Refugees

Would You Bet Your Life?

Mark Noonan26 Comments

I’m sorry I didn’t do a more Thanksgiving-y post yesterday but that shooting in DC got me riled up – and also got me thinking.

Trump announced last night that reverse-migration is now our goal, and this is the correct way to go. And everyone who is against this – even the leadership of my Catholic Church – should understand it and get on board with it. This is serious business and we need to understand what is truly just and merciful here.

I do want to be helpful. I do want to bring aid to the suffering. I don’t want some poor person to die because they’re in the “wrong” religion or ethnic group or sexual orientation of what have you. It is hideously wrong – here in 2025 – that some people are still being killed over such matters and I do want us, as a people, to do what we can to stop it and rescue those who are most immediately threatened with harm. But we have to be sensible.

I’m a pretty knowledgeable person. Over my 61 years of life, I have studied a lot of things intensely, especially history. For most nations on Earth, I can give you at least a short rundown on their history. I do know that in lots of places tribe, religion and ethnic grouping are of vast importance in deciding what sort of life a person is going to have, good or bad. But even with all my knowledge, I couldn’t begin to unwind for you all the nuances of the tribes of Somalia, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Click on this link: it is a list of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria. You’ll be scrolling down for a bit. There’s a lot of them. And that is just the tribes. When you get into religion you add a whole, new layer of demographic murk. Sure, its about half Muslim, bit less than half Christian with a small number of African traditionalists…but the Muslims have a host of sects with sometimes very different ideas of what Islam is. Meanwhile, over on the Christian side you’ve got a host of different denominations. What does this all mean? That in a lifetime of intensive study, you couldn’t possibly unravel all the various ethnic and religious strands of Nigeria and come to any solid conclusion about how the people there will react to particular situations.

And we’re supposed to be able to vet these people? Make such a solid judgement. Know with high certainty that transferred to the USA they won’t be a problem? How? How could we possibly? Sure, as we’re a society based upon Christianity we can probably do a pretty good job with Protestant and Catholic Nigerians (though, even there, lots of nuance! It isn’t like all Protestant Nigerians are carbon-copies of American Protestants) but how are we to unravel all the various strands of Islam? Even Muslims can’t. And then overlay that with the various tribal and cultural differences. They say when you go to a foreign land that you should take care most of all not to offend the locals. Which is true. But how can an outsider know what would be offensive? As an American I am likely to make a faux pas in Germany…which is an European country based on Christianity. Think of how boorish I might be in Nigeria even if I were trying to be polite?

All we can say for certain as regards places like Nigeria, Afghanistan and Somalia is that for decades now the people there have been engaged in vicious internal conflicts which revolve around different ethnicity and religion. In other words, even they can’t sort themselves out. Even they – who live next to each other – can’t compose their differences and get along. But we’re supposed to import these people to the USA and other Western nations and we’ll get them to calm down? Not in a million years could we do this – not with all the good will in the world.

It is still early in the time line but the first glance at the shooter in DC is that he’s an Afghan brought here under Biden as one of our allies in the Afghan war. Which might all be true enough. But we’re also learning that at least for some time now he’s been on welfare – along with his wife and children. That he has no identifiable skills. This makes me kinda curious about just what he did for us in Afghanistan. Whatever it was, it didn’t create a love for America and Americans in his heart. For all we know he was just a stool pigeon who had to get out of Dodge. But, regardless, here is what happened: we bet a life that he would be ok here. As it turns out, the life of a 19 year old National Guardswoman. It wasn’t his handlers who paid. It wasn’t the advocates of refugees. It wasn’t the Democrats who call us racists. It wasn’t the shooter’s family or friends or those who helped him navigate the system to obtain benefits. Nope. None of them. A life was bet, but it wasn’t theirs. It was Sarah Beckstrom’s. Who’s father had to hold her hand on Thanksgiving as she breathed her last.

The bottom line is that every time we allow a foreigner to move into the USA, we are betting lives on the outcome. What everyone must ask themselves before letting any foreigner in is, “am I willing to bet my life that this person won’t go bad?”. And if you can’t answer a resounded “yes” to that question, then its best that foreigner not come in. It is an absolute thing – if the foreigner is not here then that foreigner can never do anything bad here. If the foreigner is here then infinite possibilities of bad open up. So, as I spin the Wheel O’Foreigners if it lands on a Spanish lawyer coming in to visit Disneyland I’m going to place my bet…but it it winds up on some guy from a failed State wracked by ethno-religious violence…probably not gonna place that bet.

And if that guy from the failed State has provided some service to my nation? Well, then I’m going to be a lot more helpful. Still might not let him into my country, but I’ll be helpful. Like working with a friendly nation of similar ethno-religious makeup where I can settle him. So, maybe the Afghan guy goes to Morocco? Fine by me. I’ll even set him up with a pension.

And if Morocco won’t take him? Then I’m going to ask why – as the Moroccans are going to be far better at understanding the nuances than I am and if they tell me I’d be mad to let him settle in Morocco then while I still might try to find somewhere else, I’d be stupidly insane to allow him into my country. That is, I won’t bet Sarah’s life that I should let this guy in.

And this is simply just – and merciful. Do what we can to help within the confines of reality. There are lots of places in the world. Being in the USA isn’t the only place to be safe and prosperous. And, also, we are not responsible for every bad thing going on. At the end of the day, each nation does have to sort itself out. I get why the various tribes want to kill each other but I also say it is just stupid and they should stop. And if they never stop, then it’ll just have to go the way they want it…without me having to import the ethnic conflict.

Will you bet your life? That is the question. After all, you bet your life every day. When you take a shower, you’re betting your life you can get cleaned up without slipping and cracking your head open. It is, of course, a low-risk bet. While there are probably some hundreds who die each year from slips in the shower, when you bounce that against the gigantic number of showers taken each year the risk is vanishingly small. But it is still there! Each choice is a bet – and a bet of a life. Letting in a Japanese telecom executive and his wife who want to do some shopping in Beverly Hills is an astonishingly low-risk bet. Letting in an unskilled, unemployed Afghan and his family…much higher risk. And, hey, you still might want to risk it…but, remember: you are betting a life. Probably not yours, but a life nonetheless. How much risk will you take? In other words, suppose you let the Afghan in but it would be you to be made to pay the price of anything he does wrong? You’d take a long and hard look at it before you said, “yes”, that is for certain.

And that is how we have to approach this. Much as I’d like to have the shooter’s sponsors in jail for life over this, I can’t do that. But that must be our mindset in deciding who we allow in. If we don’t take this mindset, then we’re playing with matches in a room filled with gunpowder. We have to get much more serious about this whole thing – while not losing our mercy and humanity. While still being willing to help. To do what we can. And, yes, to even still take some in…but only those we’re very sure about. I don’t want to ever have a father have to kiss his little girl goodbye on Thanksgiving because we were unconcerned about who we let into the country.

We Aren’t Obligated to Afghan Refugees

Mark Noonan5 Comments

There’s been discussion about what to do regarding the Afghans who worked with us over the past 20 years and the usual battle lines are drawn between those who want to get them all here as quickly as possible, no real questions asked, and those of us figuring we should think about this.

First and foremost, we didn’t find Afghans to work with in order to discover a future pool of immigrants. We were working with them in order to build a better Afghanistan for Afghanis. Presumably, these patriotic Afghans were working with us for the same goal, right? I mean, there’s no chance they were doing it for purely mercenary reasons in order to get a green card, right?

Well, yeah. Whatever.

Now, to be sure, there are some whom we should definitely bring in if they want to come. I understand that about 600 Afghan soldiers are helping us to guard the airport as we complete our withdrawal. Head of the line, as far as I’m concerned. Their immediate family, too, because we know the Taliban will massacre them. There are probably a good number of others. But what is being proposed, at least in some quarters, is that pretty much every Afghan who ever acted in any capacity with our forces be taken in. That is ridiculous. Doubly so when we see that the Afghan army ran away…and we’ve seen the pictures of C-17 transport plans packed to the walls with fit, military aged males who abandoned their mothers, wives and daughters to the Taliban. Who the heck wants a pack of cowards as immigrants?

We need to take care. We are not morally obligated to every person out there. The United States is not the reserve homeland for every person who comes in second in a tribal supremacy fight. We tried that and we got Ilhan Omar. Now, faced with that stark fact, I have seen a person argue that Omar is mouthing the platitudes of upper class white women rather than the cultural background of Somalia. Fine and freaking dandy – it doesn’t matter where she gets her views from. What matters is that the United States of America, at high cost, rescued her worthless ass from Somalia and now she stands up in my Congress of the United States and calls me and my nation racist. That she’s also a vile anti-Semite just makes it all worse. Trust me, hating the United States is a job plenty of Americans are willing to do. We don’t need immigrant help in that quarter. I must, perforce, put up with America-hating Americans…but I am under no obligation to put up with America-hating foreigners.

It is entirely legitimate to question the number and sort of immigrants who are to be brought in. We willy nilly bring in everyone who ever took a dump in an American latrine and we’re going to get people who hate us. We’re going to get people who will work with the Islamists to attack the United States. It isn’t a question of “if”. It is for certain it will happen. We can place some reliance upon Afghans who actually bled alongside our troops. Everyone else needs to be very carefully vetted. And Afghan soldiers who deserted their posts? Send them right back to Afghanistan if no other nation will take them. I don’t care what happens to them – they clearly didn’t care what happened to Afghanistan; we’re entirely square with them.

Enough of this idea that we owe unlimited debts to people who never for a moment felt they owed unlimited obligation to us. Enough of this idea that there is endless room in the United States. This is our country. We’re allowed to be as patriotic and exclusive as every other nation out there. America is for Americans and for that small selection of foreigners we determine are worthy of us.

Democrats Call in the George W. Bush to Save Their Party

Mark Noonan15 Comments

As polls show Obama and the Democrats in the distinct political minority in dealing with radical Islamic terrorism, they’ve decided only one person can save them:

I guess we really all do miss W, now.

This ad is nauseating – for 8 years Democrats routinely insulted President Bush in the most disgusting terms possible. He was Chimpy McSmirk BusHitler. He was evil. He lied to get us into Iraq so that Cheney could make money. He was a war criminal. But here are the Democrats at their shameless worst – using the reasonable words of a good President to try and shore up support for the disastrously failed policies of President Obama.

We all know why President Bush downplayed the Islamic aspects of our enemies – in order that it would be easier for us to defeat those elements within Islam determined to kill us. And to this day, no wise person wants any sort of war on Islam – which is why the GOP candidates of 2016 are careful to state that our problem is with radical Islamic terrorism – not with Islam, as a thing. But Obama doesn’t see anything in Islam as a problem – he has decided that there is no problem within Islam. That Islam has absolutely nothing to do with what is happening in Syria – or what happened in Paris last week. Or what may happen in the United States when the terrorists attack here, again.

It is Obama’s miserable failure in Iraq and Syria which has led the world to a crisis where half the population of Syria has been displaced and a sea of humanity is now seeking safety anywhere they can find it. In what must be some sort of pathetic attempt on Obama’s part to make up for his failure, he has decided that he’ll get 10,000 Syrians into the United States – a drop in the ocean of suffering. This allows Obama to preen himself on his generosity – while doing nothing to actually solve the problem his failures have helped to bring about. But in the aftermath of Paris, everyone is wary – everyone with any sense at all wants to have much more careful screening of refugees. This is just common sense – but as it wasn’t Obama’s idea, he wants no part of it. But the people are against him – and so this cynical use of President Bush.

I think this will go over like a lead balloon. Nothing in the past 7 years has to completely demonstrated the moral bankruptcy of the Democrat party.