Let’s be honest: this would suck.
If you pay even the slightest intention to channels other than TMZ, ever since the Paris attacks, the Syrian Refugee Crisis has been sorta kinda dominating US political discourse. A bit. Slightly. Maybe you noticed.
Okay – so recent Political Discourse (oxymoron) in the U.S., judging from CNN, has been all about the issue of whether or not we, the United States, should admit any Syrian Refugees – with one side saying that allowing sanctuary is a strong representation of our national values, and the other side equating it to rolling out the welcome mat to ISIS. There is one reason why this has became such a hot-button issue, all of a sudden, and you already know it if you aren’t drunk all the time: one of the Paris attackers, heretofore only identified as M. al-Mahmod (somehow, I don’t think the first “M” is for “Monsieur”) appears to have returned to Europe after his little business trip to Syria by posing as a refugee, landing in a boat much like the above on the Greek island of Leros, probably posing as a sad and frightened man much like those in the picture. What an asshole.
This revelation supports a concern that most intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Europe have long feared: that ISIS, as charming and honorable as they are, will sneak in operatives among the wet huddled masses coming ashore on Leros, Lesbos, and any other strangely named islands in Greece. Personally, I think they have – multiple times. One thing we should bear in mind for the next several years? ISIS doesn’t play fair, ISIS is sneaky. But we already knew that, right? Fuck them.
Onward: I have been watching the constant debate and soundbites on CNN (it’s one of two English channels I currently have – the other is BBC 2, and they tend to focus on cooking death matches and game shows that I can’t understand, since they revolve around British pop culture – and it is surprising how little British Pop Culture actually makes its way to the States) – as well as seeing a million different flippant, simplistic memes regarding this subject every time I go on Facebook. So after doing some thinking, I have decided to write on this subject, in an effort to guide my own thinking on the matter. But since this is such a massive issue, let’s break it down into the two main arguments, for and against, and see if we can’t figure out the sanest and most logical, consistent way through this whole issue:
(As will soon be known by reading my posts – I have a raging obsession with being consistent, and applying consistent logic to positions, versus contradictory and emotional reactions. I also have a habit of getting really irritated with observing completely contradictory opinions in other people. If you ever came into my bar and engaged me in a conversation on current events, you might recall a certain stare I would give when I was listening. This was because you were proposing two completely contradictory courses of action, and I found it really fucking annoying. This is one reason why – as Republican as I am on a lot of things – I kind of hate the current labels of Conservative and Liberal. I prefer to think of them as “Simplistic” and “Naively Simplistic.” We will discuss the dreaded “M” word later.)
Sorry – I get sidetracked easily. Anyway – here’s each point, in a nutshell:
First POV: Refusing entry to Syrian Immigrants and Refugees is Sane Security Policy, since ISIS is now demonstrating that they intend to sneak people in like wolves among the sheep:
Is this a serious concern? In a word(s): Yes for Europe, unlikely for the U.S. Because, Geography.
As espoused by The Trump in particular – and more eloquently elaborated on by Christie (but equally missing the point) – the concern is this: ISIS will use any opportunity to sneak radicals back into their home countries, avoiding the hassle of airports, security, and lost luggage, in order to carry out strikes and terror operations in front of the family back home. And the refugee stream is pretty accommodating when it comes to this objective: they come ashore with no passports, no documents to check, and what exactly are the Europeans going to do? Shove them back into the sea? It’s a clear humanitarian issue, for fucks sake, and so off they go to processing centers and housing locations. Anyone can get on a small rubber boat in North Africa, cross the Med, and claim to be anyone in order to receive a temporary travel document. ISIS operatives have already done this. Ergo: we shouldn’t open our doors to the Big Bad Wolf voluntarily, and we cannot be 100% sure that your average Syrian refugee isn’t actually an ISIS operative ready to strike.
Now – to be fair – we *are* already seeing this happen in Europe, as Monsieur M. Al-Mahmoud (“Guess my first name?) has demonstrated. Belgium has quite a few Syrian war vets, and they aren’t quite sure how they got back. And let’s not lose sight of the fact that, yes, ISIS would be thrilled to sneak operatives into the United States. In fact, they probably already have, and we will learn about it soon (but hopefully because of an FBI raid making the news, versus something much worse).
But when it comes to the question of admitting Syrian Refugees to the United States, this concern actually fades into the background. Why? Because this concern, this hypothetical, presupposes that the United States is geographically located somewhere in the vicinity of Italy or Greece, and is as easily acceptable. It’s based off the idea that any day now, residents of Nantucket are going to wake up to the sight of an armada of inflatable boats coming ashore in Miacomet, and damn it all to hell, the place smells like Aleppo Pepper for all time.
As we know, this is not happening, because it’s just not possible. If it did? My vote would be to grant immediate citizenship, because holy shit, you made it across the North Atlantic in a fucking rubber boat, and whoa, I’m impressed, and fuck it all, that deserves some sort of reward.
Put more succinctly: we are not Greece or Italy, and this is not how Syrian Refugees would be entering our country. They would arrive in an orderly process over after a period of borderline quarantine in Europe. Any Syrian Refugees arriving in the States would enter the United States through one of those wonderful places called – the Airport. Like JFK. Not Virginia Beach. And JFK is not a turnstile – any influx of this kind is going to have to get through U.S. Customs, Immigration and a whole thesaurus full of similar U.S. Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies. And this is *after* they’ve spent some time under the microscope in Europe.
And – we should also consider the timing here: these refugees are not boarding their flights in Aleppo or Damascus, and arriving in the United States after a few delightful hours (definitely not if United Airlines is flying them.) Rather, the overall plan for admission is to work with European authorities on who comes in and when. And it would not be overnight; on average (I have been told) it would be 6 months or more before they left Europe for the United States. Now, it is true that, in many many cases, these people possess none no documentation that firmly establishes that they aren’t anything other than an actual Refugee, versus ISIS Battalion #5’s greatest shot with a Kalishnikov. So in theory – in theory – any one of them could be a dreaded sleeper agent, ready to strike.
But that’s unlikely, actually, and let’s think about why for a moment: if you are ISIS, and you have a Wolf you want to hide among the Sheep, and you also know that the entire Western Intelligence Apparatus is now awake and keeping an eye out for your little demon spawn – do you want to risk your op by having them under the watchful eye of authorities for something like 6 months before reaching the target? Doubtful. ISIS likes impact – ISIS likes news headlines – and not the kind that announce the arrest of terrorists or the interruption and prevention of an attack plot. They want their guys swarming out into Munich, Paris, Brussels (ah, Brussels Level 4 Security Alert! Gonna miss you when you are gone! ) doing maximum damage as quickly as possible. You do not want to subject your operatives to extended, months long scrutiny in hopes that we really are sleeping at the switch.
Add to this fact that the vast majority of Syrian Refugees are family units, single widowed mothers, and grand-parent types – not exactly viable candidates for commando types. So unless we think that the whole fucking family signed up as half a Platoon, this argument leaks in a lot of places.
AND – final point: no one has even stopped to consider what a potential benefit these refugees might be in the war on ISIS. These are natives who lived in these regions, who escaped on foot, who know people who joined up and the lay of the land – you think they are sympathetic to I Suck I Suck? Nope. If anything – they hate them more than even your average Parisian or Eagles of Death Metal fan (this guy) does. During the Cold War – our doors were open to immigrants and asylum seekers from the East Bloc for that very reason: because they brought with them a whole treasure trove of intelligence and details. Some were trivial details, until they got put into a larger picture, and then it was pure gold.
So I say: Security Risk? Mais Non. Potential Security and Intelligence Goldmine? Peut-etre.
Second POV: Not letting these refugees in betrays who we are as Americans – our history, our promise, our National Identity:
Yes – America is, by definition, a a land of immigrants and refugees, so this would be true. With a caveat.
For one – it is pretty easy to remember that we are a Nation of Immigrants from the get go (Despite a resurgence of those Memes of Native Americans from 150 years ago paired with ironic quotes about immigrants and illegal immigration, and how Americans themselves were the first illegal immigrant. It’s annoying and simplistic, and not particularly helpful to modern times, other than maybe making some people feel bad, which is always fun. History is a good guide, but it’s not a goddamn blueprint for the future, and you have fuck-all clue how Crazy Horse would have reacted in modern times, so quit putting those up. Thank you.)
And despite the discrimination that the Irish faced – or the Germans in WWI – or African Immigrants, or Mexicans, or on and on and on – we have a long history of bringing in new and interesting ethnic identities (yes, not all was voluntary, but let’s stick to the main scope of the argument) and eventually, slowly making them part of us. And this has given us strength, and allowed us to lead, without any of the baggage you see in other nations, with no excessive pull from familial heritage or even distant relations. (Case in point – did you know Herman Goering’s nephew flew B-17 Bomber missions in WWII, and served honorably? Werner Goering – check it out.)
The fact is, you would have a seriously hard time convincing me that the United States was only great because of WASP’s (like me) whose families have been here since 1600 (not like me). It’s not a Liberal or Conservative fact to acknowledge, it’s just a fact. We are like a Mutt: for the last two centuries, our strongest genes have repeatedly won out over the weaker ones, resulting in a hybrid that contains the best of many different cultures, and is stronger and more durable for it. Want to know a reason why we’ve had 239 years of the same government, why we’ve had Presidential election disputes without seeing tanks or soldiers in the streets of DC? Because we really are damn good, that’s why: America is Exceptional, and Liberals can deal with it. Even after all these years, we are new, we are a mutt, we are an amalgamation of, in many cases, the best of a lot of different cultures that have blended together to create a lot of good things. (Like General Tso’s chicken: you think General Tso’s personal chef created that fucking awesome hangover fighter on the eve of a battle in 1536, in a tent, somewhere near Mongolia? Fuck no: Try Chinese immigrants cooking in New York City sometime in the 1930’s. Don’t believe me? Fly to Shanghai and try and order it. Good luck.)
In short – there is no reason to think that Syrian Refugees won’t make great Americans, buy things, invent things, pay their taxes, start businesses that contribute to the tax base, or introduce some new awesome sauce to use on french fries or something.
But there’s the caveat: we need to make sure they become great AMERICANS. We can’t repeat Europe’s mistakes, or shit will go sideways.
No, I didn’t just get all “Walmart Righteous” on you. I’m speaking as an observer of European culture for some 30 years now, and as someone who lives right in the center of this latest round of legitimate concern and subject of CNN click-bait (my favorite so far this week – all caps: BRUSSELS UNDER SIEGE) And here’s what I’ve learned: if you bring in a large population of people – especially those fleeing from tragedy or war or strife – it’s absolutely vital to make sure you absorb them culturally into the population, and turn them into good citizens sharing the National identity. It’s not culturally supremacist – it’s actually one hell of an effective way to prevent a certain portion of your population doesn’t get all fundamentalist on you.
Consider Belgium, France, Brussels in particular, to narrow the scope. Right now, I am roughly 5 miles from Molenbeek, and only a couple of miles from Schaerbeek, which have been in the news recently as hotbeds of ISIS activity. And they are. Dude: the Belgians have something like 150 names of ISIS operatives on a list – they know who these people are – and yet, they can’t do anything until they break the law. Those 150 are actually quite happy, because they have sanctuary in those neighborhoods. How did this happen? Well, even though Europe opened it’s doors to a significant level of migration in the years after WWII, they did a shitty job of absorbing and involving these populations, probably because of, well…disinterest because of the effort? Latent racism? Some form of casual discrimination?
Whatever the reason – this lack of assimilation has fucked things up royally, and created a problem that has grown: as the threat of fundamentalism rose over the last 20 years, they chose to avoid dealing with it, fooling themselves into thinking they were practicing a belated form of tolerance. This mistake – and the mistakes that followed – are the reasons why we here in Brussels find ourselves on Day 5 of the highest security posture possible: the local and national governments have known for quite some time that they have a major problem – like I said, they have names – but reversing 40+ years of failed social policies is kinda hard. It wasn’t until Paris bled last week that (I’m hoping) they realized just how urgent the problem is: there’s quite literally Belgian Brussels, and Islamic Brussels, and you can’t make this go away overnight.
So simply put: the European practice of Multiculturalism – of opening some doors while keeping others closed, and tolerating the development of geographically specific cultures that, in most cases, share very little in common with modern secular Europe – are a recipe for fucking disaster. Multiculturalism, as defined by the Europeans, as practiced within a singular national body, is a total, abject failure. And it allows ISIS virtual bases, sanctuaries, deep inside “enemy territory”.
Now, multiculturalism is a favorite word of a lot of Liberals I know – and when you get down to it, its sort of a fluff word: taking the idea of America to the point of absurdity. It ultimately creates little pockets of cultures that don’t always reflect our National self image, that do not share modern values, and allows them to grow. In some cases? Like cancer. As we just discussed, this has been in practice in Europe, unofficially, for the last half century. And it has brought us to this point, and the moment of Paris on Friday the 13th. Multiculturalism is really enforced isolation disguised as respect, and societal problem-avoidance cloaked as tolerance.
If I take on any more points tonight – this will turn into a book, and at that point, I would ask myself why I didn’t just write it and try and publish it and make some money. Beer isn’t cheap here. So we will touch more on this issue later, when I’m not more interested in completing Season 2 of “Sherlock” on Netflix. .
But in summation: that’s what I mean when I say, in regards to the Syrian Refugees: “This isn’t the Enemy. But we can make it the Enemy.” These people don’t represent any sort of inherent, immediate security threat. But our decisions over the next several years – our cultural, political and societal decisions on how exactly we welcome these groups to our country – and any reluctance to impose the culture of the new host country, our American culture – can sure as hell send things sideways down the road.
We do need to keep the lamp lit for tired masses, yearning to be free, or who simply want a shot to make a pile of money without paying ridiculously high taxes – after all, this is what makes America kind of awesome. But we also need to understand the value of our own inherent national culture, how the American ideal (even if we haven’t gotten there yet) is still of such importance in this world – and impress it directly onto our new friends and neighbors.
The message must be: Welcome to America, here’s a hat with our flag on it. And some fireworks to set off on the 4th. Be American. Aspire to be the ideal picture of an American that we ourselves are still trying to attain: tolerant, modern, free, thoughtful. Appreciate your own heritage, but don’t assume you get to carry it all here with you. And don’t forget – the Old World, the place you came from, is now in the past. We don’t carry those things with us. English and Irish are neighbors. Germans and French hang out on weekends. And on and on and on.
So I say: open the doors – but let’s make the rules known. Bring these people in, away from danger, introduce them to the new world – don’t encourage the continuation of the old. Otherwise, we make the same mistakes Europe has been making for 50+ years, and the disaster will be one to deal with later. Don’t believe me? Go take a late night stroll in Molenbeek. Or however the fuck the Dutch spell it.
stuckinthemiddle 