Even more to worry about: a one-upmanship rivalry between Al Qaeda and ISIS to show off who can do a more spectacular attack
NYT
Paris and Mali Attacks Expose Lethal Qaeda-ISIS Rivalry
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/world/middleeast/paris-and-mali-attacks-expose-a-lethal-al-qaeda-isis-rivalry.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Honestly? I’ve stopped watching any news on TV. It’s just too depressing. Between Trump being a potential political force and this, I just don’t want to see it anymore. I’ll read the NYT and WSJ instead.
Every time I hear Trump or Carson speak, it scares me even more, so I also try to keep my news sources clean of too much hype from them.
I get my news from The Onion.
People need to get a grip, IMO.
The amount of fearmongering going on is completely over the top. That it is coming from people in “leadership” positions is irresponsible, not to mention downright dangerous.
@emilybee, I agree. One public figure talking about making Muslims in the US register into some kind of database in order that they can be more easily monitored. I thought it was a joke at first. I thought he was facetiously suggesting this. I was waiting for the punchline, like we could brand them, or make them identify themselves somehow by wearing some kind of emblem on their clothes so that we can know they are around…
I have a very dear old friend on fb who is uh, trumpeting, that idea too. It’s only patriotic, she says. If they asked blond haired and blue eyed women to sign up because of terrorism than I would gladly sign up, she says. Sigh…
It doesn’t really matter if ISIS fighters were knowingly let in or let in on accident. The point is that we are giving them a chance to walk right in the front door, which is absolutely crazy.
One bad apple spoils the bunch. It’s unfortunate that 99% of these refugees are decent people, looking for a better way of life.
That explains a lot. :))
Yup. Like this one. Funny!
http://www.theonion.com/multiblogpost/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mideast-regio-11534
In the past, we feared refugees because they were Jewish, potentially communist, Catholic, from “southern countries”, potentially terrorist anarchists, potentially degenerate, etc. European Jews, Eastern Europeans, Italians, Irishmen… proved to be incredibly valuable additions to our society.
Life isn’t 100% risk-free. And still we live.
Our odds of dying because of a fake Syrian refugee are roughly the same as the odds of dying from a shark bite or probably lower. Have you stopped swimming because there might be a shark somewhere in the water, and that shark might bite you, and you might die from the bite? Wouldn’t you think that, if your neighbor explained why he’s stopped swimming, it’s because of sharks, that might bite him and he’d die, his aluminum hat isn’t far and you might need to talk to his children about mental health issues?
Or have you stopped walking outside because you might be hit by lightning? Have you stopped drinking because water might be poisoned?
Please realize that right now, in France, people are bracing for water getting poisoned, for chemical attacks. Because that’s a real risk that’s been mentioned. Right now, as I write, Brussels is bracing for potential attacks.
And they’re not using the dead nor refugees for political gain.
Are the French going to give us lessons in courage and strength?
By the way, they, too, are in an electoral period. Elections are 2 weeks from now.
Refugees are screened. Could one slip in? Sure. But how likely is that?
You can’t live your life based on something THAT unlikely to happen, and no governement (nor anyone who wants to be taken seriously) should make policy based on such irrational thinking.
Or you could give up your job because of the likelihood you’ll win the lottery.
(Higher than refugees being terrorists, that’s for sure.)
I, too, thought it was a joke when I heard that a politician who isn’t a marginal nutcase in a local village council race all Muslims should go get registered in a national database, with a punchline like “and next we’ll have them wear a green crescent sewn to their breast pockets”.
Emotions are running high but frankly, French people seem way more rational than some Americans. And THEY lost their friends and family members in the attacks.
People I know could have died so I’m incensed that victims are being used in this way for electoral purpose.
Politicians here are just exploiting these deaths by whipping up fear and hysteria, hoping to gain from it, and I’m disgusted.
Where is your evidence for this inflammatory claim? Where is your evidence that any percent at all of the refugees who get selected to come to the US are terrorists? Has ISIS proven to be stupid in their plots before? “Let’s see… we want to go to the US to blow things up. Should we get a tourist visa and fly right in, or should we start a process where our guys get checked seven ways from Sunday, on the tiny chance that they’ll be chosen to go to a country three years from now, and the even tinier chance that the country will be the United States?”
Should Harvard stop admitting white Christian males, on the chance that one of them will shoot up the campus? One bad apple spoils the bunch. It’s unfortunate that 99% of these applicants are decent people, looking for a better education.
@fractalmstr – sorry dude. Even Republicans are starting to agree that the fearmongering being bandied about by its presidential candidates AND elected officials is wrong, dangerous and downright un-American. Of course, you can go ahead and scream, like Chicken Little. It’s your right.
I prefer to learn from history. A few decades ago the US turned away a ship filled with refugees, many of them children - citing fears that these people were commie non-Christians. Of those aboard all the children were murdered, along with half of the adults onboard.
We now face a similar decision. Let’s do the Christian thing (says this atheist.) Let’s do the right thing. Let’s do the humane thing.
Let’s be “home of the brave.” Be brave, fractalmster.
The idea that ISIS would plant people amongst those waiting in refugee camps to undergo a multi-year process of only possibly getting into the US is patently ludicrous.
Anyone with a French or Belgian or British or whatever passport can just book a flight and fly here without applying for a visa.
This is the level of ignorance we are dealing with. The same people who became hysterical about Ebola are doing it all over again. The same people who whipped up Ebola hysteria for political gain right before an election are doing it again.
I wished this shocked me but sadly it doesn’t.
I’ve been burned so many times by believing the story from one side that I’ll wait to hear more about the Sinister Pastry-Wielding Arabic Speaker Trying To Board A Plane being outraged. I do like the part about how when people were worried about the white box he was holding, he opened it up and offered them baklava.
From the Chicago Tribune. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-arabic-speaker-says-he-was-briefly-kept-off-flight-at-midway-airport-after-complaint-20151120-story.html
That story makes me so angry. I am saddened Southwest didn’t handle it better.
It’s an AP story based on what the Baklava-Brandishing Assailant says. There might be another side to the story.
Nevertheless, I must remember this tactic. “Say, what’s in that suspicious good-smelling box white cake box that says Zaitoun Bakery on it? I’m afraid I’ll have to investigate,” she says hungrily.
I had individually boxed baklava as the groom’s cake at my wedding. Made by the ladies at my MIL’s church.
It’s even on Fox News. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/20/arabic-speaking-man-briefly-stopped-from-boarding-plane-after-passenger/
Southwest also commented something about passenger safety being most important.
I’m flying them on the 1st (I fly SW more often the any other airline) and I’m extremely disappointed in the action they took. We do have Jet Blue finally but I can see them doing something equally as appalling, too