Bash brought up how Cruz’s father fled Cuba and asked about him potentially being turned away. “That’s not American”, Obama said from Antalya, Turkey at the G20 summit. “With his excuse-laden and defensive press conference, President Obama removed any and all doubt that he lacks the resolve or a strategy to defeat and destroy ISIS”, said Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee. But politics never ends with Obama, and leadership never begins. You’re not – are you suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists? It is real and it is unsafe. For all the criticism of his approach to the Islamic State, several supposed alternatives are things that have already been tried: airstrikes, arming the opposition, special forces, social-media propaganda. And to a few degree, that is something that has to come from within the Muslim community itself.
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“I don’t. But I think the answer to this, though, is not to ban people from coming”.
Despite a recent study showing that non-Muslim extremists have committed twice as many acts of terror in the U.S.as Muslim extremists, governors in a number of states said they would not welcome Syrian refugees after the Paris attacks. Those ideas, he said, “must be challenged” by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The presidential hopeful has also said Christians from war-torn Syria are victims and do not pose a risk of terrorism, whereas letting in Muslim refugees would be “lunacy”.
“Some of these people are people who have suffered to horrors of war, they’re women, they’re orphans, they’re children who have suffered at the hands of ISIL”, Rhodes said, using the administration’s preferred acronym for the terror group.
“But I don’t think we should eliminate our support for refugees”.
Bush also laid into his rivals, saying he doesn’t trust Donald Trump to occupy the Oval Office, and described himself as “more consistent” and “less bellicose” than Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, a pair of first-term US senators running for president. Nobody has been carrying a bigger burden than the people here in Turkey, with 2.5 million refugees, and the people of Jordan and Lebanon, who are also admitting refugees.
He says the United States has to do its part to accept refugees from Iraq and Syria, and that it was “shameful” for political leaders to call for imposing a religious test on refugees. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion”.
But the Syrian refugee crisis is dividing American politicians, given the choice between yielding to fears of importing terrorists or honoring the United States’ traditional welcoming role. He didn’t call on Catholic parishes just to admit to those who were of the same religious faith. He said, protect people who are vulnerable.
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I had a lot of disagreements with George W. Bush on policy, but I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear about the fact that this is not a war on Islam. On this they should follow his example – it was the right one. It was the right one. “The right impulse. Our better impulse”, Obama said. Rather than discussing the matter with the states and providing assurances that refugees will be properly vetted, President Obama ridiculed the governors instead.
