Or the Islamic State could concentrate on subverting young men living in the United States; think of foiled NY subway suicide bomber Najibullah Zazi or the murderous Boston Marathon bombers. Our founding documents, for example, are dated from the year of Christ’s birth, unlike Muslim countries, which start their calendars from the date of Muhammad’s flight to Medina, and unlike Israel, which dates its calendar from the date of creation.
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Let’s acknowledge the fact that although it’s rarely defined as “terrorism”, there is a lot of other violence committed to further a political or religious agenda that happens in this country, and that is technically what terrorism is.
The question of faith and immigration has jumped in the middle of the debate over admitting refugees to the United States. Upwards of 200,000 Christians have been killed by Muslims in recent years.
The Texas Republican often mentions how his father fled Cuba for the United States as a young man. Cruz was asked on CNN on Monday how he could bar refugees from the United States given his father’s story. We should have a religious test and that only Christians, proven Christians should be admitted. Dick Durbin of IL calling it “outrageous” and President Obama calling it “shameful”. We have given priority to Christian immigrants and refugees repeatedly in our history.
And so are various other religions (persecuted, that is), including sects of Islam opposed to ruling regimes and, with particular attention to the rise of ISIS, anyone not in adherence to that group’s particular brand of extreme Wahabbist/Salafi-based Islam. We are taking strikes against high-value targets – including, most recently, against the individual who was on the video executing civilians who had already been captured, as well as the head of ISIL in Libya. Many so people are saying that only Christian, not Muslim refugees from Syria should be allowed in.
The president’s approach – USA airstrikes plus support of friendly ground forces in Iraq and Syria – clearly has not worked, at least to this point. Ted Cruz said preference should be given to Syrian Christians.
In the days and weeks ahead, the groups will be trying to get ahead of the calls for a “pause” in Syrian refugee resettlement with their own informational offensive.
I have not doubts that a vast majority of these refugees are innocent people simply fleeing the persecution they face at the hands of IS.
What about Muslim refugees?
“We should not be allowing Muslim refugees from countries where ISIS and al Qaeda have control of significant amounts of territory because of the inability of this administration, the inability of our intelligence sources to distinguish between who is and is not an ISIS terrorist”, Cruz told Jon Karl of ABC News. We are constantly told by the president that Islam is a religion of peace; if we take him at his word, this means that the 57 Muslim nations are all potential havens of peace, stability and tranquility. Many claim that refugees are not properly screened before they are admitted. Liberals loudly and insistently proclaim that the United States is the source of all evil in the world.
“Up until this past weekend, we even had politicians reaching out to say, ‘How can we resettle refugees?’ Members of both parties”.
Lastly, Republicans in Washington must hold Obama’s feet to the fire.
Why invest billions to defeat enemies overseas only to transplant terrorists to American soil? Someday they will want to go home. We will have to sit and grimly wait to see how it works on them.
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“We are going to do the right thing in the right way – protecting the American people even as we provide refuge to a few of the world’s most vulnerable people”, Amy Pope, deputy homeland security adviser for the National Security Council, wrote in a Tuesday blog post.
