“The vetting process takes 12 to 18 months, or even more for Syrian refugees. Seems to me a terrorist doesn’t want to faff around for a year and a half, waiting to get in.”
I do agree with you @“Cardinal Fang” , however, the 9/11 terrorists were very patient in their planning and the lead up to their attacks. I don’t think doing thinks quickly is always part of the terrorist’s plans.
There’s also very good reason to believe that the resources don’t exist to provide information to properly vet anyone coming out of the Syrian war zone.
Sure, but doing things the most expeditious way is part of their plans. It would probably be easier and faster to get in another way. OTOH, ISIS hates the refugees, because they put the lie to the idea of ISIS being a Muslim paradise. So sneaking in as a refugee and then blowing something up could cause opinion to turn against refugees.
But slamming our doors against people fleeing the hell on earth that is the Islamic State in Syria does not seem to me to be the American way. We slammed our doors against Jews trying to flee Nazi Germany, and that didn’t work out very well.
The analogy to Jews in World War II only works if you are referring to Syrian Christians who are targeted for their religion. This is a wholly different situation when you consider that the vast majority of Syrian refugees are young men of fighting age. That demographic is problematic wherever they are coming from and whatever their race or religion. They shouldn’t be allowed in without very careful vetting. Since we can’t provide that now, slow it down.
There are some genuinely innocent people trying to flee Syria, there are also more than a few who are or have been fighters on either side. Letting in tens or hundreds of thousands of them isn’t the only or even the best solution to this problem, which has been mentioned by democratic politicians and commentators.
I recall taking the ferry a few times, way back when I was at school in England. One trip was during school vacation in March, I think. The seas were very rough, and the boat was full of British schoolboys, gorging themselves on chocolate and then throwing up everywhere. Yuck. It seemed that my father and I were the only two people on board who were not seasick. We spent most of the voyage walking around the outside decks, trying to avoid the vomit.
And yes, I would rather do that again than take the Chunnel! 
I am probably wrong, but I thought that the syringes found in the hotel rooms were used to make TATP, the highly unstable explosives used in their explosive vests.
I would rather take the ferry too. In my situation, we had very little time to spare. I was chaperoning two girls as a part of a larger group of high school seniors visiting London. One of the girls I was chaperoning had literally never been out of state, other than to one other nearby state where she had grandparents, and might not get the opportunity to see Paris again for many many years, if ever. I wanted to get there as quickly as possible and stay as late as possible the next day so that she could see as much of Paris as I could show her. So the Chunnel was the fastest and most economical way to go. We took the very first leg of the morning, and the very last one the next night. And had a blast.
It was a little nerve wracking for me. But I tend towards the fearful side. I try very hard not to let my fearful nature change my traveling behavior, and for the most part, it hasn’t.
DH would far rather take the Chunnell. He has NO fears, irrational or otherwise. He does, however, get very very seasick, so from his perspective, there would be no dilemma at all.
Have you guys seen the latest news from Germany? Obviously it’s all breaking now, but seems very concerning.
I hope we will not close the doors to the people who really need help, but I also hope we will be doing a better vetting job with these refugees than the process used to vet religious refugees from the former Soviet Union through mid-nineties. Thankfully, the bad guys who slipped in under the disguise of a refugee status in that group were only involved in non-violent crimes (organized food stamp fraud, gasoline diluted with water, car theft, etc. ).
BunsenBurner, I agree completely. As I said, I work with immigrants by choice as a volunteer and I wouldn’t stop for the world, but for a whole host of reasons, none of which are racial, it’s important to be cautious because the consequences are so huge.
I have been under the impression that most of the refugees from Syria are families. Perhaps they are just the ones who get publicity. But I heard something on NPR yesterday that described a process likely of at least 2 years, often closer to three, to get into the US. True, the 9/11 bombers were playing a long game. But it is also true that they were all single men, and most of them were Saudis. Experience apparently should teach us that single Saudi men are the ones we should be scrutinizing.
But George H.W. Bush and other Carlyle Group people were meeting with Saudis–including an actual brother of Osama bin Ladin–the day before 9/11, and their conference was interrupted by the attacks. Planes full of wealthy and connected Saudis were allowed to fly out of the country in the the next ten days or less with what sounds like only cursory interviewing, if any, by the FBI. One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to realize that Saudis are treated differently.
I would certainly agree that single men should be at the bottom of the priority list. (Of course, as soon as we do that, they will start setting up the infiltrators with wives and babies.)
No, the numbers are very heavily male so far.
It’s a difficult situation with no easy, quick answer and I can see the points of both sides. The humanitarian side of me would like to embrace the refugees and help them out, but I hope we do so with caution and with a well thought out vetting and screening process, which will take time and money.
I find it interesting that when the refugees first began streaming out of Syria and into Europe, many American voices were critical of various European countries for not opening the borders and welcoming the refugees freely into their countries and I thought at the time, how would Americans respond in the same circumstances? Even without any threat of terrorists being amongst the refugees, it is a huge burden to many European countries who are taking in many, many more refugees than the USA has agreed to and in an instantaneous way not over a 1-2 year period.
There is no way to ‘vet’ any of the Syrian refugees unless they are already in the FBI’s database. So said the FBI.
So anyone saying that these refugees will be thoroughly vetted is simply ignoring the facts.
Well, we’ve seen how Americans have responded: not well! The vast majority of Governors in this country say they won’t admit refugees.
But you’re right, it is a complex problem, because we’re dealing with an enemy that’s based overseas, supported by many of our “friends,” and also embedded within the European, and (to a much, much lesser extent so far) American society. So to fight/contain this enemy you have to focus on several fronts, including in our own back yard.
I highly doubt that this anti-immigrant hysteria some are whipping up is going to help us fight that fight!
I think it isolates Muslims and scares refugees and immigrants – the very communities we need on our side to help us identify radicalized, potentially terrorist-oriented, members among them. And by us, I mean both in Europe and in the U.S.
The new refugees are not the problem per se, but the situation is hardly clear. On the one hand, almost all terrorists that have attacked innocents in Europe had local roots. The attackers in Paris were no different with French and Belgian roots. Despite the roots that go 1-2 generations back, those lost souls represent a new breed of “immigrants” as they have lost all allegiance to their new country and most often their friends and family. They have succumbed to a process of brain washing and intimidation from the inner ranks of Islamist leaders who have been permitted to operate with little interference of the local forces.
The basis problem is that the MO was to identify the potential terrorists (most have had issues with the police growing up) and monitor their return from areas such as Syria. Now, with a massive influx of refugees, the system is overwhelmed and countries have to weight increasing the controls against being seen as inhuman in dealing with the plight of truly innocent people. A really grey area.
As a side note, has anyone wondered about the lack of hospitality for the refugees in neighboring countries? Some have decried the difficult path for immigrants to gain citizenship or residency in Western Europe, but is it not surprising that the same is quasi or totally impossible throughout the Muslim world?
Oh, I agree that the situation is far from clear.
Which is precisely why this anti-immigrant/refugee reaction is so alarming.
If we suspect there may be terrorists among refugees all the more reason to work to gain the refugees’ trust so they can help us identify/arrest/contain them.
The Islamic bashing/refugee bashing is counter productive. ISIL obviously only needs a few handful of radicalized westerners at a time to pull of their agenda. Bashing the Muslim populations and the refugees allows them to say, “see this is what Westerners think about us.”
Easy peasy to get recruits when we are handing them their argument on a silver platter.
The vast majority of which refugees? Half of the entire population of Syria has been displaced, seven million people. They are therefore refugees. It would be impossible for the vast majority of them to be young men.
As far as the Syrian refugees who are in the pipeline to come to the US or who already have, I’ve read that the large majority are women and children. I’d be interested to see a citation that says differently. The US is only going to accept a small number of refugees, so we can be picky.
If you want to say that the vast majority of Syrian refugees who survive the dangerous, expensive and arduous process to get from Syria to Europe are young men, that may be, but that speaks to how dangerous and expensive the process is to get out.