Tag Archives: Syria

Republican governors refuse to accept Syrian refugees into their states

Obama says let in 200,00 Syrian refugees
Obama says let in 200,00 Syrian refugees

ABC News reports:

At least half of the country’s governors are refusing to take in Syrian refugees in their states amid heightened security concerns following Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris.

Michigan and Alabama were the first states in the country to refuse relocating Syrian refugees on Sunday, and they have now been joined by Oklahoma, Nebraska, Idaho, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Arizona, North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Georgia, Maine, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina and Iowa, some of which say more information is needed before accepting more refugees.

Govs. Rick Snyder of Michigan, Robert Bentley of Alabama, Greg Abbott of Texas, and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas said in separate statements Sunday and today that their states would not be relocating refugees from the war-torn country until the U.S. Department of Homeland Security fully reviewed its screening procedures.

“Michigan is a welcoming state and we are proud of our rich history of immigration,” Snyder said. “But our first priority is protecting the safety of our residents.”

So far so good, but:

However, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said refugee status gives individuals both legal status in the U.S. and freedom to move from state to state, making it unclear that the states refusing to take in Syrian refugees could in fact reject them.

Oh great!

Remember, this whole refugee crisis was caused by OBAMA’s decision to retreat American forces from Iraq. After George W. Bush defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq, we should have left a residual force to rebuild Iraq and protect our victory. But no – Obama decided that he could “end the war” by retreating our forces, turning a victory into a defeat. And that was the beginining of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) caliphate. Obama created it because of his pacifist isolationist foreign policy.

The Wall Street Journal notes that Obama is refusing to prioritize Christian refugees over Muslim refugees, even though that makes much more sense from a national security perspective:

As France is learning, Islamic State is only too happy to use the Syrian diaspora to plant its agents to kill the French. At least one of the killers on Friday is believed to have migrated from Syria through Greece and into Paris. Nearly all of the other migrants, Muslim and Christian, have no such bloody intent. But can you blame the average American for refusing to volunteer as a next door neighbor?

Mr. Obama was especially harsh on those, like Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz, who say Christian refugees should be a priority. “When some of those folks themselves come from families who benefitted from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.”

But Messrs. Bush and Cruz are right that Christians are under particular threat from Islamic State. If they aren’t killed for jihadist sport, they must convert to Islam or die. Their daughters are raped and forced into Muslim marriages. Their churches are blown up. The U.S. would have been right to accept and save more Jews from Nazi genocide in the 1930s and 1940s. Syrian Christians are no different today.

This Daily Caller article is a nice reminder of what happens when generous socialists decide to take care of the nice unskilled immigrants from Muslim countries with taxpayer money.

It says:

Sweden began opening its doors to Muslim immigrants in the 1970s. Today it pays a high price for having done so. The group suffering the severest consequences of such an open door policy has been Swedish women.

[…]A 1996 Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention report bears this out. It noted that Muslim immigrants from North Africa were 23 times more likely to commit rape than Swedish men. It is no wonder why today Sweden is deemed the rape capital of the Western world.

Even more shocking, however, is the political correctness overshadowing the reporting of these crimes. Sensitive about accusations of Islamophobia, the Swedish press refuses to sound a warning alarm for native women about who these sexual predators are. Thus, when a Muslim commits a rape, the media only refers to him as a Swedish male.

[…]Interestingly, between 1995-2006, the Swedish government tracked gang rapes, identifying a drastically increasing trend.  Unbelievably, after discovering the problem, it then adopted an ostrich-like “head in the sand” approach, terminating any further studies on them . Apparently the government’s fear of being labeled Islamophobic proved greater than its concerns about warning Swedish women about the threat. While no studies on gang rape have been conducted since 2006, one can assume these numbers have continued to rise.

The political correctness is also at work in the UK. I blogged before about the Muslim grooming gangs, which prey on young women. Complaints about the rapists by the victims of the families were ignored by the police, who did not want to get into trouble for “discrimination” against the Muslim men.

Meanwhile, Obama is in the news for different reasons.

Neville Chamberlain Obama: peace in our time
Neville Chamberlain Obama: peace in our time

The Washington Times explains:

President Obama showed a flash of anger Monday with Republican critics of his anti-terrorism strategy, saying he is “too busy” to engage in a rhetorical debate with them.

“What I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership, or American winning or whatever other slogans they come up with, that has no relationship to what actually is going to work to protect the American people” and America’s allies, Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Turkey. “I’m too busy for that.”

The president was addressing a question about critics of his strategy for defeating the Islamic State, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris last week.

The context was Islamic State, and what to do about their aggression and acts of terrorism. Obama’s answer: he’s not interested in America leading, or in America winning. This is the Democrat Party.

Democrats admit 10,000 Syrian refugees to USA, with 200,000 more on the way

On Saturday night, we heard from one of the Democrats that global warming causes terrorist attacks like the one in Paris. Although France is a world leader in letting in unskilled immigrants from Muslim countries, according to the Democrats, this could not have been the source of the terrorist attack. It had to be the global warming that caused it.

This strategy of blaming weather for terrorism is a bit different than their normal habit of calling terrorist attacks “senseless violence“, “workplace violence“, “random violence“, and shooting up Jews in France as“random“. Challenged to speak the phrase “radical Islam” in the debate, the Democrats declined to do so. How is that showing seriousness about national security?

Meanwhile, Democrats are already paving the way for the next terrorist attack on American soil, welcoming in Syrian refugees, most of which fit the profile of Islamic terrorists (male, age 18-45).

The first 10,000

Many of the Syrian refugees are being send to Governor Bobby Jindal’s state, Louisiana.

Here’s part of Jindals letter to Obama:

Dear President Obama,

In the wake of another round of appalling terrorist attacks, I write to express great sadness at the events in Paris, as well as my grave concern about the unreported diffusion of Syrian refugees in the United States.

Last week, the city of New Orleans began receiving its first wave of Syrian refugees. As with former immigration crises and federal relocation policy, Louisiana has been kept in the dark about those seeking refuge in the state. It is irresponsible and severely disconcerting to place individuals, who may have ties to ISIS, in a state without the state’s knowledge or involvement.

As Governor of Louisiana, I demand information about the Syrian refugees being placed in Louisiana in hopes that the night of horror in Paris is not duplicated here. In the wake of these atrocities, I also ask for details on the below:

What level of background screening was conducted prior to entry in the United States?
In light of the fact that some of those responsible for last night’s attacks held Syrian passports, what additional protections and screenings will be put in place?

Will all Syrian refugees seeking relocation in the United States now be cleared by the Terrorist Screening Center?
What degree of monitoring will be sustained after initial placement in Louisiana?

As Americans, we embolden freedom and opportunity to the rest of the world, but by opening up our borders and refusing to collaborate or share information with states, you are threatening that reality.

Mr. President, in light of these attacks on Paris and reports that one of the attackers was a refugee from Syria, it would be prudent to pause the process of refugees coming to the United States. Authorities need to investigate what happened in Europe before this problem comes to the United States.

If I were Jindal, I would just pack them up, and send them straight to Washington, D.C. to live with the Democrats there. But what is striking is that Jindal doesn’t even know who these people are. He’s been “kept in the dark” by the Obama administration.

Obama says: 200,000 more

Here’s Obama tweeting happily about his plan to let in Syrian passport bearers:

Obama says let in 200,00 Syrian refugees
Obama says: give them $4.5 billion in aid, and let in 200,00 Syrian refugees

(Source)

Note that one of the terrorists who blew himself up outside the soccer stadium in Paris was carrying a Syrian passport.

Democrat delusions

Here’s a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Wake Up, Mr. President” that makes the case that our president is delusional about national security threats:

For seven years Mr. Obama has used the unpopularity of the Iraq war as a shield for his retreat from antiterror leadership and the Middle East. His periodic drone strikes and his most notable security success, the Osama bin Laden raid, obscured the jihadist danger growing in the wake of America’s departure from Iraq and abdication in Syria.

Mr. Obama also deposed Moammar Gadhafi in Libya but then did almost nothing to help Libyans restore order. Americans saw a glimpse of the gathering storm in the terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, but the White House blamed it on an obscure video.

Now Americans can see clearly the spreading infection from Islamic State and a resurgent al Qaeda. It isn’t merely a regional threat, as Mr. Obama once claimed. Its offshoots have spread into North Africa across the Middle East to Afghanistan. The civil war in Syria has spawned a refugee crisis that has descended on Europe and may have provided cover for at least one of the Paris jihadists.

Islamic State also isn’t the “jayvee” terror team, as Mr. Obama once claimed. Western intelligence believes its sympathizers in Sinai took down a Russian airliner. Its bombs explode day after day against civilian targets, this past week in Beirut and a Christian convent in Iraq.

The Paris attack is in some ways even more alarming than 9/11. Airplane hijackings have largely been stopped through enhanced security. Paris suggests that Islamic State has embarked on a strategy of urban unconventional warfare wherever it is able across the West. And it is far harder to track and prevent suicidal jihadists with assault rifles and grenades who want to blow up a restaurant district or concert hall.

France has been the target three times this year, counting the attack on a train foiled by three Americans, but America’s day is coming. In May FBI Director James Comey said there are “thousands” inside the U.S. who are absorbing Islamic State propaganda on the Internet.

Now, if you try to judge Obama for not taking national security seriously, he will tell you to get off your high horse, stop offending radical Muslims, and to feel guilty about the Crusades. This is because in college, he learned the importance of not making moral judgments about evil, because it offends evil people. But he also learned that making moral judgments against good people is the height of morality. That’s why he defends terrorists and criminals and lawbreakers, and imposes punishments and burdens on good people who are none of those things. That’s why he handed “hundreds of billions of dollars” to help them along with their nuclear weapons program.

Back to the refugees. Every state except Wyoming and Montana is getting Syrian refugees. At what point does Obama’s delusional views on the threat of Islamic terrorism become a concern to his base of low-information voters? Or does MSNBC – which they rely on for news – not tell them about things like Iran nuclear deals, Paris terrorist attacks and Syrian refugees?

What Putin is teaching us about foreign policy: Obama’s weakness provokes aggression

Vladimir Putin and the Clown of the United States
Vladimir Putin and the Community Organizer of the United States

Other than Weekly Standard, my two favorite places to read about foreign policy are the Wall Street Journal and the UK Telegraph. And my favorite writer from all three of these is Bret Stephens, columnist at the Wall Street Journal.

Here is his latest article (click through to WSJ), then we’ll go to the UK Telegraph after.

Stephens writes:

David Petraeus testified last month to the Senate Armed Services Committee on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Regarding Syria, the former general and CIA director urged a credible threat to destroy Bashar Assad’s air force if it continues to bomb its own people. He also recommended “the establishment of enclaves in Syria protected by coalition air power, where a moderate Sunni force could be supported and where additional forces could be trained, internally displaced persons could find refuge, and the Syrian opposition could organize.”

But Barack Obama does not agree. At his Friday press conference, the president described such views as “mumbo-jumbo,” “half-baked ideas,” “as-if” solutions, a willful effort to “downplay the challenges involved in the situation.” He says the critics have no answers to the questions of “what exactly would you do and how would you fund it and how would you sustain it.”

America’s greatest living general might as well have been testifying to his shower drain for all the difference his views are going to make in this administration.

So it is with this president. It’s not enough for him to stake and defend his positions. He wants you to know that he thinks deeper, sees further, knows better, operates from a purer motive. His preferred method for dealing with disagreement is denigration. If Republicans want a tougher line in Syria, they’re warmongers.

Yes. Every time the President gives a speech on policy, you can count on him to present alternatives to his own very left-wing views as incredibly evil, incredibly stupid or both. He thinks that he knows everything, and that talking to people who disagree with him, no matter how qualified they are (e.g. – General Petraeus) would be a waste of time. Everyone who opposes his fact-free, pot-smoking, college dorm discussion view of reality is stupid or evil or both. And this man is President.

More:

For a relatively trivial investment of some jet fighters and a brigade-sized support force, Moscow extends its influence in the eastern Mediterranean, deepens a commercially and strategically productive alliance with Iran, humiliates the U.S., boosts Mr. Putin’s popularity at home, and earns a geopolitical card he can play in any number of negotiations—Ukraine, gas contracts, Mr. Assad’s political future, you name it. If things don’t work out, he can pull up stakes within a week without much loss of money, lives or prestige. It’s a perfect play.

Now let’s go to the UK Telegraph, and Matthew K. Lewis.

He writes:

Russian warplanes began bombing American-backed Syrian opposition strongholds on Wednesday, a move that can be viewed as the latest example of American humiliation abroad.

As was the case when Russians invaded Ukraine, the Russians cloaked their activity in lies.

In the former example, Russian soldiers didn’t wear uniforms, a thinly-veiled move meant to create the impression the fighters were merely Ukrainian “separatists.”

Likewise, Wednesday’s bombings ostensibly targeted Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil); in fact, the strikes were aimed at moderate rebels and civilians – part of a plan to take out any opposition to their client, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

[…]This all comes on the heels of President Barack Obama’s drawing of a “red line” regarding the use of chemical weapons, only to back down when the Assad regime – by most accounts – used them.

Weakness invites provocation, and – never one to miss an opportunity to outmanoeuvre Mr Obama – Mr Putin provided a self-serving opportunity that would also allow the president to save face: Moscow would push Syria to put their chemical weapons under international control.

[…]It’s also important to note that in the wake of the red line being trampled, Russia invaded Crimea. President Obama’s legacy may be mixed, but one thing is for sure: Vladimir Putin is much more powerful and provocative than he was before Mr Obama took office, and Russia has only expanded its sphere of influence.

[…]For those paying attention, Mr Obama’s foreign policy world-view has failed.

Russia is our enemy, and they are trying to undermine us everywhere they can. Obama is meeting this challenge with the typical weakness he has shown in negotiations and stand-offs since he went on his Worldwide Bow Down To Dictators tour. His priorities seem to be to cut military spending and impose political correctness on the armed services. His latest great achievement in that regard is to nominate a gay civilian who has never served in the military to be head of the entire U.S. Army. That’s what he is most concerned about, political correctness. Not national security and not foreign policy.