Obama: We Should Remember 9/11 By Agreeing To Take In At Least 10,000 Syrian Refugees

Not actually what he said but the timing draws one to that thought.

The proposed resettling of at least 10,000 Syrian refugees would be allocated out of a U.S. quota of 75,000 refugee admissions slated for next fiscal year, beginning October 1, a senior administration official said.

That quota applies to refugees from all over the world and is set at the beginning of the fiscal year, but Obama can raise that quota if there's a crisis.

Already, a Senate aide said that Kerry had told senators that "they'd seek an additional increase beyond that," referring to the 75,000 quota.

"He gave a range of numbers," the aide said. Kerry mentioned a potential new total as high as 100,000, as well as other possible maximum numbers, according to the aide.

Swell.

What could go with bringing refugees into the US from nations torn apart by Islamic terrorism? Oh, right.

Let's be honest about a few things....

-The situation in Syria is terrible. It's a staggering humanitarian crisis.

-Many if not most of the people fleeing are probably ordinary people who mean no harm to us.

-History has shown that large pools of Islamic refugees in the US and the west will become recruiting grounds for terrorist groups.

-Some of those refugees or their American born children will become terrorists.

-If we refuse to let them in, we won't have to face these particular problems.

Proponents of resettlement will say things like, "Oh we can screen them very well it'll be fine. Why do you hate brown people?" Don't buy their happy talk.

We don't know what percentage of people we bring here will become radicalized but a certain percentage will.

The question is, what level of increased threat and how many actual terrorist attacks are you willing to take because of your feels? For me the answer is zero. The only way to ensure that there is no threat is to not admit this group in these large numbers. We are going to wind up plopping a large number of them down in some area, like we did with Somalis in the 90s. Most won't become terrorists but some will be unable or unwilling to adjust to the west and find themselves targets for recruitment. This is just an undeniable reality.

So what's your priority? Humanitarian relief knowing you will pay for it in terrorism to one degree or another down the road or security?

For me it's security and the only way to ensure it from this cohort of refugees is abstinence.

I'm closer to Rand Paul than I am Marco Rubio on the surveillance state. I'll be damned if you tell me I have to keep accepting a bigger security state while willing you're importing more threats.

In a way this is the Holy Grail of government...we need more security and bigger government, we should also import more threats, now that we've imported more threats we need bigger government, and so on and so on and so on. It's the self-licking ice cream cone.

But as Peggy Noonan points out, it doesn't matter what the littles want or don't want. The elites want open borders and by God they will have them.

Rules on immigration and refugees are made by safe people. These are the people who help run countries, who have nice homes in nice neighborhoods and are protected by their status. Those who live with the effects of immigration and asylum law are those who are less safe, who see a less beautiful face in it because they are daily confronted with a less beautiful reality—normal human roughness, human tensions. Decision-makers fear things like harsh words from the writers of editorials; normal human beings fear things like street crime. Decision-makers have the luxury of seeing life in the abstract. Normal people feel the implications of their decisions in the particular.

The decision-makers feel disdain for the anxieties of normal people, and ascribe them to small-minded bigotries, often religious and racial, and ignorant antagonisms. But normal people prize order because they can’t buy their way out of disorder.

People in gated communities of the mind, who glide by in Ubers, have bought their way out and are safe. Not to mention those in government-maintained mansions who glide by in SUVs followed by security details. Rulers can afford to see national-security threats as an abstraction—yes, yes, we must better integrate our new populations. But the unprotected, the vulnerable, have a right and a reason to worry.

It's a WSJ piece so here's the link to the Google search return (via Jeff B.)

I enjoy a good "I told you so" as much as anyone but I will not enjoy the inevitable proof of how terrible this decision is because it will be demonstrated in blood.

posted by DrewM. at 11:31 AM

| Access Comments