There are just so many things that the people who are paralyzed with fear of the Syrian refugees so deeply fail to understand. The first of those is the fact that we shouldn’t be acting in such a reactional, paranoid and bigoted way that we prove Da’esh’s primary criticism of America as true. That’s exactly what we do when we say we’re going to reject every Syrian refugee—the people who are in the process of trying to escape terrorism—because of one. singular fake. Syrian passport.
That’s the point Representative Seth Moulton (D-MA), who was twice decorated for heroism in Iraq receiving a Bronze Star and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation for valor, attempted to make to Fox Business’s Stuart Varney only to have him sputter back with the deluded hypothetical …
“Will you take responsibility for an American killed by a Syrian refugee?”
As if any Syrian refugees have been proven to have killed anyone in support of Da’esh or that they represent a credible threat to anyone in America. They don’t.
“Passing this bill is playing right into ISIS’s hands,” Moulton said. “You are making it easier for ISIS to recruit people here at home.”
An excitable Stuart Varney lost it as Moulton attempted to explain his position over Varney’s interruptions.
“It increases our population!” Varney insisted before asking, “We take the risk on your behalf?”
“No no no, “a smiling Moulton replied. “We not taking it on our behalf. We’re trying to make America safer. We’re trying to make it harder for ISIS to recruit here, because that’s what they do. They didn’t just send refugees into Paris for attacks. They recruited people in Paris.”
Varney continued to assert that expanding the number of Muslims in America makes the country less safe.
“What radicalizes [Muslims in the U.S.] is saying they are different, ” Moulton attempted to explain. “That is exactly what ISIS wants, that’s what they need as a propaganda tool to radicalize.”
Moulton also had to explain that refugees already go through a comprehensive process before being admitted to the country, with Varney asking, “Are you sure of that?” to which Moulton, answered, “Yes.”
And Moulton should know, he actually houses an Iraqi refugee in his own home. He is intimately familiar with the existing vetting process and exactly what the risks are—he and his family have already personally taken that risk even after he fought in Iraq, and presumably killed Iraqis in the process. But Varney, of course, ignored his expertise on the matter than instead chose to use Jack Bauer’s favorite argument whenever someone would criticize his barbaric tactics. “Will you take responsibility for the [future hypothetical] dead [if I don’t torture/abuse/do something really fracked up right now]?”
“If one of those people comes into America that you want to bring in here, and one of them kills an American, will you take responsibility for that?” Varney bellowed.
For a time Moulton wouldn’t be taken off point with this bogus issue as Varney grew increasingly agitated and repeated “Will you answer the question?” until finally he put the perfect counter question to Varney.
“What happens if ISIS uses this bill to radicalize people here at home?” Moulton responded. “Will you take responsibility for that?”
A question which Varney didn’t even try to answer, instead he said.
“I do not believe that you radicalize people in America if you put a pause on Syrian refugees coming here” said Varney.
No, that’s exactly how you do it. You treat innocent people as your enemy, you treat innocent Muslims as if America hates them and they’ll do the natural, rational thing.
They’ll Hate. You. Back!
And hate is exactly the message many American Muslims are receiving.
The anti-Muslim rhetoric emanating from such high-profile political sources is sending a chill across Muslim-American communities. Omid Safi, director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center, said it sent a clear signal that “we do not belong here.”
“We have to resist it with all of our souls, all of our might, and all of our intellect,” he said, “not only for what’s at stake in terms of lives of Muslims, but also because of what it says about the reality of what it means to be an American.”
Muslim-American groups fear rhetoric will translate into acts of hatred. In the wake of the Paris attacks, there have been isolated incidents of apparent hate violence across the US. Incidents have been reported outside a mosque in Connecticut ; at a mosque in St Petersburg, Florida and a Muslim family home in Orlando; and in several other states.
The process Moulton describes is exactly what a report from the Homeland Security says sparks radicalization:
Recruits are motivated to join terrorist groups for a wide array of reasons. Many ISIS recruits, for instance, are inspired by jihadist ideology and see a historic opportunity to live in the caliphate. Others are motivated by the desire for adventure,to be a part of a cause larger than themselves, or for camaraderie and a sense of belonging. In almost all cases, though,
suspects feel excluded from society or think they have failed to live up to expectations. These perceptions are often reinforced by a stressor life event, such as a drug arrest or school expulsion, that moves them to act. Other Americans aspired to travel to the terrorist safe haven believing they would find love, such as 19-year-old Shannon Maureen Conley,
a nurse’s aide from Colorado. She received a four-year prison sentence this year for attempting to join ISIS in Syria, where she planned to marry an ISIS fighter she met online.
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Conley still reportedly signs her letters from jail with the closing “behind enemy lines.” Online recruiters follow a similar path in trying to seduce Americans and other Westerners. They start by soliciting followers on social media, such as Twitter or Ask.fm, and “field questions about joining the Islamic State.” They then subtly proselytize to interested parties, providing “almost the online version of [a] religious seminar,” observers note. Once they spot promising extremists, recruiters will communicate with them using direct-message tools to determine whether they are serious and to weed out “spies.” Often extremists move the conversations to secure apps and incrypted platforms so they cannot be monitored while giving recruits instructions on traveling to Syria or even attack orders. FBI Director James Comey has equated the sophisticated outreach by ISIS recruiters to “a devil on their shoulder all day long saying, ‘Kill, kill, kill.’”
Released on Monday, the report found that the federal government has generally failed to keep more than 250 Americans from leaving the country to join Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS/ISIL) since 2011. Overall, nearly 30,000 people from around the world have traveled to the region in the same time frame. …
The report stated that “several dozen” Americans have also been able to reenter the US after traveling to the conflict zones. It cautioned that Americans are being radicalized at an “unprecedented speed,” and that they hold armed combat experience as well as extremist connections. Even if they don’t come back to US shores, they seek to continue radicalizing others by way of the internet.
Meanwhile, the fact that Europeans can travel to the US without applying for a visa also creates a security gap, since it means radicalized fighters can potentially enter the US easily, the report said.
It’s not the Syrian refugees who’ve been chased out of their homes and country by Da’esh and go through an extensive vetting process, one where even GOP governors can’t explain what needs to be improved, that should be the main concern, its radicalized Americans and Europeans who don’t need a visa to travel to the U.S. who we should be worried about.