Thank you for remembering.
I don't think anything serves as a better reminder of just how soft our underbelly is.
Unfortunately, our State Department continues to think that it is a good idea to import Chechens as political refugees. Yet Beslan showed that it was possible to get large numbers of Chechens (and others) to go along with murdering and raping school children, and the Boston bombing showed that refugee Chechens can get into the bombing act as well.Originally Posted by Suvorov
Going by that standard, we shouldnt allow entry of any nationality into the US. We should deport ourselves, too.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Not really. We have lone nuts and occasionally pairs who want to kill school children, but a planned operation carried out by dozens of trained men directed at schools? Of course, during wars, kids get killed, but very, very few nations deliberately target kids and schools. That takes a special kind of mentality. The Chechens were sending the Ossetians and Russians a deliberate message--we know no restraints and will kill and rape your kids if you don't back down. Some drug cartels will do the same thing, but even the old Cosa Nostra rejected such tactics.
The Chechens argue that they were driven to it by Russia's brutal tactics in the Chechen wars, but it also happened after the extreme Islamic radicalization of the Chechen independence movement, and I don't think that it is just a coincidence that the other group that deliberately targets kindergartens and day care centers--various Palestinian factions--also tend to be Islamic radicals.
Whatever the case on Islam, it is true that the Chechens have long run the most brutal criminal mafias in Russia, and the Soviet Union before that, and that Chechen mercenaries are some of the most feared jihadis around. IS has numerous Chechens in its command ranks.
It isn't a good recipe, and I think that it is naïve for the State Department to think that moving to America, where no one knows what a Chechen is, will eliminate the issues in Chechen culture that have resulted in the present situation. (Here it is noteworthy that State doesn't move the Chechens to the posh suburbs of Washington to live among State employees). I think that Boston helped to prove that point.
I was using a broader brush.
Like when not dozens, but hundreds of trained men murdered 150 men, women and children in South Dakota.
Or Tulsa 1921, as mentioned by Tam a few weeks ago.
The Baldwin-Felts Detectives Agency and Colorado National Guard did such a standup ethical job at Ludlow, too.
As for brutality...well, we have that under wraps for now. That didn't stop us from systematically disemboweling people in public, and delivering them to their wives in Kansas via buckets.
My point being that any culture has systemic violence and brutality. Just depends on when you're talking about. I don't see that as a useful justification for wholesale discrimination.
Do you also view the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII to have been justified?
As for the comment about State purposely relocating Chechens to places other than "the posh suburbs of DC".....um, seriously?
Last edited by TGS; 09-01-2014 at 03:30 PM.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Yes, of course the internment of Japanese (and German and Italian) citizens was justified. We were at war with their countries, and unlike the Japanese we respected international conventions on interment. What wasn't justified was the wholesale internment of American citizens of Japanese descent. Their Constitutional rights were ignored. It was an outrage (and stupid).
And that, I think, is where we disagree. Americans--all of them--have Constitutional rights. Foreigners seeking to live in America don't. We are free to discriminate among them, and I think we should do so. When deciding who to admit, I strongly believe that we should admit only those who we rationally believe will fit in here or who have done us some significant service. Thus, while I freely acknowledge that most Chechens aren't jihadist monsters, I know of no easy way of separating one group from the other. For example, the Chechen brothers seemed to be fitting in here--until they suddenly didn't and lots of people got killed. Our government's job is to protect Americans, not to let State Department bureaucrats get awards for letting in lots of difficult-to-settle political refugees.
And yes, I do not think that it is accidental that some of the most difficult groups to integrate brought in by State--such as Chechens, Somalis, and Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis--get dumped far away from DC. The idea of pushing many Somalis to live in Minneapolis, and Arabs to live in Dearborn is emblematic of how State operates. They don't want to expose themselves to the vagaries of "sudden jihad syndrome" any more than they have to.
Jeep, your criteria for admission is rough! I'm Vietnamese. From 1959-1973 (roughly the same length of time for the GWOT), over 56,000 Americans were killed by either NVA troops or Viet-Cong terrorists. Nobody liked us at that time. Thankfully the the 'government' allow me and my family to come to the USA. We did it legally and there were no special tests or criteria to make sure we wouldn't betray the USA. We worked hard and my father, my 3 brothers and I all became doctors. I can safely say that collectively as a family we either saved or improved over 56,000 American lives since 1975. Nobody comes to America to start a sleeper cell. They come to make a better life for themselves. Your vision of America is what we ran away from.
Last edited by Paul D; 09-01-2014 at 10:36 PM.
Paul: I understand what you are saying, but I have to disagree with much of it. First, the Vietnamese who came here (and I imagine your family) were largely against the Communists and many were families of ARVN soldiers. America was by no means universally against admitting Vietnamese refugees. I--like many Americans--was in favor of admitting them in 1975. Many had helped us, and the vast majority were the type of immigrants who were likely to fit in. The many people I knew who had served in RVN were overwhelmingly in favor of admitting Vietnamese refugees; particularly the SF guys. They came home generally liking the Vietnamese.
I also am not against legal immigration generally--indeed I broadly favor it so long as it is done at a pace that allows genuine integration, and I agree that most (though not all) who come here do so solely to build better lives. But the truth is, some groups of immigrants do better than others. Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and Indians have all done pretty well, for example. But various Laotian and Vietnamese mountain tribesmen have had a much harder time. And the Somalis of Minneapolis are clearly struggling, with many of their young men becoming alienated, with a subset of them becoming radicalized. Culture matters. Vietnamese and Chinese culture work well in America. Hmong culture less so (sadly--they were great allies of us during the war), and Somali culture perhaps far less so.
Part of the explanation for the latter is Islam--but only part. Most Indian Moslems who come to the US fit in perfectly well, and very few Indian Moslems here are attracted to jihad. Many more Pakistanis have problems, and the Somalis seem to have the most. The reason is probably that Somali culture is simply so different.
Finally, and putting away the sociology, my vision of America isn't actually what you ran away from. You ran away from the Communist vision of a totalitarian society in which over 1 million South Vietnamese were placed into re-education camps, and many were executed. They weren't restricting who could come into the country because essentially no one wanted to move to Vietnam after they took over (with the exception of some Cambodians who were fleeing the even worse Khmer Rouge). I'm not only not a commie, but I'm not in favor of a lot of government of any sort internally. However, I do think we have every right--and the government has a duty--to protect our borders and try to ensure that immigrants will fit in. I was happy that we took in the Vietnamese, and am in favor of taking in Iraqis and Afghans who helped us (though I think some of them will have a harder time integrating). I am not in favor of taking in Chechens of Syrian Sunnis or others who are unlikely to integrate well when we had no responsibility for the conflict. You might disagree--but in fairness that isn't what you fled from.
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