It is even more critical now that we the bring in 25,000 refugees by January 1. The Paris attacks (and others this year) need to strengthen our resolve not weaken it.
This isn’t a business deal, a trade agreement, or a diplomatic exercise. Time is not a luxury they have.
Yes there are risks. We need to do what we can to mitigate them. If we need more resources to help screen the refugees than we need to allocate those. Now. Reinforcing fear is not constructive. We need action. We need to make it work.
Because were not completely innocent here.
The Black Swan and Antifragile author Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s recent article in Politico stated that drone attacks aren’t getting to the root of the problem. ISIS is training young people at an alarming rate. The proliferation of the network can be traced back to Saudi Arabia.
We buy oil from Saudi Arabia. We are their trading partners. This seems like a bit of a conflict.
An Esquire article, published the day after the Paris attacks, reinforced the hypocrisy of our alliance with Saudi Arabia. Charles Pierce noted that the United States has known about the funding of terrorists as least as far back as December 2009 when Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton released a memo that stated “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”
Canada’s relationship with Saudi Arabia is considered friendly. Even going as far to say that “The Saudi government plays an important role in promoting regional peace and stability” on the Embassy site. No mention of the human rights abuses. Or that women aren’t allowed to drive. Or that a blogger Raif Badawi, with a wife and children in Canada, is in Saudia Arabia jail sentenced to ten years, thousand lashes and $300,000 fine for insulting Islam. They have funded the most powerful terrorist group we know. We are in bed with the terrorists’ investor. And now the start-up has oil reserves of their own.
As long as the growth continues and ISIS is able to train and indoctrinate young minds we will have a hard time beating this enemy. “The F-35 fighter plane will not stop a group of motivated murderous fanatics from detonating bombs at a soccer match…Tough talk in the context of what happened in Paris is as empty as a bell rung at the bottom of a well” states Pierce. This isn’t a fight we are going to win with drones alone.
We have financially benefitted from our relationship with Saudi Arabia and our political motives are at least partially guided by their oil reserves. Some of that money has ended up fuelling the very terrorists that we are now afraid have infiltrated the refugees that are, in turn, escaping from those same terrorists. What a tangled web.
There are over 4 million registered Syrian refugees. We can start with not delaying the responsibility for 25,000.
Angela C. Waite 