Trump: “There’s something going on” with Islam

In light of the fact that Trump denounced our free speech event in Garland, Texas, last May, it is not at all clear that he understands the jihad imperative or the war against free speech, or is at all equipped to counter them. People like Trump, Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham who took issue what we were doing in the wake of the jihad attack on our event in Garland don’t seem to grasp what the freedom of speech is all about.

What they’re missing is neatly encapsulated in what used to be an adage: “I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In other words, I will stand with you against tyranny, because even if I disagree with your opinions, I understand that once opinions begin to be criminalized, or those who hold them bullied into silence, we are all the poorer, and all at risk.

Trump doesn’t get this. After Garland, he breezily and readily voiced his willingness to adhere to Sharia blasphemy laws and refrain from drawing Muhammad.

But in this instance, however, he is running afoul of the prevailing insanity of our public discourse. It is blazingly obvious that “there’s something going on” with Islam, and “a lot of hatred coming out of at least a big part of it,” and “something nasty coming out of there.” That these are even controversial statements, much less evidence of “demagoguery,” shows how stringently the mainstream media enforces politically correct fictions. Islam is a religion of peace, and if you express the slightest skepticism, even the diffident and tentative skepticism Trump voices here, then you’re a xenophobic demagogue. White male Christians are the real terror threat, don’t you know that? War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

“Morning Plum: Yes, Donald Trump’s demagoguery just got even uglier,” by Greg Sargent, Washington Post, November 30, 2015:

…Now Trump’s demagoguery has taken a new turn that could focus the debate a bit more directly on this implied message.

On Morning Joe today, Bloomberg’s John Heilemann asked Trump directly whether he thinks Islam is an inherently violent or peaceful religion. Trump declined to answer, and instead suggested that there is a “lot of hatred” coming out of a “big part” of Islam:

HEILEMANN: “Do you think that Islam is an inherently peaceful religion that’s been perverted by some? Or do you think Islam is an inherently violent religion?”

TRUMP: “All I can say is there’s something going on. I don’t know that that question can be answered. It could be answered two ways. It could be answered both ways. But there’s something going on there. There’s a lot of hatred coming out of at least a big part of it. You see the hatred. We see it every day. You see it, whether it’s in Paris, or whether it’s the World Trade Center….

“There’s something nasty coming out of there. You could answer it any way you want. But at least we have to know the problem.”…

By declining to say whether Islam is a violent religion, and by suggesting that “hatred” is coming out of a “big part” of Islam, Trump has exposed the xenophobic subtext of his rhetoric about Muslims…

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Texas governor threatens lawsuit against Syrian resettlement contractor

Abbott vs. Miliband!

The threat is directed at the International Rescue Committee*** headed by the former British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. The lawsuit would pit Abbott against Miliband who came to the US in 2013 to head up the largest (financially) of the nine US resettlement contractors.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Texas health commissioner Chris Traylor issued the first lawsuit threat over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in a letter to the Dallas branch of the International Rescue Committee, which said earlier this month that it supports accepting Syrian refugees. AUSTIN – Texas officials are escalating their opposition to Syrian refugees with a new order aimed specifically at resettlement groups that have indicated they will accept people fleeing the war-torn country: change your mind or risk getting sued by the state.

miliband bananas

David Milliban, friend of George Soros and Hillary Clinton.

“We have been unable to achieve cooperation with your agency,” Traylor wrote in the letter, which was released to the Houston Chronicle late Sunday, adding that, “Failure by your organization to cooperate with the State of Texas as required by federal law may result in the termination of your contract with the state and other legal action.”

Similar letters are expected to be sent to any refugee resettlement group that takes a similar position against Gov. Greg Abbott.

Go to the Houston Chronicle for more and to see the letter.  Alas, it isn’t just Syrian Muslims going to Texas, but the state has been a target for the resettlement of large numbers of Somali and Iraqi Muslims as well.

Eight of nine major resettlement contractors operating in Texas:

Abbott may have to sue eight of the nine federal resettlement contractors (this is from Part II of my Texas trilogy of posts).  These are the nine federal resettlement contractors:

Please go to this list of subcontractors everywhere and scroll down to Texas.

Texas is the number one resettlement state in the nation! And, never forget, Democrats and the No borders agitators are working day and night to turn Red states Blue—Texas is their number one target!

Recognizing how lucrative the ‘welcoming’ Texas turf is (contractors are paid by the head to resettle refugees), eight of the nine contractors have set up shop somewhere in Texas.  The only one with no office there yet is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society!

For more on Texas, go here to our three part series from earlier this summer.

And for much more on David Miliband and his friends in high places, click here.   Hillary adores him!

***From this post:

International Rescue Committee (secular)
(From 2012 Form 990)

Total revenue: $456,122,865
Govt. grants and contracts (including travel loan income): $332,271,151
Percent taxpayer funded: 73%
Top salary: $485,321  (this is the salary of the former CEO, but we assume Miliband is pulling down similar numbers).

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Is your church lobbying Congress for 100,000 Syrians to be admitted to the U.S.

Liberals in Canada change their minds: Let’s not rush into this Syrian refugee thing we promised

14,000 illegal Muslim migrants disappear without trace

What could possibly go wrong?

“14,000 illegal immigrants disappear without trace,” The Local, November 27, 2015 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

More than 14,000 foreign nationals told to leave Sweden have instead gone underground, with police saying there is little they can do to enforce deportation orders.

A total of 21,748 people had been given deportation orders by the Migration Agency at the end of October – the largest number in history, the Aftonbladet tabloid reported on Friday.

Of those, 14,140 are registered by police as ‘departed’ or ‘wanted’. Some are believed to still be at unknown locations in Sweden while others are thought to have left the country.

“We simply don’t know where they are,” Patrik Engström, head of the national border police, told the newspaper.

The rest of the individuals either remain in refugee centres, are in custody, or are living in separate accommodation which they have arranged themselves, awaiting deportation.

The government has previously announced it wants to step up efforts to ensure people without legal right to stay in Sweden exit the country. But police say most of its resources are currently devoted to carrying out ID checks after Sweden stepped up border controls.

“It’s a huge task and it is completely dependent on the police being allocated resources,” said Engström.

The Local reported in May that an increasing proportion of refugees due to be deported from Sweden were instead disappearing….

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Democrat Congressman: “Not one” Muslim refugee engaged in terror

Representative Keith Ellison, who accepted money from the Muslim American Society, a Muslim Brotherhood organization, to finance his pilgrimage to Mecca, is banking here upon the ignorance of the American public and the eagerness of the mainstream media to maintain them in that status.

“Muslim-American Congressman Claims ‘Not One’ Refugee Engaged in Terrorism — Let’s Check the Record,” by Frank Camp, Independent Journal Review, November 27, 2015:

Appearing Wednesday on “Democracy Now!” Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim member of the House, called the “American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act,” which would tighten the refugee vetting process, “irrational.”

Host Amy Goodman got the ball rolling:

“Last week, the House passed legislation that was introduced by Republican lawmakers to, at the moment, stop Iraqi and Syrian refugees from resettling here in the United States. Respond.”

Ellison’s reply contained a rather severe factual error (emphasis ours):

“Well, there was a piece of legislation motivated by fear, motivated by xenophobia, motivated by irrationality. Look, we’ve had 750,000 refugees come into this country since the year 2001. None of them–not one–has been engaged in terrorism. At all…Why then, are we going to revamp our whole refugee resettlement program, which is incredibly rigorous in terms of the vetting process…”

There have been multiple refugees admitted to the United States since 2001 who have been arrested and indicted on terror-related charges.

According to ABC News, Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, two refugees from Iraq, were arrested and indicted in 2011 for “allegedly providing assistance to Al Qaeda in Iraq and attempting to send weapons overseas.”

More from ABC:

“Alwan has been charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, distributing information about explosives, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to transfer and possess weapons.

Hammadi is charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to transfer and possess weapons.”

Additionally, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) recently released a list of 12 refugees who were arrested and indicted on terror-related charges. Among these cases:

  • As pointed out by Breitbart.com, Somalian refugee Ibrahim was sentenced to 15 years in prison for “conspiring to provide material support to Al-Shabaab.”
  • Abdurahman Yasin Daud, a Kenyan refugee, was charged in 2015 with attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
  • Fazliddin Kurbanov, a refugee from Uzbekistan, was charged with attempting to provide material support to foreign terrorists.

According to U.S. Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, Kurbanov:

“…conspired to provide material support to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and procured bomb-making materials in the interest of perpetrating a terrorist attack on American soil.”

Fox News notes that Kurbanvov allegedly “gathered explosive materials in his Boise apartment.”…

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Obama administration threatens Governors who reject Syrian Muslims

Looks like the ACLU and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) are on the same page.

The way to solve the latest argument by the Obama Administration and the NO borders gang is to defund all refugee resettlement in the upcoming ‘omnibus’ and not single-out the Syrians for special treatment.

First Reema (from Jeh Johnson) and now this as the administration pulls out all the stops to get those 10,000 mostly Muslim Syrians resettled in your towns.

All of this activity demonstrates that the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program is in the greatest crisis it has ever faced in 35 years since Senators Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden, among others, sent the bill to Jimmy Carter for his signature.

The revolving door!

Bob_Carey (1)

ORR Chief Bob Carey

Before I get to ORR chief Bob Carey’s letter to governors, a little background on the revolving door for new readers (also go here to our recent fact sheet for general overview of program):

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees chooses most of our refugees.  The US State Department admits them and Homeland Security screens them (as best they can).  The State Department PRM (Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration) contracts withnine supposedly non-profit group contractors*** to resettle them through about 312 subcontractors (at one point the State Department was throwing the number 350 around) to most US states.

PRM is overseen by Anne Richard who was a former vice President of contractor—International Rescue Committee.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is in the Dept. of Health and Human Services and is the major dispenser of your money to the contractors through myriad federal grants.

The present director of ORR is Robert Carey who came over from one of the nine contractors (wait for it!)—International Rescue Committee (IRC)—where he served as a vice President.  His predecessor at ORR was Eskinder Negash who had come over from another contractor the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

Negash has since returned to a perch at his former employer—US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

Are you still following me?

Negash’s boss at USCRI, Lavinia Limon, was Bill Clinton’s director of ORR before she left to become President of USCRI.  LOL! did you get that!

Both Carey and Anne Richard came from the International Rescue Committee headed by BRITISH former foreign secretary David Miliband, bff Clinton, Soros and Samantha Power.  (We have an extensive archive on Miliband, brother of Britain’s “Red Ed.”)

Contractors enter government and become the dispenser of your tax dollars and then they leave government when administrations change and become the recipients of your tax dollars—and around and around they go!

Back to the Bob Carey letter to governors (remember he is relatively new at ORR and was pulling down a six-figure salary from the IRC before becoming the big shot now threatening governors).

From Breitbart:

The Obama administration has warned states to comply with federal efforts to resettle Syrian refugees in communities around the U.S. or else find their states subject to enforcement action.

In a letter this week, the Office of Refugee Resettlement threatens states concerned about resettling Syrians with punitive responses if they refuse to accept the refugees. ORR explains that states may not refuse ORR-funded benefits for refugees on the basis of religion and national origin.

“Accordingly, states may not categorically deny ORR-funded benefits and services to Syrian refugees,” ORR Director Robert Carey wrote in the letter. “Any state with such a policy would not be in compliance with the State Plan requirements, applicable statutes, and their own assurances, and could be subject to enforcement action, including suspension and termination.” [I’m afraid of overloading you, but beware of termination because the feds and contractors may well make your state a Wilson-Fish stateif it isn’t already.  They would like nothing better!—ed]

The agency also pointed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination for federally funded assistance benefits. Refugees are immediately eligible for welfare and other benefits upon admission to the U.S.

“Thus, it is not permissible to deny federally funded benefits such as Medicaid or [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] to refugees who otherwise meet the eligibilities requirements,” the letter reads. “ORR is committed to ensuring that all refugees receive assistance and services vital to achieving their potential in the United States and becoming self-sufficient, integrated members of our communities.”

If nothing else comes out of this, we are pleased to say that the American taxpaying public is being educated about the huge costs this program places on our welfare system—nationally and locally!  The contractor’s job is to get refugees their welfare benefits and then they move on to the next paying batch of refugee CLIENTS.

NOTE: Nine major federal contractors which like to call themselves VOLAGs (Voluntary agencies) which is such a joke considering how much federal money they receive:

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Obama’s Syrian Muslim Migrant propaganda video ‘Meet Reema’

Remember Julia?  Reema is the Syrian Muslim Julia!  This will make you want to scream!  There is nothing to “crosscheck” her “biographic and biometric” data with—there is no data available from Syria!

Interesting that it confirms that it is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees sending the Syrians to your towns!  And, that they have 23,000 in a pipeline to America at this very minute.

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Senator Marco Rubio straddling the fence on Muslim refugees/Muslim migration

Julia Hahn has another good piece at Breitbart yesterday (hat tip: Joanne) on the refugee resettlement controversy and how it is roiling the 2016 Presidential campaign.

Haven’t we seen what happens when a boy runs this country?  And, so I can’t believe that any thinking person could say that Florida Senator Marco Rubio is ready for the job—don’t you think it’s time for an alpha male?  (O.K. throw tomatoes, eggs, whatever at me, I said it and stick by it!).

Somali terror woman

This Somali refugee woman was convicted of terror funding in Minnesota in 2013.

Here is Hahn about what Senator Rubio said yesterday in an interview with Chris Wallace:

In a surprising twist in the 2016 election, presidential aspirant Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has proposed a new plan for helping President Obama resettle Syrian refugees in the United States.

Under Rubio’s new proposal, outlined on FOX News Sunday, the United States would focus on resettling the oldest and youngest refugees inside the United States, including those orphaned and widowed in what has become an Islamist battleground.

Rubio argued these refugees could be admitted under the “commonsense” test: “the 5-year-old orphan, a 90-year-old widow, and well-known Chaldean priest, these are obviously commonsense applications, and you can clearly vet them just by commonsense.”

This new tactic may be a politically risky one for Senator Rubio, as an outright majority of all voters oppose any Syrian resettlement—and, according to Rasmussen, 65 percent of conservative voters want zero refugees admitted into the U.S. from the Middle East.

Rubio cannot be trusted on immigration, the most important issue this country faces, or may ever face!

rubio

Continue reading here and consider a few additional points.

Once the women (not all will be old because they won’t leave the young mothers and bring in the children) are admitted they can apply, under the present refugee program, for their family members to join them (this is called chain migration).  In 2008, the Wall Street Journal first reported the shocking (maybe not so shocking!) news that thousands of Somalis had entered the US illegally by claiming a relationship to those already here.  The family reunification (P-3) was closed by the US State Department for years, but is now wide open again.

We covered the discovery and aftermath extensively, here.  The fraud was originally reported at the Wall Street Journal in August of 2008.

Even for those who say the State Department could now catch the fraudsters, does anyone really think that the women and children won’t be quickly applying for more family members to join them.  On what grounds would the husbands be refused?

~ Hahn discusses it, but I want to reiterate that it is the next generation of a refugee family where the jihadist recruitment is happening.  The parents might pass security checks while it is those little children (grown up) we raised and educated with our tax dollars who are thumbing their noses at your generosity and heading off to join al-Shabaab and ISIS.  Remember this?  Just a few news stories beginning back in 2008!

~And, what on earth makes Rubio think that American taxpayers are willing to bring in old women who will be placed immediately on Supplemental Social Security? See here, once and for all—-refugees over 65 years old are eligible for benefits under SSI!

~Hahn mentions Senator Rand Paul who was brave back in 2013 when he realized refugee terrorists had been resettled in his home town and wondered out loud why we were bringing in all the Iraqis and putting them on welfare.  He has since stopped asking that question, why?  Here is our complete archive on Rand Paul and Iraqi refugees.   See especially here and here (what role did Grover play in dissuading Paul from earlier critical comments?).

Following that Syrian refugee “vetting” shiny object?

And, my final thought as I watch and listen to Syrian refugee news on TV and on radio:  Are we being distracted (I know Trump is!) by the Syrian refugee resettlement plan at a point in time when we are bringing in thousands of other Muslim refugees who frankly can’t be screened much better—thousands and thousands of Somalis and Iraqis for instance (Uzbeks, Rohingya and Afghans too)?

I think the average American (watching TV) is thinking that the Syrians are the only refugees we are bringing in from the Middle East and Africa, and it isn’t helping them understand the serious implications of resettlement when they think the resettlement is in the future and that Obama is to blame—Republicans have supported the migration for decades as well!  They are here!

And, on the vetting issue, we have plenty of evidence that the youngsters are growing up radicalized (more devout!) in the US and the West generally, so let’s stop talking about vetting for just a few minutes!

‘Thousands’ of Islamic State supporters in the U.S.

This is no surprise: the Islamic State bases its appeal to Muslims upon a claim of Islamic authenticity. Despite many claims to the contrary, moderates have not actually mounted any large-scale or effective refutation of that claim.

“Islamic State Radicalizes ‘Thousands’ in United States,” by Daniel Wiser, Daily Caller, November 25, 2015:

The Islamic State has likely radicalized thousands of people in the United States, according to a new report, raising concerns that supporters of the terrorist group could be plotting domestic attacks similar to the recent shootings and bombings in Paris.

The Threat Knowledge Group, an organization led by the counterterrorism experts Sebastian and Katharine Gorka, has compiled a list of 82 individuals in the United States who were affiliated with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) and apprehended by law enforcement officials, including those who traveled or attempted to travel to Iraq and Syria, launched domestic attacks, or participated in recruiting or fundraising.

The Gorkas note in a new report that almost one third of these individuals had plotted attacks against Americans on U.S. soil in the last 18 months. Sebastian is also an adviser to the Department of Defense, while Katharine has authored several publications about the terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland.

Through Islamic State propagandists on Twitter and other social media sites, the terrorist group has been able to attract hundreds more supporters in the United States, they said.

Ali Shukri Amin, a 17-year-old Virginia resident and Islamic State supporter who was sentenced to 11 years in prison in August, used his Twitter account with 4,000 followers to raise funds for the group and encourage friends to join it overseas.

Ahmad Musa Jibril, an Islamist preacher in Dearborn, Michigan, who has also spent time in jail for money laundering and tax evasion, also points to the terrorist group’s online reach. Jibril has more than 38,000 Twitter followers, though he has not tweeted since last July and may have found other methods of communication. He is reported to have a large following among foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria.

“Based on the evidence available, the number of ISIS supporters in the United States measures in the thousands, rather than hundreds,” the Gorkas said in their report.

“Whether ISIS will launch an attack on the scale of the Paris attack is unknown, but it is clear that the United States is a primary target for ISIS and that ISIS has the necessary supporters in place and the financial means to carry out such an attack,” they continued. “The challenges of screening incoming refugees may further exacerbate the problem.”…

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Congressional Fact Sheet on Muslim Migration to U.S.

You’ve heard me mention several times that on the day before the Paris Islamic terror attack, Don Barnett and I briefed staff of Congressmen and Senators on Capitol Hill on the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.  The briefing was organized by ACT for America.  Again, this was before Paris and the whole refugee world was turned on its head.

House of Representatives Briefing

November 12, 2015

~Refugee definition:   The 1951 Refugee Convention spells out that a refugee is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”

However, there has been an intentional expansion of the definition. (Unaccompanied Alien Children is an example).

~The Refugee Act of 1980 created the Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) presently being administered to resettle approximately 70,000 refugees each year (in recent years) to the US.

~The Obama Administration increased the projected ceiling to 85,000 for FY2016.  10,000 of those slots are earmarked for Syrian refugees presently being referred to the US by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which says it has selected 20,000 for consideration so far.

~When the President sends his “Determination” to Congress in advance of the fiscal year (two weeks in advance is required!) it is accompanied by a report (Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2016). There is supposed to be a legally required consultation with Congress.

~There will be large increases this year from Africa including (but not limited to) DR Congo, Eritrea and Sudan.  The largest number of refugees arriving in recent years are from:  Burma (Myanmar), Bhutan/Nepal, Iraq, and Somalia.  We admitted 120,000 Iraqis since 2007.

~In FY2015, we admitted 1,682 Syrian refugees, less than 40 were Christians/other minorities.

~In 2014, the United States took in 67% of the refugees resettled around the world.  The next closest country was Canada with 9.9%.

~The UNHCR refers most of our refugees.  The Department of Homeland Security is charged with doing the security screening.  The Dept. of State (Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration) works with nine major refugee contractors who along with the State Dept. determine their placement in America.  The Dept. of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) provides grants and additional federal funding mostly through those nine non-profit agencies.

~The anticipated cost to the US Treasury of the resettlement process (not including welfare/Medicaid/education costs) is projected to be just short of $1.2 billion for FY2016.

~The nine non-profit agencies contracted to resettle refugees include:  US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, World Relief (Evangelicals), Church World Service, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, Ethiopian Community Development Council, and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

~There are 312 subcontractors working under the nine major contractors in 185 locations around the country.   There are 24 offices located around the country for the processing of Unaccompanied Alien Children.  A placement site map is available on line (attached).

~The states receiving the highest number of refugees in FY2015 were in descending order: TX, CA, NY, PA, FL, GA, MI, AZ, WA, and NC.

~States receiving no refugees in 2014 or 2015 were:  WY, MT.  Delaware received none in 2014.

~State and local elected officials have virtually no say in the resettlement process. This is especially so in the so-called Wilson-Fish states where the state doesn’t even have a refugee office under state government and the program is completely run through the US State Department and a non-profit organization.  Those states are:  AL, AL, CO, ID, KY, LA, MA, NV, ND, SD, TN, VT and San Diego County.

~Refugees are a special class of legal immigrant which permits them to receive virtually all forms of welfare upon arrival.

~Grassroots opposition is growing throughout the US to the resettlement process mostly due to the lack of transparency and the fear of Islamic radicals who might get in through the program.

Some points regarding the proposed Syrian resettlement and the European migration crisis:

~Only about 50% of the migrants flooding Europe today are Syrians.  The next highest number are from Afghanistan.

~These are a mix of asylum seekers and economic migrants.  Asylum seekers must prove that just as refugees, they fear returning to their homelands for fear of persecution (escaping war per se has never been a part of the refugee definition).

~We are not expected to get refugees from the European flow (Malta exception).  Ours will come through UN referrals from mostly UNHCR camps and regional offices.

~The refugee resettlement contractors (NGOs mentioned above) working with the US State Department began advocating several years ago for the resettlement of 15,000 Syrians per year for each of the next 5 years.  They then modified their request to 65,000 Syrians before Pres. Obama leaves office.  Subsequently they have demanded 100,000 Syrians before 2017.

~Earlier 14 US Senators wrote to the President asking for 65,000 Syrians.  A total of 84 Senators and Members of Congress have subsequently urged the President to speed up security screening.

~FBI Director James Comey has told Congress that Syrians cannot be thoroughly screened because the Administration has no access to data (biographic or biometric) on most of them.

This post is filed in our category entitled ‘where to find information’ which now contains 401 previous posts.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, one of the camps from which the UNHCR is choosing Syrian refugees to migrate to the United States.

Dallas mayor ‘more fearful’ of white men than Syrian Muslim refugees

“We have got to build a coalition of Middle Eastern states and we need to reach out. They’re Muslims and we have got to use the words carefully to show them that we care about them. ISIS is no more Islamic than the Nazi senior staff was Christian.”

The Nazi senior staff didn’t claim to be Christian, but had a fascination with Germanic neo-paganism. Certainly even nominally Christian Nazis didn’t quote Christian scripture to justify their murderous policies.

“And so we have got to differentiate between the two.” Why haven’t Muslims been able to do that so as to stop the 30,000 young Muslims who have traveled from 100 countries around the world to join the Islamic State?

Anyway, this claim that “young white men” are more dangerous than Islamic jihadists is a new theme that must be circulating on the Left. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown just said it, and now Mike Rawlings. It most likely derives from a widely-heralded study that was published last summer, claiming that “right-wing extremism” was a bigger threat to the U.S. than jihad, based on the number of Americans killed by each since 9/11. Not only does this study skew the results by leaving out 9/11, but it also ignored the many, many foiled jihad plots in the U.S. since 9/11. Also, right-wing extremists like Dylann Roof, the murderer in Charleston, South Carolina, killed because of their paranoid fantasies, but were not part of any movement with an articulated agenda or goal, while Islamic jihadists are members of or ideologically aligned with groups that have declared their intention to destroy the U.S. and the free world. Islamic jihad groups are determined to kill as many Americans as possible and conquer free societies, and swallowing Brown’s nonsense here will result in the deaths of many Americans.

“Dallas mayor ‘more fearful’ of white men than Syrian refugees,” by Jessica Chasmar, Washington Times, November 24, 2015 (thanks to David):

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said he’s more afraid of white men committing mass shootings than Syrian refugees committing acts of terrorism in the U.S.

“ISIS wants us to demonize these Syrian refugees, want us to alienate these children,” Mr. Rawlings, a white Democrat, told MSNBC Saturday, referring to the Islamic State terror group by its acronym. “We have got to build a coalition of Middle Eastern states and we need to reach out. They’re Muslims and we have got to use the words carefully to show them that we care about them. ISIS is no more Islamic than the Nazi senior staff was Christian. And so we have got to differentiate between the two. Fight the fight that we need to do.

“These are evil human beings that are doing terrible things and we need to target our aggression and our plans against them, not children and not refugees,” he said.

Mr. Rawlings is welcoming refugees despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asking to keep refugees out of the state. Mr. Rawlings said he and Mr. Abbott are both concerned about safety, but disagree about the risk of refugees.

“I am more fearful of large gatherings of young white men that come into schools, theaters and shoot people up, but we don’t isolate young white men on this issue,” Mr. Rawlings said….

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Coming soon: More Muslim Migrants than population of Washington, D.C. [680,000]

What could possibly go wrong?

u.s.-issued-680-000-green-cards-to-migrants-from-muslim-nations-over-the-last-5-years-featured

“Coming soon: More immigrants from Muslim nations than population of D.C. — 680,000,” by Paul Bedard, Washington Examiner, November 25, 2015:

President Obama’s open-door immigration policy is set to accept more immigrants from Muslim nations over the next five years than the entire population of Washington, D.C., according to federal documents.

Figures from the Department of Homeland Security show that the president has already issued 680,000 green cards to immigrants from Muslim nations over the past five years. Unless Congress changes his policy, that number will be repeated in the next five years.

What’s more, the president is also planning to add over 100,000 more with refugee status, many from Syria. Refugees can also petition the government for their relatives.

DHS data released by the Sen. Jeff Sessions’ Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, noted that refugees, who must apply for a green card within one year, have instant access to federal welfare and entitlements, along with local benefits and education services; these costs are not offset.

The DHS number of 680,000 does not include temporary migrants who return home nor births or deaths.

The subcommittee said that “assuming no change in visa policy, the U.S. can expect to give green cards to another 680,000 more migrants from these countries over the next five years. A green card entitles recipients to access federal benefits, lifetime residency, work authorization, and a direct route to becoming a U.S. citizen.”

That is a group bigger than Washington, D.C.’s population of 658,893….

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Reversing the Muslim Tide

In the days following the horrific slaughter of innocent men, women, and children by radical Islamists in Paris, small groups of Syrian refugees have been  detained in unlikely ports of entry throughout the western hemisphere.  Eleven Syrian refugees, traveling with fake passports, were detained in Paraguay; 5 Syrians, traveling with stolen Greek passports, were arrested in Honduras; 3 Syrian men, traveling with fake Greek passports, were arrested on the Caribbean Island of St. Maarten after traveling through Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti; and 8 Syrians were arrested after making it as far as the INS border checkpoint at Laredo, Texas,

Is it my imagination, or is there a pattern developing here?  Is it pure coincidence that so many Syrians were detained in unlikely western hemisphere locations while trying to enter the U.S. illegally?  Could it be that they were acting under orders from ISIS to make their way into the U.S. for purposes of committing acts of terrorism?  And if these four insurgencies were detected, how many others went undetected?

In the meantime, Barack Obama’s plan to import more than 100,000 Islamic refugees per year has drawn strong opposition across the country.  While Republican presidential candidates argue that the 10,000 Syrian refugees now destined for resettlement should be barred from entering the U.S. until a fail-safe vetting formula can be developed, Democrats argue that U.S. immigration officials should simply trust the refugees to answer truthfully when asked whether or not they represent an existential threat to the American people.

In light of a great many vicious terror attacks, both here and abroad, the American people are understandable frightened and are unwilling to accept additional large numbers of Muslims into our country.  Unfortunately, members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, fail to recognize that the question of whether or not to admit additional Muslims has already been decided in the negative.  What I have suggested in recent columns is that, if the intent of the current law is unclear, the Congress should rewrite sections of the Communist Control Act of 1954, a statute that has not been overturned by the courts and is still in force, to read as follows:

 SEC. 1. PURPOSE.  The Congress hereby finds and declares that certain organizations exist within our borders which, although purporting to be political or religious in nature, are in fact instrumentalities of foreign political or religious entities or ideologies whose purpose it is to overthrow the Government of the United States by any available means, including force and violence.  Such organizations operate as authoritarian dictatorships within our borders, demanding for themselves the rights and privileges generally accorded to all political parties and religious denominations, but denying to all others the liberties guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution.                                                                                  

SEC. 2. PROSCRIBED ORGANIZATIONS.  Any political or religious organization as described herein, or any successors or affiliates of such organizations, regardless of the assumed name, whose object or purpose it is to overthrow the government of the United States, or to force the political or religious conversion of its people by force or violence, or threats thereof, are not entitled to any of the rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States or its political subdivisions; and whatever rights, privileges, and immunities heretofore granted to said religious or political organizations, or any subsidiary or affiliate organizations, by reason of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof, are hereby rescinded.

This amendment to the Communist Control Act of 1954 would serve to reinforce provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Public Law 414, which effectually bars any and all Muslims from either entering or residing in the United States.  That law, otherwise known as the McCarran-Walter Act, is still on the books.  And while it has not been enforced by recent administrations, Democrat or Republican, it is sufficient to protect the American people from attacks such as those carried out on September 11, 2001, and subsequent atrocities.

Chapter 2, Section 212, of the McCarran-Walter Act contains numerous provisions which bar  Muslims from legally entering or residing in the United States.  For example, Islam permits Islamic men to marry up to four wives.  And although fewer than 2% of Muslim men have multiple wives, the practice of polygamy is permitted under Islamic law.  Section 212(11) of the McCarran-Walter Act prohibits all aliens who are polygamists, or who practice polygamy, or who  advocate the practice of polygamy, from entering or residing in the United States.

Section 212(19) of the Act bars entry to any alien who seeks to procure, or has sought to procure, or has procured a visa or other documentation, or seeks to enter the United States by fraud, or by willfully misrepresenting a material fact.

Section 212(27) of the Act bars all aliens “who the consular officer or the Attorney General knows, or has reason to believe, seek to enter the United States solely, principally, or incidentally, to engage in activities which would be prejudicial to the public interest, or endanger the welfare, safety, or security of the United States.”

Section 212(28) of the Act denies access to all aliens who are anarchists, or who have at any time been  members of or affiliated with, any organization that advocates or teaches the overthrow of the government of the United States by force, violence, or other unconstitutional means.

In addition, the McCarran-Walter Act contains provisions for a reporting system whereby all aliens are required to report their current address to the INS each year.  It also establishes a central index of aliens in the U.S. for use by security and enforcement agencies… much as Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson have suggested.

Section 212 of the Act makes irrelevant any current debate or legislative proposal that would restrict or delay the entry of large numbers of Middle Eastern refugees.  Section 212 concludes by saying, “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may, by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

In other words, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Muslims are prohibited from obtaining visas to enter or immigrate to the United States, and it gives Obama the authority to do exactly what the American people want him to do… i.e. suspend any further immigration of Muslim refugees to the United States.

Muslim immigration is prohibited under McCarran-Walter because the Koran and Sharia Law require complete submission to Islam, which is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution.  All those who subscribe to the Koran as their guiding principle, by definition, subscribe to Islam and its form of government.  Most liberals and Democrats insist that Muslims cannot be prohibited from entering the U.S. because Islam, as a religion, is a protected class under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.  However, Islam is not merely another religious denomination.  Islam is a complete social, political, economic, legal, judicial, and military system with a religious component.  As such, it is totally incompatible with principles embodied in the U.S. Constitution.  Islam does not, and cannot, merit 1st Amendment protections.

When the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was sent to President Harry Truman for his signature, he vetoed the bill.  However, his veto was overridden by a vote of 278 to 113 in the House and 57 to 26 in the Senate.  Speaking in support of a veto override, Senator Pat McCarran (D-NV), a principal author of the Act, said what any Republican of today might say.  He said, “I believe that this nation is the last hope of Western civilization, and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated, or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished.  I take no issue with those who would praise the contributions which have been made to our society by people of many races, of varied creeds and colors.  However, we have in the United States today hard-core, indigestible blocs which have not become integrated into the American way of life, but which, on the contrary, are its deadly enemies.”

He concluded by saying, “Today, as never before, untold millions are storming our gates for admission and those gates are cracking under the strain.  The solution to the problems of Europe and Asia will not come through a transplanting of those problems en masse to the United States.  I do not intend to become prophetic, but if the enemies of this legislation succeed in riddling it to pieces, or in amending it beyond recognition, they will have contributed more to promote this nation’s downfall than any other group since we achieved our independence as a nation.”

How prophetic!  The enemies of America have been highly successful in “riddling our system to pieces,” and never before has the “last flickering light of humanity” been in greater danger of being extinguished than it is today.  What is needed is not a temporary halt to immigration by the “hard-core, indigestible blocs” that now threaten us, but a reversal of the immigration that has taken place since the McCarran-Walter Act became law in 1953.  So long as radical Islamists insist upon achieving world domination through acts of unspeakable violence, and so long as so-called “moderate” Muslims merely look on as bystanders, peace-loving peoples must insist that Muslims settle their age-old differences in total isolation, in their own barren lands.

If and when a new immigration bill comes before Congress for a veto override, Republicans would be well advised to resurrect the wise counsel of their 1953 colleague, Pat McCarran.

Roman Catholic bishop advocates submission to the Islamic State

This brilliant article sums up not only the myopia of Bishop Robert Barron’s approach to the Islamic State (and to the global jihad in general), but the weakness and wrongheadedness of the entire contemporary Catholic Church when confronted with jihadist savagery.

There is today a wholesale confusion of weakness and submission with compassion and mercy, such that many Church leaders, including but by no means limited to Bishop Barron, believe that Christian charity mandates acquiescence to evil and submission to it. They think it is a matter of “respect” for Muslims as human beings for Christians to bow to violent intimidation from Islamic jihadists, and to assent to restrictions on their behavior that are demanded by way of jihadi threats.

Those who think, on the contrary, that it is more respectful and charitable to Muslims to refuse to enable and reward bullying and bloodlust have no place in today’s Catholic Church.

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Bishop Robert Barron being interview on EWTN Nightly News. Photo courtesy of EWTN.

“The Incredible Shrinking Bishop Barron,” by Maureen Mullarkey, OnePeterFive, November 23, 2015 (thanks to Tom):

I have never been more than an occasional viewer of Fr. Robert Barron’s Word on Fire chats. His recent televised interview with EWTN’s Catherine Szeltner put paid to whatever interest I had.

Newly elevated to an auxiliary bishop in the sprawling L.A. diocese, now-Bp. Barron was in Baltimore for his initial appearance among the USCCB. Ms. Szeltner was on hand to ask how Catholics should respond to the slaughter in Paris. “How should they react?” she wondered, as if Catholics were dependent on guidance in their attitude toward carnage.

This was hardly a spontaneous interview. Chairs had been set. The bishop had not been caught on the run; he was not speaking off the cuff. On the contrary, it is standard practice to establish before air time which questions will be asked. Ms. Szaltner was wide-eyed with anticipation for an answer that had already been rehearsed. Here was the fledgling bishop’s moment to affirm public solidarity with the mantra of love heralding the Year of Mercy. Which—the Vatican just announced—extends to Muslims.

Barron began with a self-reverential response that carried a hint of conceit for having been placed among the great and the good. Our new bishop has ascended above even just anger. The massacre aroused no outrage, not even a wince of distaste. Rather, his first words were on fire with . . . nostalgia. He found the atrocity “especially poignant” because he had studied in Paris for three years. And because he remembered some of the locations involved, the attacks were “moving and poignant.”

Not obscene, not demonic, foul or repellant. Poignant. It is a word appropriate for the death of a kitten. Applied to the murder and maiming of innocents, it is worse than unfitting. It is shameful.

He glided on to a serene tutorial on mercy, on the obligation to “respond to violence with love,” and “to fight hatred with love.” He enjoined Catholics to mercy and “a non-violent stance.” Listening, I realized why I have never been able to cotton to Word on Fire: Barron is smarmy. His genial TV persona has none of the alert, intellectual muscularity of Fulton Sheen whose lead he presumes to follow. This time on camera, he confused Paris in 2015 with Selma, Alabama in 1965.

Sanctimonious appeal to non-violence is typical of middle-brow respect for the strategy of King—learned from Gandhi—minus any grasp of its genius. There is nothing commensurate between the cultural situation of the American civil rights movement and the events in Paris. To try to impose the conditions of that movement onto Islamic jihad is astonishing in its obtuseness. Mercy is vacated of all meaning when it is used as an excuse for blindness to history, or for inaction in the face of present realities.

Genocide was never the end game of either the British or the segregationist forces in the United States. Genocide—mitigated only by conversion or the slavery of dhimmitude— is an objective of Islam. Barron misleads his audience with bankrupt, Vatican-stroking noises about nonviolence.

The limited applications of non-violence were obvious when, in 1938, Gandhi advised Europe’s Jews to practice nonviolent resistance against Nazi persecution. In some mystical way, this would supposedly result in Germany’s moral reformation. Nearly eighty years later, Bishop Barron offers the same futile rationale—in the name of Christ crucified—to Catholics.

Inversion of circumstances between Islam and the West is as bizarre as it is reckless. Non-violence is the resort of the weak against the strong. By inviting Catholics to adopt “a non-violent stance” against jihad, Barron insinuates assent to inferiority. It is a failure of will dressed in Christian idiom. Call it submission.

In practical terms, what does it mean to respond with love to genocidal intention? How is non-violence applicable to a contest of civilizations in which one side is committed to the annihilation of the other? Wherein lies the moral force of non-violence against a bloodlust cultivated for fourteen hundred years?

Gandhi’s notorious advice to Jews was tantamount to telling them to march quietly to the ovens. Whether satyagraha serves freedom or a final solution depends on the variables of situation. Bishop Barron’s inability to discern critical distinctions makes his ministry dangerous.

He remains a cheery, good-natured promoter. Sadly, what he promotes is dhimmitude.

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CNN Fails to ‘Vet’ Radical Muslim Guest

Over at PJ Media today I discuss CNN “journalist” Christiane Amanpour’s manifest bias and hypocrisy:

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour believes “we can all afford to be human” regarding the Syrian refugees. Recently, she condemned the U.S. and other countries for not letting them enter the homeland, despite FBI Director James Comey’s testimony explaining that vetting this population is literally impossible.

Apparently, “discerning” does not qualify as a human trait to Amanpour. Because soon after she offered her ill-considered, slanderous logic equating “responsible” with “heartless,” she employed this advice in her own decision-making — and she was taken.

Amanpour demonstrated exactly how Islamic radicals have learned to take advantage of those bearing her viewpoint.

Last Thursday, Amanpour invited Dalil Boubakeur, chairman of the Grand Mosque of Paris, to a sit-down interview. During the interview, Boubakeur strongly denounced the Islamic State (ISIS) and called for military action against it. He then declared that the barbarous terror group behind the Paris attacks had nothing to do with Islam:

Our religion is not one of violence, of jihadism, of terrorism, of women who kill. In what page of Qur’an is that written that a woman must take bombs inside her body to explode and kill other people? In what part of Qur’an is that said? In what page of Qur’an is it said that we shall kill innocent people? Young people?

Boubakeur then lamented that “little by little,” the Islamic State had won over the young Muslims of Europe. He declared that it was a “great error … not only of Muslims, but of the world to accept this.”

Then, Boubakeur called on Muslims in France to assimilate:

[It is] very important [for] French Muslim people to express their French nationality, their French taste, their French values, their French [rejection] of what is the danger for them, France, and for our religion also.

Had Amanpour recognized vetting as rational behavior — and understood her own viewpoint as reckless and irresponsible — then she would have known that Boubakeur’s insistence on “assimilation” could be nothing but a preposterous, exploitative lie considering his past behavior.

Homeland security expert Patrick Poole reported on Boubakeur’s rejection of Islamic “assimilation” with Western values in PJ Media last January. Boubakeur certainly does not oppose ISIS’s — or, in general, Islam’s — embrace of violence when he isn’t on Amanpour’s set:

[I]n 2006 at the height of the Danish Cartoon crisis, Boubakeur had published an article denouncing the cartoons and concluded by issuing a warning to all those — including Charlie Hebdo — who would publish caricatures of Mohammed, saying: “He who sows the whirlwind shall reap the whirlwind.”

Stop drawing Muhammad, and start abiding by Sharia blasphemy laws … or else.

Boubakeur, rather than being the assimilation-supporting, violence-spurning moderate Amanpour wanted him to be, is guilty of fanning the violence that resulted in deadly riots across the globe and ended in the horrific slaughter at Charlie Hebdo’s offices.

Boubakeur’s interview answers were no doubt music to the ears of Amanpour, as they matched the narrative she pushed in her September op-ed published by CNN wherein she castigated the U.S. for not taking more Syrian refugees. In the op-ed, Amanpour described the following as “heartwarming”:

… ordinary citizens, the responsible media, and generous governments all opening their arms to welcome a modern, yet biblical tide of humanity, fleeing war and persecution to safety here in Europe.

She scolded the U.S. and Canada:

… countries with big hearts, deep pockets and a habit of projecting their humanitarian values [are] unwilling to actually help end the war that would stop this exodus.

The U.S., she lamented:

… has only accepted fewer than 1,500 Syrian asylum seekers over the course of the war.

Amanpour did not address in her piece the real reason why many in the U.S. and elsewhere are reluctant to take in large numbers of these refugees: the prospect of Islamic jihadis being among them.

The Islamic State boasted last February that they would soon inundate Europe with 500,000 refugees. The Lebanese education minister recently warned that there were 20,000 active jihadis among the Syrian refugees in camps in his country. An Islamic State operative boasted in September, shortly after the migrant influx into Europe began, that among the flood of refugees, 4,000 terrorists had already entered Europe.

None of that information made it into Amanpour’s piece. She likely is confident that Obama administration officials will be able to “vet” the refugees they admit into the U.S., as they have repeatedly promised to do….

She must understand now that to heed her call, to bring in those refugees in large numbers, might make her temporarily feel good about how tolerant and multicultural she is, but will be cold comfort to the rest of us when the bombs start exploding.

Read the rest here.

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France issues warning of Islamic State chemical/biological attack

Last Sunday’s Lisa Benson Show had a segment on the possible Chemical and Biological threat posed by ISIS to  Europe and the West in the wake of the November 13th Massacres in Paris and the battle in the predominately Muslim St. Denis banlieuse suburb.  Belgium and especially Brussels continues under lockdown as there could be another series of devastating attacks by ISIS operatives given the significant presence in the significant Muslim population with radicalized  elements in suburban Molenbeek. On the Lisa Benson Show segment we asked why French Premier Manuel Valls had raised concerns over possible ISIS operatives use of chemical and biological agents?  Dr. Jill Bellamy, noted bio-warfare threat reduction expert, whom we have interviewed in the NER, provided some answers. See our January 2013 interview her, The Dangers of Syria’s Bio-Warfare Complex Should Assad Fall.

Following the program, Dr. Bellamy posted her assessment of what triggered Valls ‘comments; the theft of bio-protection suits and threats to France water supply system.  See her Biological Warfare blog post, “France and Belgium Prepare for CBW Attacks While Europe Sleeps.”

In May 2013, we posted on the possible terrorist to U.S. water supply systems after two incidents had occurred. We refer to the arrest and arraignment by federal prosecutors in Manhattan of Ahmed Abassi, a Tunisian national and chemical engineering graduate of Laval University in Quebec, on Asylum fraud and an alleged WMD attack on a municipal water system, the Quabbin reservoir in Massachusetts.  The possible biological agent involved is cryptosporidium (Crypto).  We noted:

In the U.S. we have had two mass Crypto outbreaks in water supply systems in Carrollton, Georgia in 1987 and in Milwaukee in 1993.  The Georgia outbreak affected 13,000 out of 16,000 residents.  Because the Milwaukee water supply system draws from Lake Michigan, Crypto pathogens might have entered from drainage or in ice breakup during the early spring.  In the Milwaukee case, the epidemiologists and public health specialists estimate that more than 400,000 succumbed to Crypto causing massive outbreaks of watery diarrhea over a period of two weeks or more.  108 deaths occurred involving those with immune deficiencies from cancer treatment, AIDS and other maladies. Within immunocompromised communities, exposure frequently leads to severe and permanent diarrhea, decreasing absorption of nutrients resulting in progressive dehydration and eventual death.

Here are excerpts from Dr. Bellamy’s Biological Warfare post.

On the missing bio-protection suits and Eau de Paris water supply.

While France and Belgium prepare their populations for continued terrorist attacks and the possible use of chemical or biological weapons, other EU states avoid the obvious conclusion that a prepared public is better than an unprepared one. Several smaller states, excluding Spain and Germany, continue the drum beat that there is no significant threat to them or their civilian populations. In study after study this has not been proven to be the case and public preparedness has been shown to reduce casualties. PM Valls statement on the bio-chem threat was in part motivated by the apparent loss of several bio-chem suits from a Paris hospital. While its possible these suits were misplaced or that inventory lists were incorrect, and warnings are not based singularly on bio-chem suits being unaccounted for, the French have taken appropriate measures.  Belgium has increased security at its nuclear facilities and France has increased protection for water supply facilities taking note of analysis by French intelligence  that ISIS is capable of producing crude chemical agents.

“Eau de Paris, the capital’s state-run water company, has banned access to six sensitive sites to all but key personnel following the Government’s decision to declare a state of emergency for three months.”Our eight security agents are the only ones to be accredited by the defense ministry and are in permanent contact with the terrorism cell of Paris police headquarters,” a spokesman told Le Parisien.” “The storage and treatment sites have protective fencing and special sensors to detect intrusion. To limit the risk of contamination, Eau de Paris has increase the amount of chlorine added to water at five supply sites.” “The dose injected has been raised,” said Celia Blauel, president of Eau de Paris. Chlorine is a key indicator of any anomaly in the water. “When the chlorine level drops, it means there is a biological contamination.” she said.” 

“It emerged last week that hospitals and emergency services across France have been supplied with the most powerful antidote to sarin and other nerve gas chemicals for the first time. Under a November 14 decree, the army’s medical service was ordered to distribute stocks of the drug atropine. Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, said that the country could rule nothing out when it came to terrorists bent on mass murder, including “chemical and biological weapons”.

On French and Belgian CBW intelligence and threat reduction capabilities.

The security services of both France and Belgium are to be commended. Both countries share similar population demographics and have extensive experience with terrorism. Additionally, they have both worked, since 911, to prepare their populations for such bio-chem attacks, some of these scenarios I developed and ran myself with their government officials in attendance. Far from being the weakest link, as some media outlets have portrayed the situation, they are in fact the best prepared within the EU to counter such threats.  The weakest link are those countries who have not prepared their public, are currently bombing IS and have announced it on the nightly news without one moment of thought to the risk they have placed their population in and no counter-terrorism or counter intelligence experience to fall back on.

In 2005, French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin called for international cooperation against bioterrorism at an Interpol meeting in Lyon. He promoted the idea of creating a joint database and a rapid alert network for theft, diversion and illegal transfer of biological agents, as well as a list of designated groups and individuals of concern. De Villepin also proposed the creation of an international center for monitoring bio terrorist threats. Mr. de Villepin went on to plead for a better coordination of Biotox style (the French government response to the deliberate introduction of the smallpox virus) plans at European level. “Why not to imagine for example a European reaction plan against a biological attack?”he asked. Furthermore, he added, the EU should initiative an update on reserves of vaccines so that each country knows the nearest country to turn to in case of emergency.” See: http://cordis.europa.eu/news/rcn/23453_en.html.
For over a decade the French government has established itself as the gold standard when it comes to bio-security, bio-safety and certainly countering, on the ground threats from would be bio-terrorists. In 2003, French authorities discovered ricin like substances in Gare du Lyon train station. Subsequently nine suspects of North African descent, who had trained in the Pankisi Gorge and were associated with AQ were arrested. While this is just one high profile example of a possible bio-threat, the French have developed outstanding and what I would describe as comprehensive capabilities to counter the threat of bio-terrorism. This depth of expertise offers a lot from which Member States within the EU could well benefit.

As well, as we trust the U.S. and UK bio-terrorism threat reduction programs.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.