angst.”