The issue of the admission of Syrian refugees into the United States has understandably ignited a firestorm of protest by Americans concerned about their safety and the safety of their families. These Americans are not exhibiting “xenophobia,” the usual claim made by the open borders immigration anarchists. They have simply been paying attention to what James Comey, the Director of the FBI, and Michael Steinbach, the FBI’s Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division, have stated when they testified before congressional hearings about the Syrian refugee crisis. They made it clear that these refugees cannot be vetted. There are no reliable databases to check and no capacity to conduct field investigations inside Syria to verify the backgrounds of these aliens.
I focused on these issues in my October 7, 2015 article for FrontPage Magazine, “Syrian ‘Refugees’ and Immigration Roulette: How the government is recklessly playing with American lives.”
Further reports have provided disturbing information that ISIS operatives have seized blank Syrian passports and other identity documents, along with the printing devices used to prepare passports and other ID, and have sold these documents to reporters in false names. These identity documents are indistinguishable from bona fide documents because they are bona fide documents — except that the photos and biometrics do not relate to the original person but create credible false aliases for anyone willing to pay for them.
The challenges our officials face in attempting to vet refugees and others was the focus of my September 15, 2015 article for FrontPage Magazine, “The Refugee Crisis Must Not Undermine U.S. National Security: America’s enemies cannot be permitted to turn our compassion into a weapon against us.”
These multiple challenges, where failures may well cost American lives and undermine national security, are well known to the administration, yet the administration defiantly continues to press for the admission of thousands of Syrian refugees. Meanwhile, the administration ignores a commonsense solution to the refugee crisis that would be far more cost effective and not undermine U.S. national security or pose a threat to public safety: The simple establishment of safe zones in the Middle East for these refugees. This is a proposal made by a number of our true leaders, including Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
In an unsuccessful attempt to assuage the fears of Americans about the vetting process, the administration claimed that the screening process was thorough, noting that the vetting process for Syrian refugees was a lengthy process that took from 18 months to two years. (Of course without reliable databases or the ability to conduct field investigations in Syria, no length of time would be adequate.)
The situation in Syria and the growing threats posed by ISIS was the subject of an April 12, 2016 hearing conducted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the topic, “The Spread of ISIS and Transnational Terrorism.” While it should be obvious, I want you to bear in mind the term “Transnational Terrorism.” This refers to terrorists traveling across international borders to prepare for terror attacks. The movement of people across international borders is the domain of our immigration system, which has arguably become one of the most dysfunctional of all of our government’s systems.
The multitude of failures of the immigration system can be traced to the failures of a succession of administrations from both political parties going back decades — but no administration has done more to hobble efforts to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws than the current administration. Yet Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and other politicians refuse to accept the fundamental fact that our nation’s borders, including our 328 ports of entry, provide far too easy access to transnational criminals and terrorists who either enter without inspection or manage to enter via the inspections process and disappear into the “woodwork.”
Legalizing illegal aliens whose identities cannot be verified is no less dangerous than providing refugee status to refugees who cannot be vetted.
That was the point to my self-explanatory November 24, 2016 FrontPage Magazine article, “Entry Without Inspection = Entry Without Vetting: The dire threat to our national security and public safety.”
Now the administration, with the support of many politicians (mostly Democrats), is doing the unthinkable: running the already fatally flawed vetting process at warp speed. This is unconscionable and beyond any rational justification.
The administration has made this outrageous decision despite the fact that there is no reliable way to vet these refugees and even in the wake of the recent deadly attacks in San Bernardino, California, France and Belgium. These attacks have justifiably added to the concerns of all Americans about the threats posed to our nation by ISIS, al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
While we have been told that the vetting of travelers at airports would likely take longer so that the TSA can more carefully screen passengers following of the terror attack in Belgium, the administration simultaneously announced that not only would the plans to admit Syrian refugees proceed, but that because of the “surge” of those refugees, the screening process will be slashed from two years to just three months.
A resettlement surge center opened in Amman in February to meet President Barack Obama’s target of resettling 10,000 Syrians to the United States by Sep. 30. Every day, the center interviews some 600 Syrian refugees.
The temporary processing center for the surge operation will run until April 28, U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Alice Wells said. She traveled to the airport to greet the al-Abbouds before their departure.
The regional refugee coordinator at the U.S. embassy in Amman, Gina Kassem, said that while the 10,000 target applies to Syrian refugees living around the world, the majority will be resettled from Jordan.
“The 10,000 is a floor and not a ceiling, and it is possible to increase the number,” she told reporters, according to the AP.
While the resettlement process usually takes 18 to 24 months, under the surge operation this will be reduced to three months, Kassem said.
It is worth noting that once again the term of choice by the administration is “surge.” We have witnessed “surges” of what were described as unaccompanied minors along the U.S./Mexican border that overwhelmed the Border Patrol and caused the understaffed immigration courts to overflow with the human tsunami of that surge.
As a consequence, the immigration courts were compelled to put hearings on hold for aliens facing deportation (removal) from the United States. Often these aliens had been convicted of committing serious crimes that predicated that decision to seek their removal from the United States. Because of a lack of detention space and other such factors, most of these aliens were simply released back into the communities where they committed still more crimes — usually, ironically, victimizing members of the various ethnic immigrant communities around the United States.
Now we have a “refugee surge” that the administration is eagerly exploiting, claiming that the only way to deal with overwhelming numbers of such refugees is to take the two-year process and slice it down to just 90 days. Furthermore, the report noted that the 10,000 refugees heading to the United States is the smallest number of refugees that we can anticipate will be admitted into the United States, while apparently there is no limit as to what the ultimate number of refugees could be. As noted above, Ms. Kassem, the regional refugee coordinator at the U.S. Embassy at Amman Jordan, was quoted as having said, “The 10,000 is a floor and not a ceiling, and it is possible to increase the number.”
Perhaps Ms. Kassem should issue another statement: “Damn the terrorists — full speed ahead!”
As insane and reprehensible as this is on the federal level, we must also consider the issue of “sanctuary cities,” which involves local government. These municipalities provide shielding to aliens who have trespassed on our nation or otherwise violated the immigration laws that were enacted to achieve the fundamental and entirely reasonable goals of protecting national security, the lives of innocent people and the jobs of American workers — and in a particularly perilous era.
For those politicians who cannot understand the anger of the citizenry of the United States, they would do well to look in the mirror to see who our adversaries are.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Is a meaningful reformation of Islam possible? Probably not soon, but there have been indications that it may eventually come.
The first video in this article features an attractive Saudi television hostess opining that Islam has everything to do with terrorism and that adherents to the “religion of peace” should be ashamed.
Please note the absence of traditional Muslim female garb — on a Saudi television program.
Saudi journalist and TV host Nadine Al-Budair recently criticized the “hypocrites” who say that the terrorists “do not represent Islam or the Muslims.” After the abominable Brussels bombings, “it’s time for us to feel shame and to stop acting as if the terrorists are a rarity,” she said, in an address that aired on the Saudi Rotana Khalijiyah TV on April 3. “Why do we shed our own conscience?” she asked. “Don’t these perpetrators emerge from our environment?” [Emphasis added.]
In 2014, Reporters Without Borders describes the government as “relentless in its censorship of the Saudi media and the Internet”,[1] and ranked Saudi Arabia 164th out of 180 countries for freedom of the press.[2]
Might recognition of the Islam-terrorism nexus be a step toward the moderation of Islam?Apparently, the censors let Ms. Al-Budair message get through. Why?
asks how Muslims would react if western youths acting in the name of Christ blew themselves up in their midst. She also slams Muslim attempts to absolve themselves of guilt by saying that terrorists do not represent Islam, calling such disclaimers “pathetic.” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Taking the largest acts of terror from the last couple of decades, Al-Budair . . . wonders what would have happened if they had been perpetrated in the Arab world. Citing terrorist groups like the Islamic states desire to impose 7th century Sharia law, Al-Budair writes,
Imagine a Western youth coming here and carrying out a suicide mission in one of our public squares in the name of the Cross. Imagine that two skyscrapers had collapsed in some Arab capital, and that an extremist Christian group, donning millennium-old garb, had emerged to take responsibility for the event, while stressing its determination to revive Christian teachings or some Christian rulings, according to its understanding, to live like in the time [of Jesus] and his disciples, and to implement certain edicts of Christian scholars.
She asks readers to imagine a world in which Christians call Muslims “infidels” and pray that God will eliminate them all. She continues by conjuring an Arab world that grants foreigners visas, citizenship, jobs, free education, and healthcare, and then asks what would happen if one of those foreigners killed Arabs indiscriminately.
Self-criticism in Arab world
Ms. Al-Budair is not the only Muslim in an Islamic nation calling for recognization of the Islam-terrorism nexus and arguing that change is necessary.
In an article titled “We Have Failed Indeed,” the editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat, Ghassan Charbel, attacked the Arabs and Muslims for sowing destruction and fear in the very same European countries that had agreed to take them in after they had fled their failed countries. Charbel argued that the Arabs and Muslims had not managed to build states and citizens that could integrate into the modern world, and that they must recognize their failure and start from scratch. He wrote: “Are we [the Arabs and Muslims] simply part of this world, or are we perhaps an explosive charge implanted in [this world’s] entrails? Are we a normal neighborhood in the global village, or are we maybe a neighborhood of suicide bombers in [that village]? Are these massacres that move [from place to place] aimed at annexing the Arab and Muslim communities in the West to the lexicon of slaughter and suicide? Are we part of the world’s present and future, or are we a dark tempest that seeks to send [the world] back to the caves that it abandoned when it chose the path of progress and human dignity? [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“This is the truth that can no longer be concealed or condoned. We have failed at building a normal state – a state that lives within its borders. a state of institutions that strives its utmost to obtain progress and development and provide its citizens with work opportunities and involvement, a state that cooperates with its neighbors and the world without being panic-stricken or fettered by spite. We have also failed to build a normal citizen, [one] who belongs to the current stage of development in a rapidly developing world. [Emphasis added.]
Another:
Tareq Masarwa, a writer for the official Jordanian daily Al-Rai, criticized how some Arabs are attempting to justify terrorist attacks by claiming that European countries are racist and marginalize Muslims. He wrote: “… [According to] some analyses [of the Brussels attacks,] the terrorists grew up in the outskirts of European cities and were angry at being marginalized! We hear these same excuses here. However, other analyses responded [to these claims] with a wise comparison: They [the Muslim terrorists in Europe] chose terrorism. Otherwise, why aren’t there millions of [South] American terrorists in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, since they too are poor and grew up in the outskirts of big cities?! According to another analysis, Europe does not give immigrants from North Africa, and specifically from Africa itself, the same opportunities that it gives European immigrants. This constitutes a justification of terrorism, since Europe gives the immigrant the opportunity for a free education, and thousands of Jordanians have attended French and German universities for free… and had an easy time becoming citizens of those countries… How are France, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium expected to promote immigrants who are illiterate? And under what social conditions can a 10-person Arab or African family [hope to] exist?! [Emphasis added.]
“It is shameful that we demand that the world treat us justly as we drive away our sons by killing them, imprisoning them, or failing to provide them with proper education, healthcare, and employment, and with a dignified life. The sight of people flocking to Europe’s borders, including Syrians, Iraqis, Kurds, Afghans, and Iranians, is heartbreaking, especially when they are carrying their children or pushing them in front of them – but all we do is curse the Europeans as racists who hate Muslims and foreigners, and consider it our right to murder them in their airports, trains, and theaters. [Emphasis added.]
“Did the Europeans take over our countries? Yes. But they left over 50 years ago, and we now call on them to bring down our tyrants, and accuse them of dragging their feet [on this issue].
“Terrorism is a crime, and justifying it is an even worse crime. What is happening in the cities of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, and Tunisia is terrorism, and we are responsible for its formation,its arming, and its funding. It is pointless to justify the murder of Europeans and Americans out of a desire to justify our own crimes.”[3] [Emphasis added.]
Another:
Kuwaiti writer and author Khalil ‘Ali Haidar wrote in the Bahraini daily Al-Ayyam that the Muslims are not doing enough against terrorism and are shirking their responsibility for it. He wrote: “What are we doing here in our countries, or in Western countries in Europe and America, while these terrible blows of terrorism land on us and them, one after the other? … In fact, we do not know how to act against these terrorists. Is it sufficient that following each of these terrorist actions, which take place in merciless rapid succession and are all perpetrated by young Muslims… that we say ‘they aren’t Muslims’ and ‘they do not represent true Islam’ and are misguided khawarij[4] and apostates? And will the world be satisfied with [such statements]?
“Is it normal that while terrorism succeeds in recruiting hundreds and even thousands of Muslims, we are satisfied to persuade ourselves that their numbers ‘are still negligible’ compared to the global Muslim population? Must the number of terrorists swell to tens or hundreds of thousands before we realize that a thunderous pounding torrent [is headed] towards us, and that this means that we must stop, convene, and give intellectuals the freedom to examine the reasons [for this] and the freedom to publish the results of their studies? [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“The religious culture of the Islamic world during this era is afflicted with innumerable ills. We turn the world upside down over various matters, such as an article that offends us, or issues regarding the niqab, Halal meat, Christians using the word Allah – which Muslims in Malaysia, for instance, claim as their exclusive right. [Furthermore,] many leaders of Pakistani and other immigrant [groups] expend all their efforts in the sectarian campaign against the Ahmadi movement, to the point where they have no time to examine this terrorist urge among their young people, including among the educated, engineers and [other] experts. [Emphasis added.]
“Unfortunately, the Muslims do not yet unanimously condemn ISIS. Some Muslims praise them [ISIS members], think the media wrongs them, and join them at the first opportunity, and even carry out the first suicide mission they are offered anywhere in the world!
“One reason for the immaturity of Muslim young people in Britain, France, and the U.S. is that the leadership of the religious institutions, and all religious activity, still remain in the hands of Arab, Pakistani and other activists and leaders who have fled to the West [and continue to] support political Islam parties. These leaders may not [themselves] carry out terrorist attacks, but they also do not truly take a stand against the terrorist religious culture. Moreover, most of their writings, ideas, and strategic positions regarding an Islamic system and the caliphate state share [this religious culture]. [Emphasis added.]
“We say that ‘terrorism has no religion and no homeland.’ But we must confront the fact that most terrorist attacks in the Arab and Muslim world itself are not carried out by Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Ahmadis, or Baha’is – but by Muslims and the sons and daughters of Muslims. Some are not satisfied with carrying out their crimes in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia, but carry them out in Western countries. And even if they believe that terrorism in Europe and the U.S. is justified because of [these countries’] ‘colonialist past’ and ‘hostile positions’ against the Arabs and Muslims – of what crimes are the Egyptians, Iraqis, Afghans, and Nigerians guilty? Do those countries also have shameful colonialist pasts?”[5] [Emphasis added.]
Islam in Obama’s America
There are also Muslim and former Muslim critics of Islam and its unfortunate teachings in Obama’s America, but their voices tend to be drowned out by Obama’s CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood-linked friends. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim, is perhaps the best known.
I have written extensively about her and her quest for an Islamic reformation, most recently here. Here is one of the Honor Diaries videos of which she is the executive producer. It deals with the Islamic concept of Honor and how it constrains women.
Here, in contrast, is an “Islam is good the way it is” reaction.
Along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Azeezah Kanji — the featured speaker in the above video — has been very active in disparaging Honor Diaries. Like CAIR, she has ties to the Obama White House and was named a “Champion of Change” by the White House in 2011. What changes in Islam does Ms. Kanji champion? None, apparently, of those intrinsic to it.
And here is a video about the White House reaction to the “folks” in the video embedded immediately above.
When Barack Obama visited the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Society of Baltimore on Wednesday, he said: “The first thing I want to say is two words that Muslim Americans don’t hear often enough: Thank you.”
While Obama has been President, Muslims have murdered non-Muslims, avowedly in the cause of Islam, at Fort Hood, Boston, Chattanooga, and San Bernardino, and attempted to do so in many, many other places. Imagine if armed Baptists screaming “Jesus is Lord” had committed murder, and explained that they were doing so in order to advance Christianity, in four American cities, and had attempted to do so in many others. Imagine that those killers were supporters of a global Christian movement that had repeatedly called for attacks on U.S. civilians and declared its determination to destroy the United States.
Imagine how incongruous it would be in that case for the President of the United States to visit a church and say: “The first thing I want to say is two words that Christian Americans don’t hear often enough: Thank you.” And imagine how unlikely it would be that Barack Obama would ever have done that. [Emphasis added.]
But his visit to the Islamic Society of Baltimore . . . he signaled yet again to the world (and worldwide jihadis) that in the U.S., Muslims are victims, victims of unwarranted concern over jihad terror, and thus that concern is likely to lessen even more, as Obama dismantles still more of our counter-terror apparatus. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
“If we’re serious about freedom of religion — and I’m talking to my fellow Christians who are the majority in this country — we have to understand that an attack on one faith is an attack on all faiths.”
Once again Obama felt free to scold and admonish Christians, but said nothing about Muslims in the U.S. needing to clean house and work for real reform that would mitigate jihad terror. And his premise was false: there is no attempt to restrict Muslims’ freedom of religion. Donald Trump hasn’t called for that; nor has Ben Carson or any serious analyst. But the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) (a representative of which accompanied Obama to the mosque Wednesday) and other Islamic advocacy groups have consistently charged that counter-terror efforts and attempts to restrict the political, supremacist and authoritarian aspects of Sharia that are at variance with Constitutional principles were tantamount to restricting Muslims’ religious freedom. [Emphasis added.]
Now the President of the United States has endorsed their false narrative, which will only further stigmatize initiatives to understand the jihadis’ ideology and counter it effectively.He further criticized those who dare to suggest that Islam might have something to do with Islamic terrorism by criticizing those who say that the U.S. is at war with Islam: “That kind of mind-set helps our enemies,” he intoned. “It helps our enemies recruit. It makes us all less safe.” [Emphasis added.]
In Heretic, Hirsi Ali stated that there is a unique role for the West in the reformation of Islam.
Whenever I make the case for reform in the Muslim world, someone invariably says: “That is not our project— it is for Muslims only. We should stay out of it.” But I am not talking about the kind of military intervention that has got the West into so much trouble over the years. For years, we have spent trillions on waging wars against “terror” and “extremism” that would have been much better spent protecting Muslim dissidents and giving them the necessary platforms and resources to counter that vast network of Islamic centers, madrassas, and mosques which has been largely responsible for spreading the most noxious forms of Islamic fundamentalism. For years, we have treated the people financing that vast network— the Saudis, the Qataris, and the now repentant Emiratis— as our allies. In the midst of all our efforts at policing, surveillance, and even military action, we in the West have not bothered to develop an effective counternarrative because from the outset we have denied that Islamic extremism is in any way related to Islam. We persist in focusing on the violence and not on the ideas that give rise to it. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Why the Tide Is Turning
Three factors are combining today to enable real religious reform:
• The impact of new information technology in creating an unprecedented communication network across the Muslim world.
• The fundamental inability of Islamists to deliver when they come to power and the impact of Western norms on Muslim immigrants are creating a new and growing constituency for a Muslim Reformation.
• The emergence of a political constituency for religious reform emerging in key Middle Eastern states.
Together, I believe these three things will ultimately turn the tide against the Islamists, whose goal is, after all, a return to the time of the Prophet— a venture as foredoomed to failure as all attempts to reverse the direction of time’s arrow.
. . . .
In November 2014, an Egyptian doctor coined an Arabic hashtag that translates as “why we reject implementing sharia”; it was used five thousand times in the space of twenty-four hours, mostly by Saudis and Egyptians. In language that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, a young Moroccan named Brother Rachid last year called out President Obama on YouTube for claiming that Islamic State was “not Islamic.”[Emphasis added.]
Here is the referenced video:
Finally, here’s a video of a Hirsi Ali interview shortly after the San Bernardino attack.
Among other key teaching points she elaborated upon in the video is the Islamist concept “don’t ask questions. Don’t ask why Mohamed wants us to do or to refrain from doing certain things. To question is evil. Just obey.” Only when she went to the Netherlands did she encounter the concept of critical thinking. What can we, in the United States, do to promote critical thinking among Muslims? We are doing little, if anything, now. Indeed, Obama’s America discourages it by affiliating with CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood related groups.
Meanwhile, the Islamic University of Minnesota is among the American “academic” institutions promoting age-old, “radical” Islam.
It is run by a man who used a recent sermon to invoke a Hadith commonly espoused by Muslim terrorists to kill Jews for causing “corruption in the land.” Waleed Idris al-Meneesey also has written that Muslims should place sharia law above “man-made” law.
. . . .
“The Prophet related that in the Last Days his Umma [people] would fight the Jews, the Muslims East of the Jordan River, and they [the Jews] west of [the Jordan River] … Even trees and stones will say: O Muslim, this is a Jew behind me, kill him, except for Gharqad trees, the trees of the Jews. Because of this they plant many of them…” [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Al-Meneesy, the IUM’s president and chancellor, also serves as an imam at a Bloomington, Minn. mosque where at least five young men left the United States to fight with terrorist groups al-Shabaab and ISIS.
. . . .
IUM also professes to serve as the official representative of Sunni Islam’s most important institution – Al-Azhar University, which has grown increasingly radical – in the U.S. and Canada. Al-Azhar officials have refused to condemn the Islamic State (ISIS) as apostates and heretics. According to Egypt’s Youm 7, IUM’s curriculum, offered to American students, endorses many practices used by ISIS. These include: “[K]illing a Muslim who does not pray, one who leaves Islam, prisoners and infidels within Islam [those who do not have a clearly specified creed or sect]. [It also allows] gouging their eyes and chopping off their hands and feet, as well as banning the construction of churches and discriminating between Muslims and Ahl al-Kitab [Christians and Jews], and insulting them at times.” [Emphasis added.]
Al-Azhar University was where Obama delivered a major address on the beauties of Islam in 2009. The text of His remarks is at the link.
Conclusions
America should be in a good position to promote an Islamic reformation. Europe has descended deep into the realm of multiculturalism and until she comes to her senses, it won’t happen there. It isn’t happening in Obama’s America due to the reluctance to associate Islam with terrorism and numerous human rights violations. It most likely won’t as long as Imam Obama remains in office. It’s futile to expect or even to hope that it will.
Due to Obama and His people, America is not safe from Islamic terror.
Cox Washington News Bureau reported that there were no fewer than 73 airport workers with possible terror ties, working at airports including Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Logan Airport in Boston, Orlando International Airport in Florida, Memphis International Airport in Tennessee, and others.
Fear not!
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson this week set the record straight: “It’s not that they’re suspected terrorists. It’s that they hadn’t been vetted through all available databases. We have since corrected that problem and the cases have been resolved.”
There are just a few little problems:
Presumably Johnson and his team have consulted their extensive database of card-carrying Islamic State members, and have diligently compared it to their list of airport employees, and have removed those who appeared on both lists. The only problem with this scenario, of course, is that there is no such database, or anything comparable to it. There is simply no database that Johnson could consult that would enable the Department of Homeland Security to remove everyone with terror ties from airport jobs. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
[T]he Obama administration is bound as a matter of policy to ignore and deny the terrorists’ motivating ideology – so how can it vet for it? This goes back to October 19, 2011, [when] Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates, wrote a letter to John Brennan, who was then the Assistant to the President on National Security for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism. The letter was signed not just by Khera, but by the leaders of virtually all the significant Islamic groups in the United States: 57 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including the CAIR, ISNA, MAS, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Relief USA; and MPAC. [Emphasis added.]
The letter denounced what it characterized as U.S. government agencies’ “use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam,” and emphasized that this was an issue of the utmost importance: “The seriousness of this issue cannot be overstated, and we request that the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem, with a fair and transparent mechanism for input from the Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities, including civil rights lawyers, religious leaders, and law enforcement experts.”
Mr. Brennan saluted and said “Yes, Maam!”
Brennan assured Khera that all her demands would be met: “Your letter requests that ‘the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem,’ and we agree that this is necessary.” He then detailed other specific actions being undertaken, including “collecting all training materials that contain cultural or religious content, including information related to Islam or Muslims.” In reality this material wouldn’t just be “collected”; it would be purged of anything that Farhana Khera and others like her found offensive—that is, any honest discussion of how Islamic jihadists use Islamic teachings to justify violence. Brennan assured Khera that he saw the problem just as she did, and that remedies were being implemented quickly. . . . [Emphasis added.]
Some Muslims in Arab countries have been candid about the Islam-terror nexus. So have some reformist Muslims and former Muslims in America. Donald Trump also has a realistic perception of the Islam-terror nexus and might provide support for those seeking its reformation. I hope he has a chance to do it.
(Compare and contrast the views of this Saudi TV hostess on Islam and terror with what seems to be the emerging European view. — DM)
[T]he overarching message is that Europe has slowly let this happen year by year, decade by decade, like a frog in a pot slowly brought to a boil. Post-colonial guilt and shame have stopped Europeans from openly loving and defending their own culture. The state of things in Europe today is the natural conclusion of that neglect. We in America are on the same road.
***********************
Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine whose offices Islamists attacked in 2015, published an editorial recently titled “How Did We Get Here?” that has raised some eyebrows. In it, they ask how Europe has become where European-born Muslims have attacked the hearts of Paris and Brussels. Their answer has proved distasteful to many on the Left.
The editorial has been harshly criticized and the magazine accused of racism and xenophobia. The Washington Post says Charlie Hebdo blames extremism on individual Muslims—the veiled woman on the street, the man selling kebabs. There’s some truth to this accusation, and to the extent that there is, Charlie Hebdo is wrong. But this, and other critiques, miss the larger point of the article, which is to demonstrate the gradual and quotidian way in which criticizing Islam has been silenced.
It’s worth quoting Charlie Hebdo at length:
In reality, the attacks are merely the visible part of a very large iceberg indeed. They are the last phase of a process of cowing and silencing long in motion and on the widest possible scale. Our noses are endlessly rubbed in the rubble of Brussels airport and in the flickering candles amongst the bouquets of flowers on the pavements. All the while, no one notices what’s going on in Saint-German-en-Laye. Last week, Sciences-Po* welcomed Tariq Ramadan. He’s a teacher, so it’s not inappropriate. He came to speak of his specialist subject, Islam, which is also his religion…
No matter, Tariq Ramadan has done nothing wrong. He will never do anything wrong. He lectures about Islam, he writes about Islam, he broadcasts about Islam. He puts himself forward as a man of dialogue, someone open to a debate. A debate about secularism which, according to him, needs to adapt itself to the new place taken by religion in Western democracy. A secularism and a democracy which must also accept those traditions imported by minority communities. Nothing bad in that. Tariq Ramadan is never going to grab a Kalashnikov with which to shoot journalists at an editorial meeting. Nor will he ever cook up a bomb to be used in an airport concourse. Others will be doing all that kind of stuff. It will not be his role. His task, under cover of debate, is to dissuade people from criticising his religion in any way. The political science students who listened to him last week will, once they have become journalists or local officials, not even dare to write nor say anything negative about Islam. The little dent in their secularism made that day will bear fruit in a fear of criticising lest they appear Islamophobic. That is Tariq Ramadan’s task.
The Charlie Hebdo editorial correctly points out that in Europe the dominant liberal culture has pounded into us that we must adapt to Muslims who come to our country, and never ask them to adapt to any of our ways. Doing so would be colonialist and wrong. It’s a double standard, of course. As the welcoming countries, Europeans must suppress their own culture and ideals for those of the Islamic immigrant population. But when they go abroad to non-Western countries, either to live or to visit, it’s considered offensive not to adapt to their ways of life.
Learning a Culture Should Work Both WaysNo one who found the Charlie Hebdo op-ed so offensive would ever suggest Morocco ought to welcome McDonalds or Wal-Mart with open arms. They would say the country is being ruined with Western culture. They want non-Western countries to remain exactly as they are—preserved and frozen in time-while the West must endlessly adapt to anyone who makes it their home.
The article highlights the important fact that Europe has failed to ask its Muslim immigrant population to assimilate. This fact was demonstrated recently when police discovered that the only surviving terrorist from the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was able to travel from Paris to Brussels and conceal himself there until a few days before the Brussels attacks. He was aided by a large community of French and Muslim Belgians whose loyalties clearly lie with their own community, not with Belgium, or Europe at large. What’s more, a 2013 study shows the shocking degree to which European Muslims hate the West.
Asking immigrants to assimilate doesn’t mean white-washing their culture and religion, asking them not to wear the hijab, or demanding that they eat pork. But it does mean asking them to accept, to some degree, the culture of the country to which they have willingly moved. These are things like women’s rights, tolerance, free speech, or criticism of religion. It also means not having to apologize for having a culture of one’s own. This is the point that Michel Houellebecq made in his recent novel, “Submission.”
Slow-Boiling Our BrainsEuropeans have been lulled into accepting that it’s wrong to criticize Islam or scrutinize it in any way. The Charlie Hebdo editorial points out that it’s a slow process, an insidious wearing away of what is and isn’t acceptable to say or think. The process must be slow, because few people would accept a proposal dictating what topics they’re not allowed to discuss. So, you gradually shame them into it.
This establishes a pre-conditioned mindset so the line of acceptability can be moved further and further until the problem of global jihad can no longer be effectively explored because we aren’t even allowed to ask fundamental questions. This is Charlie Hebdo’s point about Tariq Ramadan, whose grandfather founded the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and whose father was an active member of the group. Through the guise of intellectualism and purported adherence to moderate Islam, he instructs his audience ever so gently that the problem has nothing to do with Islam, and that suggesting so is ugly and base.
We acquiesce, because, as Charlie Hebdo points out, we fear being seen as Islamaphobic or racist. We are made to feel guilty if the thought flashes through our head that we wish that the new sandwich shop run by a Muslim sold bacon, or that a woman wearing a hijab makes us a little uncomfortable. That fear that we feel when we entertain those thoughts, the op-ed argues, saps our willingness to scrutinize, analyze, debate, or reject anything about Islam. And this is dangerous.
Fierce Reactions Aim to Condition Us Into Fear
Although Europe is further along in this process, there is a clear relevance to the United States. We are already being instructed on college campuses and by our own president that Muslims are a sort of protected class regarding criticism. President Obama even went so far as to censor French President François Hollande when he used the forbidden phrase “Islamist terrorism.”
The latest incident of shaming those who do push back is happening in Kansas, where the Islamic Society of Wichita invited Sheik Monzer Talib to speak at a fundraising event on Good Friday. Talib is a known fundraiser for Hamas, the militant Islamist Palestinian group that the United States classifies as a terrorist organization. He even has sung a song called “I am from Hamas.” U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo dared to put out a press release objecting to the speech out of concern that it would harm the Muslim community, particularly in the wake of the Brussels terrorist attack.
In response, the mosque claimed Pompeo stoked prejudice and Islamaphobia and that they had to cancel the event because of protest announcements and because some individuals on Facebook made some offhand comments about guns. Cue a local media frenzy, letters to the editor accusing Pompeo of government overreach, and the predictable arrival of two CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) representatives to skewer Pompeo.
This is just one example of how criticizing or questioning the actions of a Muslim community—even one that is supporting a Hamas fundraiser—has become anathema. The line of acceptability has been moved so now it’s Islamaphobic to object to someone with links to Islamist groups being invited to a U.S. mosque while we’re in the midst of a global battle against Islamist terrorism. People don’t even want to discuss it. The conversation is over. Just as Charlie Hebdo asks, so should we ask ourselves, “How did we get here?”
Although the particulars of the Charlie Hebdo editorial may go too far, and I do not endorse everything the article says, the overarching message is that Europe has slowly let this happen year by year, decade by decade, like a frog in a pot slowly brought to a boil. Post-colonial guilt and shame have stopped Europeans from openly loving and defending their own culture. The state of things in Europe today is the natural conclusion of that neglect. We in America are on the same road.
The de facto immigration policy of the United States is to rapidly increase the number of Muslims in this country. I doubt very much that this has been articulated, but it is what is happening, beneath the radar. Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim entry has riled the elites but received majority support in every poll that I have seen. The plain fact is that Islam is a political ideology that requires its adherents to support the imposition of sharia law, which is deeply antithetical to our Constitution.
Now comes a report from the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest that the Daily Caller News Foundation has gained access to:
From 2009 to 2013, the U.S. issued 680,000 green cards to migrants from Muslim countries, more than twice the approximately 270,000 green cards issued to migrants from European countries. Green cards entitle migrants to legal permanent residency in the country and work authorization, federal benefits, and the chance to apply for citizenship.
The numbers are illustrated in a chart below by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. If laws are not changed, the U.S. is expected to issue another 680,000 green cards in the following five-year period.
I give Donald Trump credit for raising this issue. Perhaps it is time for him to modify his blanket ban and start raising the question of what our national interest is in vastly increasing the number of Muslims entering the United States, pointing out the political nature of Islamic doctrine. The public understands this, even if the political, academic, and media elites do not.
(But Obama, the smartest person in any room, knows all and sees all. How dare he be questioned?– DM)
Back in January, at a press conference with David Cameron, Barack Obama delivered himself of some thoughts on how Europe should deal with its Muslim problem. He claimed that the United States had had “more success” than others in “integrating minorities,” and that “our biggest advantage, major, is that our Muslim populations feel themselves to be Americans and there is this incredible process of immigration and assimilation that is part of our tradition.” This was neither the first nor the last time Obama has claimed that “we are doing things right” with integrating Muslims and the Europeans need to learn from us.
Obama’s optimistic certainty is a thing of wonder. For how does he know that “our Muslim populations feel themselves to be Americans”? Does a Pew poll suffice? Do we have reason to believe that Muslims, eager to dampen the suspicions of non-Muslims, and well-versed in taqiyya, might actually answer such a poll by providing the soothing answers they know are desired, and speak not what they feel, but what they think they ought to say? And does Obama think that the definition of “feeling oneself to be an American” is self-evident? Does someone’s merely living within a given geographic area, and attaining the citizenship associated with that geographic area – living in the United States, say, and acquiring American citizenship through naturalization or birth– mean that that someone feels himself “to be an American”? What does it mean to “be an American”? Would it not mean, in the most important and irreducible sense, that you subscribe to the Constitution, that document at the heart of our civil religion, which means to subscribe to a shared set of beliefs? And these beliefs would include the individual’s right to the freedom of speech and to the freedom of religion, and a belief that the legitimacy of any government depends on its reflecting, however imperfectly through elections, the will expressed by the people. Islam, on the other hand, insists on limiting the freedom of speech (if, for example, such speech is held to blaspheme Muhammad or otherwise call aspects of Islam into question) and the freedom of religion (punishing apostates even with death), and ascribing legitimacy to a government or ruler insofar as that government or ruler reflects the will expressed by Allah in the Qur’an, rather than—as in the American system — the will expressed by the people through elections.
Obama has yet to be asked, by some intrepid interviewer, to tell us exactly what his cavalier assertion that “our Muslim populations feel themselves to be Americans” means to him. Nor has he been asked, either, if he has read the Qur’an and familiarized himself with the Hadith, and if he detects any contradictions between those canonical texts and the Constitution of the United States. As far as I know, not once in all of the hundreds of interviews Obama has granted over the past seven years has anyone asked him that most important question: what do you know about Islamic doctrine, and how do you know it? Jeffrey Goldberg practically filled most of the latest issue of The Atlantic with his Obama interview, and there were plenty of questions about terrorism and ISIS and the Middle East, but he did not take the opportunity to ask Obama about his knowledge of Islam. He’s President; therefore he surely must know what he’s talking about; he’s got a small army of wonderful experts, led by the likes of Ben Rhodes and John Brennan, to fill him in by providing bullet-ridden executive summaries for every occasion; Islam and Obama go all the way back to the dreams of his father, and the melodious sound of the muezzin’s wail in Indonesia, so he must have a grasp of the subject; don’t dare to cross-question him; when it comes to Islam, it’s ipse-dixit all the way.
Obama officiously lectures the Europeans, telling them that we Americans do something right and they should learn from us about the “integration” of their Muslim population. But surely the most important difference is a matter of math — that the percentage of the population in this country that is Muslim is far smaller than in Europe. In the United States it is about 1%, while in Europe the percentage of the population that is Muslim ranges from 5% to 10%. Isn’t it worth finding out what, historically, has happened in Western countries as the percentage of the population that is Muslim increases? Might we end up concluding that “integration” becomes harder pari passu with the increase in the Muslim population, and that the putative American success in integrating Muslims has mostly to do with numbers?
Obama mentions the greater “success” in integrating Muslims in this country. Is he not referring to economic success? Aren’t the Muslim immigrants to the United States, in general, better educated and better off to begin with than those Muslims who manage to settle in Europe? It’s a lot harder, and much more expensive, to find one’s way from North Africa and the Middle East to the United States, than to be smuggled across the Mediterranean by boat into Europe. But economic success is not the same thing as ideological integration. There have been more than a few cases of very successful Muslims, seemingly completely assimilated, who “reverted” to the real Islam. Some may recall Mike Hawash, an Intel engineer earning $300,000 a year, who was as “assimilated” as all get out. And then one fine day he started to become more devout, grew a beard, and ended up trying to get to Afghanistan to give aid and comfort to the Taliban. And how successful is this supposed “integration” when more than half of the Muslim terrorist attacks in this country since 9/11/2001 have been committed by people born and raised in this country, such as Syed Rizwan Farook and Nidal Hasan?
Instead of lecturing the Europeans, one would wish for a President who is sympathetic to their plight, and keenly aware that were Europe to become irreversibly Islamized (here and there there are signs of a growing willingness to fight back – Belgian leaders sound different today from the way they sounded a month ago — but is it enough?), America could not go it, culturally and spiritually, alone. And Europeans, now possibly coming to their senses about the terrible situation they have brought upon themselves, do not need lectures from Obama on what they are doing wrong, and how they must do more to make their societies even more welcoming to Muslims.
Obama’s certainty about Muslim integration in this country mirrors his certainty about policies toward Muslims abroad. He had no doubts about what needed to be done in Syria, an extraordinarily complicated country; in 2011 he declared that “Assad would have to go,” and he repeated that mantra right up to the end of 2015. He declared that there were “red lines” that, if crossed by the Assad regime, would lead to automatic American intervention; those lines were continually crossed, and nothing happened. Assad is still in Damascus, and by now there are many who agree that his remaining in power offers the best hope for containing ISIS and protecting minorities, especially Christians. But the complexity of Syria’s situation was always beyond Obama’s certainties.
In Egypt, Obama was adamant that as part of the “Arab Spring” Mubarak should resign, and eventually he did, making way for Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama was certain that our ally Mubarak was a superannuated despot, who deserved to be abandoned, while Morsi brought with him the possibility of a brave new democracy to Egypt, and Obama has never been one to worry overmuch about the Ikhwan. And when General Al-Sisi managed to replace Morsi, and go after the Brotherhood, it was despite, not in concert with, the disapproving Obama administration, that never seemed to quite understand what the Muslim Brotherhood was all about.
In Libya, Obama was also certain of how things would turn out — that once Qaddafi had been removed, Libya would emerge as a unified and democratic polity. Never mind that Libya had never been a democracy, and that the country itself was soon to dissolve, fissiparousness prevailing as power devolved to a myriad of militias, some defined geographically (Zintan, Misrata, Benghazi), others ideologically, including the forces of Ansar al-Sharia and, most recently, of the Islamic State, now dug in in Sirte. (Apparently no one in the Middle East has gotten Obama’s repeated message that the Islamic State is finished.)
Obama’s policy on Muslim matters — at home and abroad — has been a blend of certainty and sanctimony. One hopes that his replacement will at least forego those lectures that, with unhappy regularity, Obama keeps inflicting on our European allies. And possibly, just possibly, that next president will become a sudden scholar of Islam, and read a relevant book or two that Obama overlooked. You know the ones I have in mind.
(Nothing really new or exceptional here beyond that the article is by a former Muslim imam and appeared in a more of less “mainstream” newspaper. — DM)
Illustration on the core problem with Islam by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times
Few issues divide the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates as starkly as their view of Islam. Republican front-runner Donald Trump claims flatly that “Islam hates us” while Sen. Ted Cruz, suggests we should begin patrolling Muslim neighborhoods in search of terrorist plots birthed by “radicalized” Muslims.
Meanwhile, President Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spend an inordinate amount of their time praising Muslim-Americans, citing the enormous contributions they’ve made to our country and way of life. Mrs. Clinton argues that what Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz have said and propose are offensive and “dangerous,” while Mr. Obama refuses to admit that today’s terrorists are in any way motivated by their religion.
At the same time, the Muslim community is deafeningly silent, and the radicals among them couldn’t be happier. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are, in essence, enabling their cause by encouraging us to embrace Islam uncritically while turning a blind eye to the radical jihadists within its ranks. They are helping those who wish to lull us into complacency in the face of the threat they pose.
They reject Mr. Trump’s claim that there is something about Islam that “hates us” without asking whether it might be true, why it might be true and what can be done about it if it is. The Council on American-Islamic Relations says it is because we are Islamophobic, profiling Muslims and discriminating against them socially, politically and economically. These “reasons” play to the leftist sense of guilt, but the question remains: Why the repeated Muslim attacks? Is it because the “radicalized” Muslims are feeling disenfranchised and frustrated by a lack of opportunity? Paris attacker Najim Laachraoui had an engineering degree and the San Bernardino shooter, Syed Farook, held a good job in environmental health. The Chattanooga shooter who, last year, killed five U.S. servicemen, had a degree in electrical engineering. These men didn’t turn to terror because they couldn’t find work or were economically disadvantaged.
It’s time to end the argument about whether some Muslims have hijacked and perverted their faith. That is for the Muslims to work out among themselves. The fact is, these acts are being committed in the name of Allah and unless we understand that, we will never be able to deal with it.
Judeo-Christianity requires us to forgive and to accept responsibility, as we did for the Crusades and the Inquisition. Our inclination is to own up to our past mistakes rather than blame others.
Contrast that with Islam, and what the Koran and the Hadiths teach. When Allah calls on his followers to kill those who will not submit to Islam, does he sound like the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition? When Allah then tells them that killing themselves in acts of murderous barbarity against the infidel is the only path to redemption from the condemnation of sin, does he sound like the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? When Allah demands all of this to ensure his kingdom can be established on earth, does this sound like the God who taught us to “love our enemies”?
Christians and Muslim follow very different religions, and we must not equate one with the other. The men who blew up the airport terminal in Belgium were pictured calmly pushing their bombs through the terminal. They didn’t look particularly evil or nervous. They were devout Muslims, earning redemption in the only way possible.
We are dealing with a dangerous religious and sociopolitical system that won’t vanish just because we pretend it doesn’t exist. Muslims who want to live in peace with their neighbors must deal with their problems through a heartfelt reformation of a religion hostile to non-believers. Jihad is the core element of the Islamic mindset and we are living through a true clash of civilizations.
We will not win if we don’t open our eyes to the reality of who we are facing. While we blame ourselves for what is happening, Muslims are continuing to protect their own, even those who have committed terroristic acts they would never dream of committing themselves. They protect and enable those who are living out their faith according to the Koran. I know because I was once one of them until I walked away from my faith years ago. If I ever return to my native Egypt, I would be killed as an apostate by the followers of this religion of peace.
Muslims hid Osama bin Laden for nearly 10 years. One of the Paris jihadists, Salah Abdeslam, escaped to his home in Brussels where, hiding in plain sight, he eluded arrest for four months. His neighbors had to know he was there, but no one blew his cover.
We are dealing with something more sinister, more devious and much more destructive than restless young men who are treated unfairly; we are dealing with jihadists who are protected by non-militants who believe in their hearts the jihadists are right.
We may not like it, but we have to face the ugly truth: Islam hates us — because Allah tells his followers they must.
• Mark Christian is the president and executive director of the Global Faith Institute. A former Muslim Sunni imam, he converted from Islam to Christianity.
(But if we simply close our minds and ignore the problem, won’t it go away? — DM)
Are U.S. presidents charged with protecting American lives or protecting American vanity—especially when the two clash? Put differently, what’s more important: our security or our ability to “feel good” about ourselves?
Consider the two leading presidential candidates’ positions on Muslim immigration after the Brussels terror attack.
Donald Trump continues “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
Conversely, Hillary Clinton continues to offer fine platitudes without practical solutions: “I know that Americans have every reason to be frightened by what they see, we’ve got to work this through, consistent with our values,” she said after Brussels.
Clinton is correct that it’s an American value not to discriminate by religion. However, a troubling implication arises when this value is scrutinized in the context of Islam: Even if most Muslim migrants will not engage in jihadi terrorism and other subversive acts, some most certainly will. This is an established fact, one that Clinton knows: ISIS operatives are passing for refugees and “non-ISIS” refugees are committing acts of violence and rape across Western nations. And both ISIS and its millions of likeminded supportersare motivated by Islamic teachings.
Nor does it matter if only a teeny tiny percentage of Muslim migrants harbor such animus. If only 1% of a beverage is poisoned and you ingest it, will it matter that 99% of it was clean? No, you will still suffer. The only sure way to preserve your health is not to put it into your body in the first place.
Of course, the liberal elite will never take such logic into account. After all, they are the ones most shielded from the consequences of their own starry-eyed ideals. Instead, no name, no face Americans—statistics, like the 14 killed in San Bernardino in part by a Muslim refugee—will continue paying the price for politicians, celebrities, and other media talking heads to grandstand about “our values.”
What of Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering America “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on?” While antithetical to the lofty and utopic platitudes offered by most politicians, it would actually work. A “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” would prevent Muslim wolves in refugee clothing from entering into America.
Put differently, the only sure way of not dying from Russian Roulette is—don’t play Russian Roulette.
Does this mean that America has no obligation towards true refugees? No. It means that there are far superior alternatives, for all concerned. Remember, this refugee crisis was supposedly precipitated by the Islamic State. Rather than passively accepting what ISIS sends to America—some of which is tainted and will be harmful to its body—the U.S. should annihilate the genocidal terror state. Instead of playing ISIS’ game, the U.S. should end the game, quickly and decisively.
Then, instead of having to start anew in some foreign land, true, displaced refugees would happily return to their homes and families, in peace and safety. Such would be a win-win for all—except for the savages who deserve no mercy.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
One clash involves those who would make America more corrupt, more violent, more drug addicted and poorer. The other involves those who would make Islam dominant, bringing us Sharia law along with the violence and social unrest now seen in Europe.
Illegal immigration from South of the Border
Is she right or wrong?
Corruption in the United States mainly (but not exclusively) enriches the political class. In the Latin Amerian countries my wife and I explored during our seven years of sailing in the Caribbean, we saw corruption in most countries. However, rather than being mainly at the top, it was accepted and relied upon by all levels of society. Venezuela under Chavez was the worst. The more illegal immigrants from Latin America who enter America, the more corruption we will have at all levels.
Our southern border is not a sieve; it is wide open to all who can get to it, with no significant efforts to restrict entry or to deport the many who get across illegally.
Perhaps that’s among the reasons why the U.S. Border Patrol agents’ union broke with its policy of endorsing no presidential candidate to support Donald Trump.
“We need a person in the White House who doesn’t fear the media, who doesn’t embrace political correctness, who doesn’t need the money, who is familiar with success, who won’t bow to foreign dictators, who is pro-military and values law enforcement, and who is angry for America and NOT subservient to the interests of other nations. Donald Trump is such a man,” the union said.
Trump had scheduled a tour of the border with agents from a local chapter of the union, but that tour was canceled due to pressure from the group’s national headquarters. Yet the endorsement, which Trump’s campaign touted Wednesday, came from the national union.
The results of our open border are felt well beyond border states. In St. Louis, Missouri for example, a substantial spike in violent crime has been traced to cheap heroin and Mexican cartels. Ditto Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
“The gangs have to have a lot of customers because the heroin is so cheap,” said Gary Tuggle, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief in Philadelphia, who observed the same phenomenon while overseeing the agency’s Baltimore office. ”What we are seeing is these crews becoming more violent as they look to expand their turf.”
To attract customers, the cartels — usually through a local surrogate — instruct gangs to sell the drug at prices as low as $5 for each button (about one-tenth of a gram of powdered heroin, which could last a novice user an entire day). At times, the gangs distribute free samples, according to agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Drugs are one part of the illegal immigration problem, but far from the only part. On March 16th, an article by Victor Davis Hanson was posted at PJ Media. It was titled The Weirdness of Illegal Immigration. Hanson’s basic thesis is that illegal immigration begets disregard for the law and hence additional lawlessness.
[C]ontemplate what happens in a social, cultural, and economic context when several million immigrants arrive from one of the poorest areas in the world (e.g., Oaxaca) to one of the most affluent (e.g., California). For guidance, think not of Jorge Ramos, but of the premodern/postmodern collision that is occurring in Germany, Austria, and Denmark.
The first casualty is the law. I am not referring to the collapse of federal immigration enforcement, but rather the ripples that must follow from it. When someone ignores a federal statute, then it is naturally easy to flout more. In Los Angeles, half the traffic accidents are hit-and-run collisions. I can attest first-hand that running from an accident or abandoning a wrecked vehicle is certainly a common occurrence in rural California. Last night on a rural road, a driver behind me (intoxicated? Malicious? Crazy?) apparently tried to rear-end me, then turned off his lights, sped up, and at the next stop sign pulled over swearing out the window in Spanish. In this age and in these environs, why would one call a sheriff for a minor everyday occurrence like that? The point is simply that when there is no federal law, no one has any idea how several million arrive in the U.S., much less what exactly they were doing before their illegal arrival. [Emphasis added.]
. . . .
Out here almost all laws concerning the licensing and vaccination of dogs seem to have simply disappeared. No one can walk or ride a bicycle along these rural roads without being attacked by hounds that are unlicensed and not vaccinated—and that have no ID or indeed owners that step forward to claim ownership once the victim is bleeding. The Bloomberg Rule reigns (i.e., if you can’t keep snow off the street, deplore global warming or cosmic war): we talk of dreamers because we have not a clue how to ensure that hundreds of thousands of pets are registered and given rabies shots. No one suggests that once one breaks the law of his adopted home, and continues to do so through false affidavits, aliases, and fraudulent documents, then the law itself become an abstraction, useful as a shelter, expendable if an inconvenience. Again, one assumes that if a citizen were to do that, he would face a felony indictment.
. . . .
An indigent Oaxacan immigrant is reminded more often by his host that his poverty is not the result of his own wild gamble to leave his home and enter illegally an entirely foreign universe, but due to the racism, nativism, and xenophobia of his clueless host—pathologies that can be ameliorated by plenty of advocates whose own careers are predicated on open borders and slow if any assimilation.
Yesterday, I saw this story of a walkout from a local high school, five miles away: Among the many racialized complaints was a strange one that that were not enough Latino school board members (that might apparently ensure interpreters at board meeting). “We feel oppressed and underrepresented. When we try to speak up, they don’t listen,” said student Monica Velazquez. “When the majority of the school board is white and male, I don’t see us being represented. And [Laton High School] is just a small piece of that problem.” In our world of victimology, being oppressed and underrepresented are quirky assertions (e.g., ethnic chauvinism mean that coveted spots must reflect ethnic percentages of the population, while ethnic disproportion in unmentionable activities is left unsaid).
Where does all this lead? I suggest we open our eyes and watch it in progress. Mass flight either out of state, or to coastal enclaves, where liberalism and abstract progressive utopianism can be indulged safety without worries over the concrete ramifications that follow from one’s own idealism. If deeds trump words, then the real racists or exclusionists are those in the mostly affluent coastal enclaves who suddenly want no part of the California that they have helped to create.
The final tragedy? If the border were to be closed, if immigration laws were enforced, if there were some reduction in legal immigration, if entry were to be meritocratic, if we reverted to the melting-pot ideal of assimilation, if we cut –studies courses and jettisoned therapy and ideology for hard science, math, and English language, in just two decades one’s particular ancestry would become irrelevant — the image of Oaxaca would be analogous to having a grandfather from Palermo or cousin from the Azores. In other words, things would work out fine.
Please read the entire article. It’s one of VDH’s best.
While there are no actual “No Go Zones” in the United States, there are neighborhoods scattered around the United States, where the concentration of ethnic immigrant minorities is so great that police find themselves unable to make the sort of inroads that they should be able to make in order to effectively police these communities. Adding to the high density of these aliens in these communities is the issue of foreign languages often being the prevalent language in such “ghettos.” This gives new meaning to the term “Language Barrier.”
. . . .
Not unlike the “No Go Zones” of European countries, these communities in the Unites States also tend to shield foreign nationals who may be fugitives from justice both inside the United States and in other countries. Terrorists and their supporters are able to go about their daily lives- undetected by law enforcement agencies.
Implementation of sanctuary policies in such cities greatly exacerbates the threats posed to national security and public safety- turning those cities into magnets that attract still more radicals and fugitives and terrorists who need to “fly under the radar.”
Any community that provides safe haven for illegal aliens willfully endangers the lives of it residents.
Even as concerns about increased threats of terror attacks are the topic of a succession of Congressional hearings, so-called “Sanctuary Cities” continue to flourish- with the tacit approval of the administration even though they are clearly operating in violation of federal law.
Islamic immigration, legal and illegal
Europe
Much of Europe has been overrun with Islamic “immigrants” and “refugees.” In consequence, Sweden, Germany and other nations are faring poorly. It is virtually impossible to determine who they are (use of forged passports and other identity documents is rampant), where they come from or whether they are seeking refuge from violence in their home countries or ways to bring it to Europe on behalf of Allah “the all merciful.” Perhaps national suicide is a “merciful” way to go. Unfortunately, few in Europe’s political class acknowledge the nature of the predicament their constituents face.
Despite the series of horrific attacks perpetrated by Muslim terrorists in the name of their religion, Europe is not taking the appropriate steps to suppress the phenomenon. Very few mosques in which clerics preach for war against the infidels have been closed down; public order has not been restored to the lawless suburbs in large cities; there is no real oversight of textbooks used in Muslim schools and mosques; very few radical imams have been deported; no significant countermeasures have been taken against Muslims expressing extremist views; and the burka ban has not been implemented.
These are just several of the signs pointing to Europe’s lack of comprehension that some of the Muslims living among them want the continent to fall under Muslim sovereignty, whether by way of the Islamic State approach of violent jihad or by the Muslim Brotherhood approach of population growth and Islamic preaching.
There are many excuses: Misconceptions that violent Muslims are that way simply because they are poor and unloved, a misperceived need to expand the workforce by importing those unwilling and/or unable to participate in that workforce are parts of the problem. So is Europe’s “original sin” of colonialism, for which all of Europe must atone. Another is a fear that if they are not appeased Muslims will become more violent.
Rooting out militant Islam will require taking police action in Muslim-controlled areas. We have already seen the humiliating footage of police officers fleeing under a hail of rocks and Molotov cocktails, hurled at them by crowds of incensed Muslims. Another contributing factor is the dependency of political leaders, primarily from the Left, on the Muslim vote (French President Francois Hollande owes his election victory to the Muslims).
Turkish Muslims living in Germany are on the move. Are they “refugees” (from where) or economic “immigrants” just seeking a better life?
Turkish Muslims living in Germany threaten Germany Shouting “With Allah’s (and Merkel’s?) help, we shall conquer you,” Turkish Muslims take to the streets of Germany, carrying Turkish flags and using the ‘Grey Wolves’ salute, the Turkish equivalent of a National Socialist (NAZI) salute. Just think, Angela Merkel has just signed an agreement to allow Turkish Muslims into Germany without having to get a visa.
Don’t they seem grateful for their new opportunities to prosper? Oh well. Swedish women and girls gotta “love” them, like it or not.
Some “ordinary” Europeans are getting fed with up mass immigration and support anti-immigrant politicians. The left objects.
The message was delivered in a video featuring a multi-ethnic crowd of disabled, gay and transgender people, as well as a Muslim woman wearing a face veil and a man wearing traditional Saudi headgear, all telling a crowd of Germans that they are “not Germany”.
The video opens with a crowd of angry-looking white Germans hitting against the windows of a bus to intimidate a frightened Arab child and his father, a policeman dragging the child out and hurling him to the ground. Led by the German comedian and television presenter’Jan Böhmermann, brightly dressed people rise from graves, forming a crowd to combat the beige-clad Germans who are wielding Donald Trump placards and signs reading “Refugees not welcome.”
Condemning the German crowd as “authoritarian nationalist dorks” and telling them “you are not the people, you are the past,” Böhmermann cautions that “true Germans are coming for you, you’d better run fast.”
Warning the beige-clad Germans that “10 million bicycle helmets are in sight” Böhmermann describes the lifestyle of “true Germans” to be one of cycling, recycling and eating kebab and muesli. In what is perhaps a jab at protests from senior members of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union against pork being “quietly removed from menus” of public canteens, Böhmermann also declares that the “true Germans” eat vegan sausages.
In 2005, more people from Islamic countries became legal permanent United States residents—nearly 96,000—than there had been in any other year in the previous two decades.[13][14] In 2009, more than 115,000 Muslims became legal residents of the United States.[15]
That’s just those who are legally present. Those present illegally? The powers-that-be haven’t a clue as to who they are, where they are, how they got here, where they came from or what they want. We experienced the gifts bestowed upon us by some legally present in Obama’s America during the Boston marathon as well as in Fort Hood, San Bernardino and elsewhere.
President Barack Obama has been quietly pushing new plans to bring thousands of additional Syrian refugees into the country, despite the concerns of state and county officials and the outrages committed by welfare-dependent migrants in Europe.
Obama’s special assistant to the president for immigration policy, Felicia Escobar, recently announced plans to increase America’s intake of migrants, according to the Washington Examiner.
“We want to make sure that we can increase our numbers of refugees that are able to settle here,” Escobar said. “The need globally is so, so, so massive right now, given all the displacement and conflict around the world, but we also know that we have to do it in a way that’s smart.”
Federal law already allows the administration to bring in 10,000 Syrian refugees a year, but many states and local county administrations have complained that once the Obama administration places refugees among them, few resources are available to deal with them.
The influx is very unpopular, according to polls. Also, nearly all immigrants from the Middle East are dependent on welfare. Some migrant and some second-generation Muslim Americans also embrace jihad.
During his March 2016 visit to a mosque, Obama praised Muslims living in America.
In rebuke to politicians like Donald Trump, Obama presented Islam as an essential part of the nation’s heritage, going back to Muslim slaves brought to the British colonies and running through Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom up to Fazlur Rahman Khan, who designed two of Chicago’s tallest skyscrapers. And he spoke emotionally about mail he received from Muslim American children and parents who felt persecuted and unsafe.
“We’re one American family. And when any part of our family starts to feel separate or second-class or targeted, it tears at the very fabric of our nation,” he said.
. . . .
On Wednesday he responded to critics—especially Republican contenders to replace him in the White House—who complain that he won’t label Islamic terrorism as such, saying demands to label by religion only play into extremist propaganda.
“I often hear it said that we need moral clarity in this fight. And the suggestion is somehow that if I would simply say, ‘These are all Islamic terrorists,’ then we would actually have solved the problem by now, apparently,” he said. “Let’s have some moral clarity: Groups like ISIS are desperate for legitimacy…. We must never give them that legitimacy. They’re not defending Islam. They’re not defending Muslims.”
Implicitly responding to tiresome calls for the “moderate Muslims” to speak out against terrorism, Obama said that they are speaking—but not enough people are listening. He vowed to work to amplify their voices. [Emphasis added.|
There are, in fact, Muslims who want to reform Islam; Obama pays them scant attention. Instead, He consorts with CAIR and it’s co-conspirators to keep Islam just the way it is. Here’s a video of some reform-minded Muslims. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim, produced and directed it as well as others in the Honor Diaries series.
And here’s a video of some who think Islam is just fine the way it is.
Along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Azeezah Kanji — the featured speaker in the above video — has been very active in disparaging Honor Diaries. Like CAIR, she has ties to the Obama White House and was named a “Champion of Change” by the White House in 2011. What changes in Islam does Ms. Kanji champion? None, apparently, of those intrinsic to it.
In Heretic, Hirsi Ali argued,
There is probably no realistic chance that Muslims in countries such as Pakistan will agree to dispense with sharia. However, we in the West must insist that Muslims living in our societies abide by our rule of law. We must demand that Muslim citizens abjure sharia practices and punishments that conflict with fundamental human rights and Western legal codes. Moreover, under no circumstances should Western countries allow Muslims to form self-governing enclaves in which women and other supposedly second-class citizens can be treated in ways that belong in the seventh century. [Emphasis added.]
Yet there are Islamic enclaves in America where Sharia is practiced. According to The Clarion Project, there are at least twenty-two.
Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a Pakistani militant group that has rebranded itself as Muslims of the Americas, says it has 22 “Islamic villages” in the U.S. Its “Islamberg” headquarters in New York is the most well-known.
Fuqra’s 1994 book, Target Islam: Exposing the Malicious Conspiracy of the Zionists Against the World of Islam and Prominent Muslim Leaders,explains that its establishment of “villages” in the U.S. since 1980 is part of a jihad against a Satanic-Jewish-Communist conspiracy that puppeteers the U.S. government.
They have a cultish devotion to their extremist leader in Pakistan, Sheikh Gilani, who they believe is in constant contact with Allah and the Prophet Mohammed and a miracle worker chosen by Allah to lead Islam to victory.
. . . .
“The Jammatul Fuqra has been able to establish justice according to Islamic Law, not only in the United States, but wherever Muslims are living under un-Islamic laws. According to the Holy Q’uran, a Muslim is not allowed to follow laws other than the law of the Holy Qu’ran…This so-called ‘freedom’ is actually enslavement by the kufaar [non-Muslims] and Shaitan [Satan]…”
It continues:
“On these sites where Islamic Law is enforced as much as possible, anyone who commits a crime against the Law of Allah is punished according to Ta’azerat….Here you see one person receiving twenty lashes in one [Sharia] court in South America. He was found guilty of violating the honor of a Muslim lady, a crime for which he received a hard punishment with patience and faith.”
The article says that the hudud punishments, such as execution and severing of hands and feet, cannot be enforced in kuffar (infidel) lands like the U.S. Notice that this isn’t a stand against sharia‘s brutal hudud punishments; just that they aren’t implementable at this time.
With freedoms of speech and religion lacking in Islamic countries, America could become the birthplace of Islamic reform. With Obama in office? Not a chance.
Conclusions
People from some foreign cultures have integrated and become productive American citizens. Many who have come illegally have not and live on welfare payments and other government subsidies. Since the current administration welcomes them and seeks more, we get (some) cheap labor, plentiful cheap heroin and substantial welfare costs. We also get drug gang-related violence, lawlessness metastasizing into areas beyond immigration itself and corruption.
Our Islamic “refugees” and “immigrants” bring us some similar and some different bounties, just a bit less thus far. They bring us the gift of jihad and Sharia law while enjoying welfare-based lives and complaining that anyone who complains is racist and “Islamophobic.”
There is little that any of us, individually, can do to halt or even slow the Haspanification and Islamification of America. We need to vote for leaders who will undertake — seriously and not merely with pleasing slogans — the legislative and legitimate executive steps needed for that purpose.
There is a famous photo of Anjem Choudary, the head of multiple banned organizations calling for imposing Sharia law on the UK whose follower was responsible for the Lee Rigby beheading, getting drunk as a young law student. Friends recall“Andy” smoking pot and taking LSD, sleeping around and partying all the time. Andy was really well integrated, but he still turned back into Anjem.
While the proliferation of segregated Muslim areas, no-go zones in which English, French or Dutch is the foreign language, is a major problem, it is a mistake to think that “integration” solves Islamic terrorism.
It doesn’t.
The Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings seemed integrated. Nobody noticed anything wrong with Syed Rizwan Farook, the San Bernardino shooter, or Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber. They weren’t lurking in a no-go zone. They had American friends, an education and career options if they wanted them. They didn’t want them. And that’s the point.
Bilal Abdullah was a British-born doctor who tried to carry out a terrorist attack at Glasgow International Airport. He wasn’t marginalized, jobless or desperate. He had a cause.
Quite a few converts have become Muslim terrorists. If integration were the issue, white converts to Islam wouldn’t be running off to join ISIS or plotting terrorist attacks like Don Stewart-Whyte, who converted to Islam and planned to blow up planes headed from the UK to the US. Along with his friend Oliver Savant, the son of a secular Iranian father and British mother, they are the reason why you can’t carry liquids onto a plane.
Muslim terrorism is not caused by failed integration, but by a conscious disintegration. What is often described as “radicalization” is really a choice by “integrated” Muslims to become religious and to act on their beliefs. Muslim men who formerly dressed casually begin growing beards and wearing Salafist garb. They consciously reject what Western society has to offer because they have chosen Islam instead.
Islamic terrorists have not been alienated by our rejection. They champion an alien creed that rejects us.
The debate over Islamic terrorism is bogged down by a refusal to name it and understand what it is. ISIS is not a form of “nihilism” that European Muslims resort to after being alienated by racism and driven to despair by joblessness. It’s an alternative system that draws on over a thousand years of Islamic religion and culture. It’s not a negative choice, but a positive one. It’s not an act of despair, but of hope.
Social, linguistic and cultural integration won’t stop Islamic terrorism. They may prevent it in some cases and accelerate it in others. But it’s not the primary factor. Religion is. Cultural integration won’t make much of a difference in the face of religious disintegration.
This is the type of integration that is the real problem. Some of the worst Jihadists are culturally integrated and religiously disintegrated. They speak the native language fluently. They are intimately familiar with popular culture. They move easily among the native population. It’s their belief system that is fundamentally disintegrated and whose demands cannot be integrated without a civil war.
Their choices are not a referendum on our society. What we do in response to their terrorism is.
The issue is not economic. It is not linguistic. It is not about alienation or racism. It is about religion. And Europe is not comfortable with religion. It assumes that the religious is political, but in Islam, the political is instead religious. Europe has given no thought to how Islam can be integrated as a religion. Instead it has relied on the assumption that all religions are basically alike and that the aims and ideas of Islam are therefore interchangeable with those of Catholics, Lutherans, Jews and anyone else.
Every Islamic terrorist attack sends the message that its ideas and aims are not interchangeable.
Europe does face challenges of cultural integration. But cultural disintegration isn’t blowing up airports or subways. Religious disintegration is. Cultural disintegration accounts for crime, riots and unemployment. It occasionally feeds into Islamic terrorism, but ideological violence is aspirational. It’s generally practiced by members of the middle class with money, leisure time and lots of self-esteem.
Like left-wing terror, Islamic terrorism is based on realizing a set of ideas about what the world should be like. These ideas are already embedded in the worldview of every Muslim to some degree. This is not a clash of civilizations or even cultures. It is a collision between the political and the religious.
The EU’s Federica Mogherini states, “Islam belongs in Europe…. I am not afraid to say that political Islam should be part of the picture.” Mogherini thinks of political Islam as a social welfare organization with a steeple, like the rest of the political religions of Europe. But political Islam is theocracy. And Europe was never able to integrate theocracy. Instead it overshadowed it with nationalism and then Socialism.
Secular Europe has forgotten what religion is. Religion is passion, conviction and redemption. It is not something that you occasionally live on the weekends. It transforms your life and your worldview.
How do you integrate that? Do you do it with language lessons, job training and a pat on the back?
Islamic terrorism is what happens when Muslims “get” religion. Not of the occasional casual variety, but of the fundamentally transformative kind. Integration assumes that once Mohammed is at university and drinking beer that he won’t suddenly decide to Jihad his way across Europe. But there are plenty of examples that show what a poor and fitful defense this is against the rebirth of a religious conviction.
Cultural integration is an issue, but the real issue is philosophical integration. The real challenge is not in linguistic integration, but in the integration of ideas. And it is impossible to do that without addressing what Islam actually is and what it believes. Islam is not Lutheranism with more Arabic. Political Islam is not a soup kitchen and a used clothes bin. It is a conviction that the world is locked in a titanic struggle between Islam and the infidels, the forces of light and darkness, which must be won at any cost.
How do you integrate an ideology that is convinced that non-Muslim political systems are evil into Europe? What explanatory videos will you use to admonish Ahmed from Syria that he shouldn’t set off bombs at the railway station even though his religion commands him to fight the infidels? Which job will you use to induce Abdul to abandon his fervent belief that everyone must live under Islamic law?
Sanctimony and denial won’t untangle this Gordian knot. No amount of NGOs will turn Islam into something else. Cultural integration won’t transform Muslims into non-Muslims. All it does is make them conflicted and insecure. And that is why it is those second-generation culturally integrated Muslims who go to bars, call themselves Andy or Mo, sell drugs, go to university, who take a detour into Syria and come back with bomb plans and big plans for transforming Europe into an Islamic state.
Cultural integration builds up a conflict with Islam. Some Muslims respond to it by abandoning Islam, others by embracing it. If we fail to recognize this, then integration becomes a ticking time bomb.
In the wake of the terror attacks in Belgium, news reports once again focused on how so-called “No Go Zones” in Europe create neighborhoods where communities develop that, although are geographically located within major cities, insulate themselves from their surroundings, fostering the mindset that cooperating with law enforcement is dangerous and even traitorous.
The residents eye law enforcement officers with great suspicion if not outright animosity. The situation is exacerbated because while they fear law enforcement, they may well also fear their neighbors who may take revenge against them for cooperating with law enforcement.
These neighborhoods become “cultural islands” that eschew the cultures and values of the cities and countries in which they grow — a virtual malignancy that ultimately comes to threaten its host city and country because within this cocoon radical Islamists are shielded from law enforcement, find shelter and support and an ample supply of potential terror recruits.
These communities are inhabited by many Muslim refugees who cannot be effectively screened.
This makes assimilation by the residents of these isolated communities unlikely if not impossible and creates breeding grounds for crime and, in this era and under these circumstances- breeding grounds for terrorism.
While there are no actual “No Go Zones” in the United States, there are neighborhoods scattered around the United States, where the concentration of ethnic immigrant minorities is so great that police find themselves unable to make the sort of inroads that they should be able to make in order to effectively police these communities. Adding to the high density of these aliens in these communities is the issue of foreign languages often being the prevalent language in such “ghettos.” This gives new meaning to the term “Language Barrier.”
Back when I was an INS agent, we had an expression- “Big cases- big problems; Little cases- little problems; No cases- no problems!” That phrase applies to all law enforcement officers.
When police or other law enforcement officers are put into a classic “no win” situation, their commonsense solution is to make their own survival and well-being their priority by minimizing their contacts with such enclaves and taking the fewest actions possible within those communities.
Not unlike the “No Go Zones” of European countries, these communities in the Unites States also tend to shield foreign nationals who may be fugitives from justice both inside the United States and in other countries. Terrorists and their supporters are able to go about their daily lives- undetected by law enforcement agencies.
Implementation of sanctuary policies in such cities greatly exacerbates the threats posed to national security and public safety- turning those cities into magnets that attract still more radicals and fugitives and terrorists who need to “fly under the radar.”
Any community that provides safe haven for illegal aliens willfully endangers the lives of it residents.
Even as concerns about increased threats of terror attacks are the topic of a succession of Congressional hearings, so-called “Sanctuary Cities” continue to flourish- with the tacit approval of the administration even though they are clearly operating in violation of federal law.
Harboring — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) makes it an offense for any person who — knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.
Encouraging/Inducing — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) makes it an offense for any person who — encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.
Conspiracy/Aiding or Abetting — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(v) expressly makes it an offense to engage in a conspiracy to commit or aid or abet the commission of the foregoing offenses.
My January 23, 2015 FrontPage Magazine article, “Sleeper Cells: The Immigration Component of the Threat” took a hard look at how failures of the immigration system enable terrorists to enter the United States and, in the parlance of the 9/11 Commission, embed themselves in communities across the country.
Incredibly, New York’s Mayor Bill De Blasio, not content to simply continue the dangerous- indeed deadly sanctuary policies, has amped up the threats to New York and New Yorkers- and indeed the United States, by issuing “Municipal Identity Documents” to illegal aliens.
Reportedly hundreds of thousands of individuals have been issued these identity documents that provide a host of benefits to those to whom the cards have been issued.
Criminals, fugitives and terrorists use multiple false identities. It is therefore beyond comprehension how any mayor would be willing to provide municipal identity documents to illegal aliens. It is especially confounding that New York City’s mayor would do this, given that New York City suffered the greatest number of fatalities on September 11, 2001.
De Blasio is certainly cognizant that NYC is a major terror target. On February 17, 2016 he joined Senator Chuck Schumer, the architect of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, in preparing a letter in response to the administration’s proposal to cut counter-terrorism funding in half. A copy of the letter was posted on the official NYC website under the title, “Transcript: Mayor de Blasio and U.S. Senator Schumer Call on White House to Fully Restore Critical Anti-Terror Funds.”
If Mr. De Blasio is really that concerned about the threat of terrorism, perhaps he (and Senator Schumer) should read the 9/11 Commission Report and the companion report, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel – Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.”
For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons. Terrorists must travel clandestinely to meet, train, plan, case targets, and gain access to attack. To them, international travel presents great danger, because they must surface to pass through regulated channels, present themselves to border security officials, or attempt to circumvent inspection points.
In their travels, terrorists use evasive methods, such as altered and counterfeit passports and visas, specific travel methods and routes, liaisons with corrupt government officials, human smuggling networks, supportive travel agencies, and immigration and identity fraud.
“The 19 hijackers used 364 aliases, including different spellings of their names and nomsde guerre.4 As they passed through various countries, their names were recorded by governments and their intelligence and border authorities.”
Providing official identity documents to illegal aliens, whose true identities are unknown and unknowable, enables them to create new false identities and a level of credibility they are easily able to exploit as an embedding tactic. Criminals and terrorists use changes in identity the way that chameleons use changes in coloration- as camouflage that enables them to hide in plain sight, often among their intended victims.
Donald Trump has recommended that the United States, at least temporarily, bar Muslims from entering the United States.
In my judgement this solution is not realistic. While the President can order a ban on the admission of all foreign Muslims, it would be impossible to implement. Terrorists and others who were determined to enter the United States could simply lie about their religious beliefs. Aliens who enter the United States without inspection are not screened. We already have large numbers of Muslims living in the United States.
The First Amendment provides for freedom of religion and understandably, many Americans are repulsed at the thought of making religious distinctions where the admission of aliens is concerned.
A far better solution would be to beef up the enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States and focus a major component of the enforcement effort on seeking to locate and apprehend illegal aliens, irrespective of religion, from countries associated with terrorism.
My December 20, 2015 article for Californians for Population Stabilization, “Effective Interior Enforcement of Immigration Law Vital to Nat’l Security” expounded on how national security would be greatly enhanced by not only securing our borders but enforcing our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.
Much has been made of the need to develop effective intelligence. What is seldom, if ever, discussed is the role of informants. In my assignment to the Unified Intelligence Division of the DEA and then when I was assigned to the Organized Crime, Drug Enforcement Task Force, one of my key responsibilities was to use my authority as an INS agent to cultivate informants.
Aliens who would be arrested would, under certain circumstances, be provided with the opportunity to become informants and cooperating witnesses to identify those aliens who are engaged in terror-related activities, thereby providing invaluable intelligence. Those who cooperated could be permitted to remain in the United States and even possibly, granted lawful status provided that they could be effectively vetted and that their assistance was particularly meritorious and yielded significant results.
Deporting those illegal aliens who could not- or would not cooperate would shrink the size of the haystack in which some very deadly needles are hiding.
Either way, our security would be greatly enhanced.
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