People are making this way more complicated than it needs to be. Whenever a would be refugee rolls up to Ellis Island or S'barro's or wherever we process greasy Italians in boats these days, we hand them a slice of bacon and ask them to eat it. If they eat it, welcome aboard! If they refuse to eat it, well then maybe they don't want or need the security and prosperity that America's secular values provide as badly as they thought they did.
Did you know that ISIS publishes a monthly magazine? Neither did I. http://www.cracked.com/blog/isis-wants-us-to-invade-7-facts-revealed-by-their-magazine/
Even if you think they are more likely to be radicalized, which do you think will create an environment more prone to actually fostering said radicalization- accepting and helping or denying and fucking them? The risk is there no matter what. Yes, this. Minneapolis is home to the largest Somali population in the US and I don't feel the same, even after living in areas of town with lots of immigrants. Despite different cultures and languages, etc, they're still people in the end.
I'm also curious about this. I lived in Columbus for 13 years (moved out a few months ago) and have never had a negative interaction with them. They moved to a part of town no one wanted to live in, and opened shops and restaurants.
Isn't it far more likely that the grow up to realize how awesome America is? I don't think we supply many of today's terrorists. I mean yeah, if we bring them in, marginalize them, shut down their places of worship, firebomb them, yada yada then they are likely to radicalize. But I'm of the viewpoint that our best weapon against terrorism would be to kill it with kindness---at least when it comes to refugees. Prevention is worth a pound of cure.
A few questions that have me thinking: Why aren't any of the ME countries offering to take a single refugee, as in, actively offering financial support to Germany by building more mosques but not offering any shelter for people of their same race/religion/region? Why are Americans so adamantly for or against Syrian refugees? I think the people who are pro-refugee and using their finest shaming language are the worst. Are you going to be boarding Syrian refugees in your home? Are you going to do anything whatsoever to help these people like offer to pay more taxes voluntarily to take care of them? The people arguing against it are just as bad: Our veterans are homeless why aren't we helping them first? Why aren't YOU helping them if you care so much? Sometimes the best course of action is to do nothing, especially when there is no plan to actually fix the problem or the plan is to actively make the problem worse.
Personally speaking, I'm adamantly pro-refugee because I believe that to deny them runs counter to the idea of the United States as a country where people come to flee oppression and build new, free, lives for themselves - something I believe to be one of the most fundamental ideals of what the US stands for. Also, the whole fear about "embedded terrorists" is bullshit. It's pretty much the same rhetoric people have used against immigrants/refugees for most of this country's history - the Red Scare of the early 1900s for example. People are just xenophobic, and most xenophobes are just too chickenshit to admit it.
It seems to me that the current, solvable problem isn't Mid-East relationships, it's the hundreds of thousands of families that are homeless with literally no place to go, because their old homes and environments have been blown the fuck up and can't sustain life any more. And it's not just a few thousand of them that can be accepted into a nearby environment, which is why they are being relocated to other parts of the world. That is the problem that is actively being solved by with the plan of relocating refugees, and it can't just be ignored or left to sort itself out.
As it sits right now, every terrorist involved in the Paris acts have had a legitimate EU passport. And their communications were done with UNencrypted messaging. So yeah, that kind of fucks with more than a few political agendas.
That's the thing, I don't see this as solving the refugee problem. I think we are actively making it worse (on more than one front). Why does it stop at Syria? What about the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, or Libyans, or Afghanis, or any number of other locations that are/have been destroyed over the last quarter century? We are actively promoting mass migration of people to areas where they intend to live off of welfare as most of these people realistically don't bring any appreciable skills to the table (there are obviously trained professionals who will leave but a small percentage). What about Tibetans persecuted by China, or Chechens who have been up ended by Russia? Seriously, where are we drawing the line here? You can't care for everyone, I understand the logic behind wanting to help but you have to come to these parts of the world to see it. Life is cheap and suffering is the human condition. Honestly, I think everyone can see this, but the Syrian refugees are a political football right now. The media has everyone up in arms over this and in a few weeks there will be a different fiasco to preoccupy ourselves with.
I don't think there is a solution to this problem. We're all gonna die especially you glazed donut eating, moose hunting fucks up North. Yeah everyone loves you guys blah blah blah. My recommendation is to be wealthy enough, privileged enough, and lucky enough to never have to look at an immigrant of any kind, let alone eat in a restaurant one would consider shooting with an ak-47 or frankly even, deign to walk by. Barring that, we're all fucked. Either by the impending police state that will use internet pornography records to blackmail elected officials into raising my property taxes or by foreign looking young men who are either going to shoot up my local coffee shop or frighten my children at the cotton candy stand at the state fair with their unruly facial hair and dirty fingernails.
That goes without saying? But what does that have to do with anything? You're not trying to imply that there'd be no crime otherwise, are you?
I think I read somewhere that ISIS said they would try and hide in with the refugees, but I could be wrong about that. The biggest concern is that the FBI has come out and admitted they can't be sure the refugees are who they say they are. In Germany and other countries there has been a problem with folks from Turkey, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places mixing in and crossing into the country as Syrian refugees. Does this make them terrorist? Of course not. But it also doesn't make them not a terrorist. Why are they sneaking in? Another concern is that from what I've seen, the majority of the refugees are 18-30 year old males. Yes, they deserve a peaceful life just as much as anyone else, but they left behind their women and children family members in a war torn shit hole? What kind of person does that and why?
At least historically, it wasn't uncommon for the father to emigrate ahead of the rest of his family, then send for them once he established a foothold - that's how my father and his family emigrated to the US.
I understand the historical tradition, but did your grandfather leave his family in a violent war torn land where extremists were kidnapping women and children to serve as slaves? I would hope not.
Most of the refugees are women and kids under 18. I think a lot of men are absent because they've already been murdered. http://www.factcheck.org/2015/09/stretching-facts-on-syrian-refugees/
You are right, Jordan has pitched in. What I find disappointing is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina,_Saudi_Arabia Outside of Haji season, these tents sit empty. You would think that these wealthier gas and oil states, especially those directly responsible for the terror, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia would be willing to do more but apparently that is too much to ask.
Well, why would they? These "Wealthy" oil nations barely give a toss about their own people. 1/4 of Saudis live in poverty. I'm not seeing a clear article about infrastructure spending, but royal wealth is most likely the top of the money pile, and SA lost $120 billion this year. As I said earlier in the thread all of these Muslim sects and nationalities have been murdering each other for thousands of years. The only two times they've come together on anything was to finally kick out the crusaders, then the fomented Ottoman Empire, which basically sat quiet after being stopped in Europe, until it was dissolved finally after WWI (that empire was centered around Turkey, not the ME anyway). Guess what happened in WWI. Yeah, internal conflict around the ME impeded the war effort. Nothing has changed in half a millenium.
Just to comment briefly toward those with much more educated opinions on this than myself: Not only am I amazed how well this thread has gone without devolving into people just throwing shit at each other, it's also awesome to see such a politically-charged subject debated with facts, references, and historical examples. Bravo, tib.