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Yippee Skippee…..Loretta Lynch got one right it testimony.
Attorney general: Law ‘does not allow’ Gitmo detainees in the US The Hill: The Obama administration is legally prohibited from bringing detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the U.S., Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged on Tuesday, even as the White House searches for ways to close the facility.
“With respect to individuals being transferred to the United States, the law currently does not allow that,” Lynch told the House Judiciary Committee. “That is not, as I am aware of, going to be contemplated, given the legal prescriptions.
“Certainly it is the position of the Department of Justice that we would follow the law of the land in regard on that issue.”
The attorney general noted that President Obama has said he will sign a new defense policy bill that includes additional restrictions on Guantanamo Bay, including new limits on where men at the detention camp can be sent abroad.
Still, Lynch maintained that closing the 13-year-old detention facility “is something that is a part of the administration’s policy.”
“The Department of Justice is committed to fully following that, and the closure of Guantanamo Bay is being carried out in compliance with that law,” she added.
Despite Lynch’s comments, the Obama administration is actively looking for places in Colorado and other states to relocate dozens of detainees from the facility, as part of its broader effort to close the detention facility. Of the 107 men detained at Guantanamo Bay, 48 have been cleared for release to other countries and the administration hopes they will be placed abroad.
This weekend, five Yemeni detainees at the facility were transferred to the United Arab Emirates.
The remaining detainees would need to be placed somewhere in the U.S. The list of possible facilities includes a maximum-security federal prison in Colorado, as well as Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C.
The president is believed to be releasing a formal plan to close Guantanamo Bay in coming weeks. It is sure to be met with vigorous opposition from Republicans, who worry that it would both entail releasing dozens of dangerous terrorists as well as endanger the communities surrounding the prisons of those who are reincarcerated.
“We would expect that to come relatively soon,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Friday.
On Tuesday, Lynch told the House panel that no one had ever escaped out of a super-maximum security prison, which Democrats have used as evidence to support the president’s plan.
“I do not believe anyone has escaped from Supermax,” she said.
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), however, worried that the locations could nonetheless be placed on terrorists’ hit lists.
“If you brought terrorists from Guantanamo Bay and located them in a particular city in the United States, would it not be reasonable to conclude that that would enhance the likelihood that that city could be placed on one of these lists?” Forbes asked.
Further, Lynch was asked questions on refugees and email servers.
UPI: Lynch was asked about other issues during the hearing — such as police-related deaths, radical terrorism, the IRS investigation and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was chief of the U.S. Department of State.
Lynch also discussed a recent plan by the administration to admit a number of Syrian refugees into the United States to aid in the European migrant crisis.
“Not only the Department of Justice but all of our agencies will make every effort to vet every refugee coming into this country,” she said. “Certainly there are challenges to that process.
“We do have the benefit of having that significant and robust screening process in place — a process that Europe has not been able to set up, which renders them much more vulnerable.”
The question and answer session followed a speech delivered by Lynch, which outlined Justice Department achievements and priorities.
“Our highest priority must always be the security of our homeland, and we are acting aggressively to defuse threats as they emerge,” she said. “We remain focused on the threat posed by domestic extremists.”
DailyBeast: He joined the self-proclaimed Islamic State, trained jihadist infantry, and groomed foreign operatives—including a pair of Frenchmen. And now, Abu Khaled says he is ready to talk.
For all the attention paid to ISIS, relatively little is known about its inner workings. But a man claiming to be a member of the so-called Islamic State’s security services has stepped forward to provide that inside view. This series is based on days of interviews with this ISIS spy.
Part One: An Appointment in Istanbul
ISTANBUL — It took some convincing, but the man we’ll call Abu Khaled finally came to tell his story. Weeks of discussion over Skype and WhatsApp had established enough of his biography since last we’d encountered each other, in the early, more hopeful days of the Syrian revolution. He had since joined the ranks of the so-called Islamic State and served with its “state security” branch, the Amn al-Dawla, training jihadist infantry and foreign operatives. Now, he said, he had left ISIS as a defector—making him a marked man. But he did not want to leave Syria, and The Daily Beast was not about to send me there to the kidnap and decapitation capital of the world. I had met him often enough in Syria’s war zones in the past, before the rise of ISIS, to think I might trust him. But not that much. “Lucky for you, the Americans don’t pay ransoms,” he ventured, after the two of us began to grow more relaxed around each other and the question of ISIS hostage-taking inevitably came up. He said he was joking.
I knew from our digital parlays that, if he were telling the truth, he had extraordinary, granular information about the way ISIS operates: who is really in charge, how they come and go, what divisions there are in the ranks of the fighters and the population. Abu Khaled saw firsthand, he said, what amounted to the colonial arrogance of Iraqi and other foreign elites in the ISIS leadership occupying large swaths of his Syrian homeland. He was in a position to explain the banality of the bureaucracy in a would-be state, and the extraordinary savagery of the multiple security services ISIS has created to watch the people, and to watch each other. He could also tell me why so many remain beholden to a totalitarian cult which, far from shrinking from its atrocities and acts of ultra-violence, glories in them.
Abu Khaled had worked with hundreds of foreign recruits to the ISIS banner, some of whom had already traveled back to their home countries as part of the group’s effort to sow clandestine agents among its enemies.
But Abu Khaled didn’t want to leave his wife and an apartment he’d just acquired in the suburbs of embattled Aleppo. He didn’t want to risk the long journey to this Turkish port city. Since he’d bailed out of ISIS, he said, he’d been busy building his own 78-man katiba, or battalion, to fight his former jihadist comrades.
All very interesting, I answered, but still we would have to meet face to face, even if that meant both of us taking calculated risks.
The worst terrorist bombing in modern Turkish history had just been carried out by ISIS operatives in the streets of Ankara, killing over 100 people in a NATO country, reinforcing yet again one of the core ideological conceits of the putative caliphate: Borders are obsolete, and ISIS can get to you anywhere, as it wants everyone to know. There was at least a possibility Abu Khaled was still a spy for ISIS, and that he was part of an operation to collect new hostages.
For Abu Khaled, assuming he was telling me the truth, the risks were much greater. ISIS might track him all the way into the “Land of Unbelief” and deal with him there. Indeed, it did just that with two Syrian activists from Raqqa, who were beheaded in Sanliurfa at the end of October. And there were agents Abu Khaled had trained himself who had left Syria and Iraq for work “behind enemy lines.”
“When you’re in the secret service, everything is controlled,” he told me. “You can’t just leave Islamic State territory.” It would be especially hard for him because all the border was controlled by the state security apparatus he had served. “I trained these guys! Most of them knew me.”
“I can’t go, Mike,” he said more than once as we spoke for hours, long-distance. “I’m kafir now,” an infidel, a non-believer in the view of the caliphate. “I was Muslim and now I’m kafir. You can’t go back, from Muslim to kafir, back to Muslim again.” The price you pay is death.
Given the circumstances, it seemed possible, even preferable, that he leave Syria for good, and bring his wife to Istanbul, so they could make their way eventually to Europe. But he refused even to consider such a thing. Abu Khaled told me he was prepared to die in Syria. “You have to die somewhere,” he said. “People die in bed more than people who die in wars. What if something like this happened to your country? Are you willing to die for your country, the next generation, or do you run away?”
All this sounded persuasive, but to get at what Abu Khaled knew with any confidence, I had to have the chance to question him again and again. He had to be asked about any contradictions in his account. I had to see his body language, his twitches, his tells. And that could only be done in person.
***
I asked Abu Khaled: Did you warn anyone about these two Frenchmen? “Yes,” he responded.
Abu Khaled eventually relented. He borrowed about $1,000 to make the long, 750-mile journey by car and bus from Aleppo to Istanbul, and then back again. We met at the end of October. And so for three long days, in the cafés, restaurants, and boulevards of a cosmopolis, on the fault line between Europe and the Middle East, I watched him through the haze of smoke as he lit one cigarette after another, and sipped his bitter Turkish coffee, and looked me in the eye. And Abu Khaled sang.
“All my life, OK, I’m Muslim, but I’m not into Sharia or very religious,” he said early in our conversation. “One day, I looked in the mirror at my face. I had a long beard. I didn’t recognize myself. It was like Pink Floyd. ‘There’s somebody in my head but it’s not me.’”
Not many recovering jihadists have a word-perfect recall for “Brain Damage.” But Abu Khaled is not a fresh young fanatic anxious for martyrdom, he is a well-educated multilingual Syrian national of middle age whose talents, including his past military training, the ISIS leadership had found useful.
In his novel Money, Martin Amis describes a character’s face as having “areas of waste and fatigue, the moonspots and boneshadow you’re bound to get if you hang out in the twentieth century.” Abu Khaled’s face, now shorn of the long beard he’d been made to grow, bore all the signs of someone who’d already hung out too long in the 21st. He looked haggard and beaten.
Like many of his compatriots, he’d spent a large part of a war that has gone on for half a decade based in southern Turkey. He joined ISIS on Oct. 19, 2014, he said, about a month after the U.S.-led coalition’s Operation Inherent Resolve expanded its aerial bombardment campaign to Raqqa, the eastern province where ISIS keeps its “capital.”
Abu Khaled felt compelled to sign up because he believed America was an accomplice to global conspiracy, led by Iran and Russia, to keep the tyrant Bashar al-Assad in power. How else could it be explained that the U.S. was waging war only against Sunnis, and leaving an Alawite-run regime guilty of mass murder by almost every means and its Iranian Shia armies untouched?
“The most important thing,” Abu Khaled said, “is that they are trying to make sleeper cells all over the world.”
Also, Abu Khaled was curious. “I went there practically as an adventure,” he said. “I wanted to see what kind of people were there. Honestly, I don’t regret it. I wanted to know them. Now they are my enemy—and I know them very well.”
The procedure that took him into ISIS ranks was thoroughly organized. He approached a checkpoint at the Turkish-Syrian border town of Tal Abyad when it was in ISIS’s hands. “They asked me, ‘Where are you going?’ I said: ‘Raqqa.’ They asked me why. I told them I wanted to join ISIS. They checked my luggage.”
Once in Raqqa he had to go to the “Homs embassy,” the name for the ISIS administrative building where all Syrians had to apply. He spent two days there, after which he was transferred to what was called the “Border Administration Department.” All this in his own country, which ISIS informed him no longer existed.
“They considered me an immigrant because I had been living outside the caliphate.” So Abu Khaled had to be “naturalized” first, and had to pass a citizenship interview conducted by an Iraqi named Abu Jaber.
“Why do you want to become a holy warrior?” he was asked. He said something perfunctory about fighting the crusader-infidels, he recalls. Apparently it passed Abu Jaber’s smell test.
The next stage was indoctrination: “I went to Sharia court for two weeks. You have to go take classes. They teach you how to hate people.” Abu Khaled laughed. He was taught the ISIS version of Islam—that non-Muslims have to be killed because they are the enemy of the Islamic community. “It’s brainwashing,” he said.
“They asked me, ‘Where are you going?’ I said: ‘Raqqa.’ They asked me why. I told them I wanted to join ISIS. They checked my luggage.”
The clerics responsible for this indoctrination were know-nothing striplings from foreign countries. “There was one guy I remember from Libya, maybe he was in his mid-twenties.” What kind of Islamic authority could someone so young have, Abu Khaled wondered. And where were all the Syrians?
***
In his first weeks with ISIS, Abu Khaled met Germans, Dutchmen, Frenchmen, Venezuelans, Trinidadians, Americans, and Russians—all freshly arrived to “remain and expand,” as the ISIS mantra goes, and to be custodians of the one true faith.
As might be expected, new additions to this jihadist internationale don’t have even conversational Arabic, so a polyglot volunteer, such as Abu Khaled, is particularly valued. He has fluent Arabic, English, and French, and was therefore seized upon right away as an interpreter. “I had two groups,” he said. “On the left I had the French and was translating from Arabic to French; on the right I had the Americans, translating from Arabic into English.”
As part of its agitprop, ISIS often shows its muhajireen, or foreign fighters, setting their passports ablaze in a ritual designed to demonstrate that there’s no going back. Whether from Bruges or Baton Rouge, they have all repudiated their nationality in Dar al-Harb, the land of war and depravity and godlessness, in order to become inhabitants of Dar al-Islam, the land of faith and peace (once it finishes fighting wars). But this is mostly for show. Previously, most new arrivals either kept their passports or “handed them over.” To whom? “Human Resources,” said Abu Khaled.
But that relatively relaxed personnel policy has changed in recent days. ISIS is increasingly restrictive and controlling as it has begun to lose battles, some of them at tremendous cost.
Before the fight for the Kurdish town of Kobani last year, the caliphate had an aura of invincibility, and people from around the world were rushing to envelop themselves in the black flag of messianic victory. But in that battle, which lasted for months, Kurdish paramilitaries backed by U.S. airpower fought well, while ISIS—at least as far as Abu Khaled characterizes it—needlessly sent thousands to their slaughter, without any tactical, much less strategic, forethought. The jihadist army had lost between 4,000 and 5,000 fighters, most of them non-Syrians.
Part I: An Appointment in Istanbul Part II: Spies Like ISIS
Part III: Coming Friday Part IV: Coming Saturday
“Double this number are wounded and can’t fight anymore,” Abu Khaled told me. “They lost a leg or a hand.” Immigrants, then, are requisitioned as cannon fodder? He nodded. In September of last year, at the apogee of ISIS’s foreign recruitment surge, he says the influx of foreigners amazed even those welcoming them in. “We had like 3,000 foreign fighters who arrived every day to join ISIS. I mean, every day. And now we don’t have even like 50 or 60.”
This sudden shortfall has led to a careful rethinking by ISIS high command of how inhabitants outside of Syria and Iraq can best serve the cause. “The most important thing,” Abu Khaled said, “is that they are trying to make sleeper cells all over the world.” The ISIS leadership has “asked people to stay in their countries and fight there, kill citizens, blow up buildings, whatever they can do. You don’t have to come.”
Some of the jihadists under Abu Khaled’s tutelage have already left al-Dawla, the state, as he puts it, and gone back to their nations of origin. He mentioned two Frenchmen in their early 30s. What were their names? Abu Khaled claimed not to know. “We don’t ask these kinds of questions. We are all ‘Abu Something.’ Once you start asking about personal histories, this is the ultimate red flag.”
Following the Paris terrorist attacks on Nov. 13, which occurred almost a month after our meeting in Turkey, I contacted Abu Khaled. Now back in Aleppo, he told me that he was fairly certain that one or both of these French nationals were involved in some way in the coordinated assault, the worst atrocity to befall France since World War II, which has killed at least 132 and left almost as many critically wounded. He says he’s now waiting to see their photographs published in the international press.
In the meantime, he volunteered their physical descriptions. The first was a North African, possibly from Algeria or Morocco, bald, of average height and weight. The other was a short, blond-haired, blue-eyed Frenchman, very likely a convert to Islam, who had a wife and a 7-year-old son.
It seemed like the kind of information that those looking to counter ISIS would find useful. So I asked Abu Khaled: Did you warn anyone about these two? “Yes,” he responded, and left it at that.
FAS: The terrorist attacks in Paris last week, for which the Islamic State (sometimes referred to as ISIS, ISIL, or IS) has claimed responsibility, have renewed concerns about terrorist travel. Following reports that at least one of the perpetrators of the attacks was carrying a Syrian passport, there has been heightened scrutiny and debate concerning the resettlement of refugees from war-torn Syria to Europe and the United States. This Sidebar provides a brief overview of some (but by no means all) of the tools the federal government employs to prevent individuals from traveling to, from, or within the United States to commit acts of terrorism. In some cases, the application of these tools may depend on different factors, including whether the suspected terrorist is a U.S. or foreign national.
Terrorist Databases and Screening
Decisions by the federal government as to whether to use a particular tool to deter an individual’s travel are often informed by information collected by various agencies that link that individual to terrorism. The Terrorist Screening Center (TSC)—administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—maintains the federal government’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), the government’s single source repository watch list record of known and suspected terrorists. TSC provides various federal agencies with subsets of the TSDB for use in combating and deterring terrorism. Some of the many screening systems supported by the TSDB include the Department of State’s Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS) for screening of passports and visas; the TECS system (not an acronym) administered by Custom and Border Protection within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to screen and make eligibility determinations of arriving persons at U.S. ports of entry; the DHS’s Secure Flight system for air passenger prescreening; and the FBI’s National Crime and Information Center’s Known or Suspected Terrorist File. Of course, while the TSDB supplies these systems with information on the identity of suspected terrorists, these systems may also include information on individuals obtained independently from the TSDB consistent with the agency’s particular responsibilities.
No-Fly List and Selectee List
Information compiled by the TSDB may be used to deter suspected terrorists from using civil aircraft and other modes of transportation to travel to, from, or within the United States. The safety of air travel, particularly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is an important priority for the U.S. government. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and charged it with ensuring the security of all modes of transportation, including civil aviation. Two of the most prominent means by which TSA attempts to deter terrorist travel is via two watch lists comprised of information from the TSDB – the No-Fly List and the Selectee List. Persons on the No-Fly list are prohibited from boarding an American airline or any flight that comes in contact with U.S. territory or airspace. Those on the Selectee List are subject to enhanced screening procedures.
Criminal Sanctions
Perhaps the most severe means by which to prevent persons from traveling to, from, or within the United States for terrorist purposes is through the use of criminal sanctions. A wide range of terrorism-related conduct is subject to criminal penalty under U.S. law. Many of the most relevant criminal statutes are extraterritorial in reach, covering conduct which may occur partially or (in more limited cases) entirely outside the United States. Persons who aid and abet a criminal violation may typically be held criminally liable for the underlying offense to the same degree as the person who directly committed the violation. Attempts or conspiracies to commit proscribed conduct are also typically subject to criminal punishment. Several U.S. persons accused of attempting or conspiring to assist the Islamic State, including through either encouraging others to travel abroad to join the group or planning to join the group themselves, have been charged with terrorism offenses.
Probable cause is required to arrest a person for a criminal violation, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt is necessary to sustain a conviction. Law enforcement’s suspicion that a traveler may be involved in terrorist conduct (or associated with others who have terrorist ties) may not be sufficient to warrant the traveler’s arrest. As a result, government officials may sometimes deploy tools other than criminal sanctions to deter travel by persons suspected of terrorist activity.
Passport Restrictions on Travel to Specific Countries
Through the revocation or denial of passports, U.S. authorities could potentially impede the international travel of U.S. citizens suspected of terrorist involvement or association with an enemy belligerency. Federal law provides that, except as authorized by the President, a U.S. citizen may not depart from the United States and travel to another country unless he bears a valid passport. The revocation of the passport of a U.S. citizen located abroad may also have implications for his ability to remain in a particular foreign country, or travel from there to a third country. While federal statute provides that U.S. citizens also may not reenter the country unless they bear a valid passport, U.S. citizens who travel abroad appear to enjoy a constitutional right to be readmitted back into the United States.
State Department regulations identify various grounds for which passport applications may be denied or a previously issued passport may be revoked. Several such grounds may be relevant to efforts to deter international travel by U.S. citizens suspected of involvement with terrorist groups, including those permitting the denial or revocation of passports to U.S. citizens who are the subject of outstanding felony arrest warrants or requests for extradition. The regulations also provide that a U.S. citizen’s passport application may be denied or revoked when the Secretary of State “determines that the applicant’s activities abroad are causing or are likely to cause serious damage to the national security or the foreign policy of the United States.” However, the authority to deny or revoke passports on account of national security or foreign policy concerns is not absolute. The Supreme Court has recognized that the State Department lacks statutory authority to deny a passport solely on the basis of the applicant’s political beliefs; the denial must be based in part upon actual conduct that causes serious damage to the national security or foreign policy of the United States.
In addition to regulatory authority to deny or revoke passports, State Department regulations also permit the Secretary of State to restrict the usage of U.S. passports to travel to a country or area in certain cases – including when the Secretary has determined the country or area is a place where “armed hostilities are in progress” or there exists “an imminent danger to the public health or physical safety of United States travelers.” Such restrictions have been imposed on a number of occasions, including restricting the use of a U.S. passport to travel to Iraq from 1991 until late 2003, on account of hostilities occurring in that country and the potential dangers posed to U.S. travelers.
Immigration
Perhaps the most effective and commonly employed means to deter non-U.S. nationals (aliens) suspected of terrorist activity from traveling to the United States derive from federal immigration law. Rules governing whether and when aliens may be admitted into the United States, along with the conditions for their continued presence in the country, are primarily found in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The INA establishes several grounds for which an alien suspected of terrorist activity may be barred from admission into the United States, including persons seeking to come to the United States as refugees. Under INA §212(f), the President is also conferred with broad authority to act, by means of proclamation, to bar the entry of an alien or class of aliens into the United States if he deems their entry detrimental to U.S. interests, though usage of this authority has been relatively rare. While programs like the No-Fly List may prevent suspected foreign terrorists from coming to the United States via a particular mode of transportation, federal immigration rules and requirements may prevent such persons from traveling to the United States using any mode of transport.
The INA generally provides that aliens who are seeking initial admission into the country bear the burden of proving they are admissible. Moreover, judicial review of a decision by a consular officer abroad to deny an alien a visa to come to the United States, or a determination made by customs and border officials at a U.S. port of entry that an arriving alien is inadmissible on terrorism-related grounds, may be quite circumscribed or virtually non-existent. Aliens who have been lawfully admitted into the country might also be removed from the United States for the same terrorism-related reasons as aliens seeking initial admission into the country. In the case of lawfully admitted aliens, however, federal immigration authorities bear the evidentiary burden of demonstrating that the alien’s activities render him deportable before the alien may be ordered removed. There may also be greater availability of judicial review than in cases where an alien has not yet been lawfully admitted. Moreover, if a lawful permanent resident alien (sometimes described as an “immigrant”) travels briefly abroad and seeks to return to the United States, he may be afforded greater procedural and substantive protections than other aliens who attempt to travel to the United States.
Immigration rules and requirements do not apply to U.S. citizens. Whereas an alien suspected of terrorism-related travel to the United States may be barred from admission into the country, other methods would need to be employed (e.g., placement on the No-Fly List, criminal prosecution, passport restrictions) to deter U.S. citizens from traveling to, from, or within the United States for terrorist purposes.
Yes, and this calls for Ambassadors to be recalled. Sheesh…..Was it Kerry’s bad enunciation in French or something? Jihadi are freedom fighters fighting for a cause or jobs or climate change perhaps…. Disgusting! Demand that John Kerry be recalled. ….Something tells me the motivation in Kerry’s remarks were based in pro-Iran and anti-Israel. The sub conscience speaks.
TWS: In remarks today in Paris, France, Secretary of State John Kerry justified the terror attack earlier this year that targeted the magazine Charlie Hebdo in January. This latest attack, by contrast, was different, said Kerry.
“In the last days, obviously, that has been particularly put to the test,” Kerry said, according to a State Department transcript. “There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.
“This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That’s not an exaggeration. It was to assault all sense of nationhood and nation-state and rule of law and decency, dignity, and just put fear into the community and say, “Here we are.” And for what? What’s the platform? What’s the grievance? That we’re not who they are? They kill people because of who they are and they kill people because of what they believe. And it’s indiscriminate. They kill Shia. They kill Yezidis. They kill Christians. They kill Druze. They kill Ismaili. They kill anybody who isn’t them and doesn’t pledge to be that. And they carry with them the greatest public display of misogyny that I’ve ever seen, not to mention a false claim regarding Islam. It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism – I mean, you name it.”
Sure, not all immigrants or refugees are terrorists or connected to terrorism, but due to the fact there is no way to check and verify backgrounds from people out of the Middle East, especially Syria, it is irresponsible to even suggest all can be checked.
Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman, 19, Adnan Farah, 19, Hanad Mustafe Musse, 19, and Guled Ali Omar, 20, were arrested in Minneapolis. Abdirahman Yasin Daud, 21, and Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 21, were arrested in San Diego after driving there in hopes of crossing into Mexico.
Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes stated that the Federal government has robust methods to verify backgrounds. That is indeed in dispute. Per Ben Rhodes, he mentioned using the National Counterterrorism Center was one of the resources, yet upon a in depth review of the website, they don’t do background checks at all.
If there is any truth at all to be told, the United Nations controls the flow and background checks of the refugees. No one wants to admit that due to the fact, an outside bureaucratic organization has control over the flow on people into countries, including the United States. The United Nations coordinates with other organizations as well including the International Rescue Committee. The UN has a wing called the Human Rights that manages who is called a refugee or those called ‘stateless’ people. In turn, the U.S. State Department has its own bureau that has charitable organizations, paid by government to place refugees in locations across the Unite States, without notice or approval of governors or mayors.
For some testimony by the State Department on the Refugee Admission Program, click here.
There is not a single person within the Obama administration that can make guarantees with full confidence that all people admitted are without any questionable background, there in lies the issue.
The White House is so panicked about so many bi-partisan governors pushing back to stop the program into their states, there is a conference call with those governors and the White House on November 17. Perhaps some will ask why no Christians but further why in America when there are other locations across the globe more conducive the migrant needs.
State Department figures released Monday showed that the current system overwhelmingly favors Muslim refugees. Of the 2,184 Syrian refugees admitted to the United States so far, only 53 are Christians while 2,098 are Muslim, the Christian News Service reported.
Mr. Cotton and Sen. John Boozman, both Arkansas Republicans, called Monday for a moratorium on resettlements, a White House report on vetting procedures, and a re-evaluation of the refugee-referral process.
“[T]he United States’ reliance on the United Nations for referrals of Syrian refugees should also be re-evaluated,” said Mr. Cotton in a statement. “That reliance unintentionally discriminates against Syrian Christians and other religious minorities who are reluctant to register as refugees with the United Nations for fear of political and sectarian retribution.”
The current system relies on referrals from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Syria’s population in 2011 was 90 percent Muslim and 10 percent Christian, CNS said.
At a news conference Monday in Turkey, President Obama described as “shameful” the idea of giving religious preferences to refugees, apparently referring to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s suggestion that the United States should accept Christian refugees while Muslim refugees are sent to majority-Muslim countries.
“That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion,” Mr. Obama said.
Figures from the State Department Refugee Processing Center updated Monday showed that 96 percent of the Syrian refugees accepted so far are Muslim, while less than 3 percent are Christian. The other 33 identified as belonging to smaller religious faiths or said they had no religion.
Ben Rhodes, Obama deputy national security adviser, said Sunday that the White House still plans to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees despite last week’s deadly terrorist attack on Paris. Republicans have countered that it’s all but impossible to conduct background checks on those seeking refuge.
Mr. Cotton and Mr. Boozman called Monday for a temporary moratorium on resettlements and “a requirement that the President certify the integrity of the security vetting process as a condition of lifting the moratorium.”
“The American people have long demonstrated unmatched compassion for the world’s persecuted and endangered. But when bringing refugees to our shores, the U.S. government must put the security of Arkansans and all Americans first,” Mr. Cotton said. “No terrorist should be able to take advantage of the refugee process to threaten the United States.”