The picture of Obama, Putin and two other guys with their heads together that I saw on TV yesterday scares me.
I’m not sure why. It just does.
Nothing good is going to come of that.
“There is a new and darker mood in the media in the wake of the Paris attacks — and a far greater willingness to take on President Obama for the lack of progress against the ISIS killers.”
“The strategy is explicit. The Islamic State explained after the January attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine that such attacks “compel the Crusaders to actively destroy the grayzone themselves. . . . Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize . . . or they [emigrate] to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the Crusader governments and citizens.” The group calculates that a small number of attackers can profoundly shift the way that European society views its 44 million Muslim members and, as a result, the way European Muslims view themselves. Through this provocation, it seeks to set conditions for an apocalyptic war with the West.
Unfortunately, elements of European society are reacting as the Islamic State desires.”
I’m sympathetic to those who are complaining that so little attention to others who have been killed by ISIL compared to Paris. I don’t have a problem with the flag colors on FB, but really, grim though it was, why only Paris on our radars?
Michelle – There’s been a discussion about that on a Facebook post of Kyle Ambrose’s (a former WMB regular – remember him?). The conclusion we came to is that it is natural to care more about people who are closer to us in proximity or culture.
Also, we are, unfortunately, used to hearing about these things in Middle Eastern countries, so when it happens in a Western country, we are more shocked.
There has definitely been little attention paid to certain victims of ISIS. Especially from certain people in high political office. In fact some are trying to deny Christian victims any protections at all. They want Syrian refugees, just not the Christian victims. I’m referring of course, to the Obama WH and State Dept.
“A report by a renowned journalist states that Christians are to be excluded from an impending official United States government declaration of ISIS genocide. If true, it would reflect a familiar pattern within the administration of a politically correct bias that views Christians — even non-Western congregations such as those in Iraq and Syria — never as victims but always as Inquisition-style oppressors. (That a State Department genocide designation for ISIS may be imminent was acknowledged last week in congressional testimony, by Ambassador Anne Patterson, the assistant secretary of the State Department’s Near East Bureau.)
Yazidis, according to the story by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, are going to be officially recognized as genocide victims, and rightly so. Yet Christians, who are also among the most vulnerable religious minority groups that have been deliberately and mercilessly targeted for eradication by ISIS, are not. This is not an academic matter. A genocide designation would have significant policy implications for American efforts to restore property and lands taken from the minority groups and for offers of aid, asylum, and other protections to such victims. Worse, it would mean that, under the Genocide Convention, the United States and other governments would not be bound to act to suppress or even prevent the genocide of these Christians.
An unnamed State Department official was quoted by Isikoff as saying that only the attacks on Yazidis have made “the high bar” of the genocide standard and as pointing to the mass killing of 1,000 Yazidi men and the enslavement of thousands of Yazidi women and girls. To propose that Christians have been simply driven off their land but not suffered similar fates is deeply misinformed. In fact, the last Christians to pray in the language spoken by Jesus are also being deliberately targeted for extinction through equally brutal measures.
Christians have been executed by the thousands. Christian women and girls are vulnerable to sexual enslavement. Many of their clergy have been assassinated and their churches and ancient monasteries demolished or desecrated. They have been systematically stripped of all their wealth, and those too elderly or sick to flee ISIS-controlled territory have been forcibly converted to Islam or killed, such as an 80-year-old woman who was burned to death for refusing to abide by ISIS religious rules. Pope Francis pronounced their suffering “genocide” in July. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and a broad array of other churches have done so as well. Analysis from an office of the Holocaust Museum apparently relied on by the State Department asserts that ISIS protects Christians in exchange for jizya, an Islamic tax for “People of the Book,” but the assertion is simply not grounded in fact.”
“For Christians and Yazidis Fleeing Genocide, the Obama Administration Has No Room at the Inn”
“More than a year after it began, ISIS’s persecution continues. Some 3,000 Yazidi women and girls and smaller numbers of Christians remain enslaved by ISIS for sex. The practice of sexual enslavement, explicitly directed against Christians and Yazidis, is now institutionalized by the Islamic State. It was revived last year by ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself when he took captive and serially raped American humanitarian Kayla Mueller.
Hundreds of other Christian civilians remain ISIS prisoners, including 460 taken during the spring and summer from northern Syria. Others have been slaughtered. Catholic priest Father Jacques Mourad was captured in Syria in July and has disappeared. Another Iraqi priest was killed and returned in pieces to his family, despite a payment of $120,000 in ransom. This seems to be a new trend: Recently other Iraqi Christian hostages have been killed despite ransom payments.”
Some regional Christian leaders are now imploring the world for asylum for their flocks. “I am calling on the international community,” says Yohanna Mouche, the Syriac Catholic archbishop of Mosul. “If they cannot protect us, then they must open their doors and help us start a new life elsewhere.” Bishop Jammo has long pressed this point but emphasizes that Iraqi and Syrian Christians should be resettled in large communities so that their Aramaic language, spoken by Jesus and his apostles, and their precious ancient culture and traditions might be preserved.
The Obama administration has offered no assurance that it will look outside the U.N. system to ensure that any Christians and Yazidis who fled ISIS will be included under the U.S. quota program. Whether out of indifference or by intent, the administration is abandoning the members of these religious minorities. In so doing, it is impeding their chances of survival, along with dooming the imperative of “never again.”
“The strategy is explicit. The Islamic State explained after the January attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine that such attacks “compel the Crusaders to actively destroy the grayzone themselves. . . . Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize . . . or they [emigrate] to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the Crusader governments and citizens.” The group calculates that a small number of attackers can profoundly shift the way that European society views its 44 million Muslim members and, as a result, the way European Muslims view themselves. Through this provocation, it seeks to set conditions for an apocalyptic war with the West.”
Only 2 choices? That’s not true at all. They could start policing there own and pointing out the radicals to the authorities. They could vocally attempt to retrieve their religion from these same radicals who’ve hijacked it. Other surrounding Muslim countries could step up to the plate. There’s a lot of other choices.
But her answer is to leave the borders open and don’t anger them or they might do bad things? Why not just surrender now and be done with it? 🙄
It should be pointed out that thus far, there has been no firm connection between Syrian refugees and the terrorist attacks. The report of a Syrian passport found next to a terrorist is unconfirmed – in other word it is only a rumour, and thus should not sway anyone’s actions. So far the terrorists whom the authorities have identified are French nationals (as would be expected, since Syrian nationals would not have knowledge of Parisian locations). Also, as someone on the radio observed today, refugees, as refugees, are unlikely to have such a passport as they have fled without first getting travel papers. So, there is no proven connection. As I observed some time ago, some 3000 ISIS operatives in Syria have come from Europe and North America – which means ISIS is already among us and does not need to come in with the Syrian refugees.
“This is the face of one of the Paris killers who allegedly sneaked into France by posing as a refugee after being rescued from a sinking migrant boat as it emerged a woman and three brothers may have been part of the eight-strong ISIS kamikaze terror squad.
Serbian media claims Ahmed Almuhamed, 25, whose Syrian passport was found on the body of a suicide bomber, allegedly blew himself up at the Bataclan concert hall, where at least 89 people were slaughtered on Friday.
The newspaper, Blic, claims Almuhamed arrived with another of the bombers in Europe on the Greek island of Leros on October 3 on his way to Paris. Greek website Protothema have published ferry tickets showing the name of a second man, Mohammed Almuhamed, who could be a relation.
French police are hunting 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, from Brussels, who is accused of renting a Volkswagen Polo used by the suicide bombers who killed 89 people at the Bataclan music venue on Friday.”
“Given the increasingly evident role that the country has played in the Paris attacks, this now looks like a mistake. By some estimates, Belgium has supplied the highest per capita number of fighters to Syria of any European nation – between 350 and 550, out of a total population of 11 million that includes fewer than half a million Muslims.
This is a problem that has been building for many years. As elsewhere in Europe, Belgium suffered waves of terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s linked to unrest in the Middle East. “There is a very long history of connection between Belgium and France in the realm of terrorism,” said Rik Coolsaet , an expert in terrorism at the University of Ghent.”
“Belgium’s home affairs minister said that the government does not “have control of the situation in Molenbeek,” a working-class neighborhood of Brussels that has been linked to several terrorism plots in recent years.
Speaking on the VRT television channel on Sunday, the minister, Jan Jambon, said that the government would “step up efforts” to bring order to the area of the Belgian capital.
“I see that Mayor Françoise Schepmans is also asking our help, and that the local police chief is willing to cooperate,” Mr. Jambon said. “We should join forces and clean up the last bit that needs to be done; that’s really necessary.”
Prime Minister Charles Michel of Belgium said he was also concerned about jihadist networks in Molenbeek.”
“Perhaps with good reason: Molenbeek has been connected to almost all of Belgium’s terrorism-related incidents in recent years. Moroccan national Ayoub el-Khazzani, who opened fire with a Kalashnikov on a high-speed Thalys train in August had lived in Molenbeek. French-Algerian Mehdi Nemmouche, who killed four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels last year, spent time in the area. And the two suspected terrorists killed by Belgian police in a shootout in the eastern town of Verviers in January were from Molenbeek.
As well as being home to many ethnic Moroccans and Turks, Molenbeek is also one of the country’s poorest areas. It has a 30 per cent unemployment rate, and one in four of its 95,000 inhabitants does not have a Belgian passport. Like gang violence, Islamic radicalism has fed on Molenbeek’s marginalisation, despair and festering resentment of authority. Police say the most dangerous among around 30 Brussels gangs come from Molenbeek. ”
“Brice De Ruyver, who spent eight years as security adviser to then-Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, said Molenbeek suffers from a cocktail of problems. “Youths are poorly educated, attracted by petty crime, have run-ins with police, and then there is a vicious circle, which leads to recruitment by radical groups,” he said, adding that the problems are now so serious, that it is hard to find police willing to bother tackling them.
“We don’t officially have no-go zones in Brussels, but in reality, there are, and they are in Molenbeek.””
Sounds sensible. I think we can all agree we shouldn’t stop accepting refugees, but they need to be thoroughly vetted first, which we’re not doing now.
“Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), a GOP presidential candidate, is proposing a bill to halt visas from all countries with “significant jihadist movements” in light of Friday night’s terror attacks in Paris for which Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility.
“The best way to defend the country from attackers that don’t really have an army, but come here as individuals, is to prevent their access into this country,” Paul told reporters on Monday.
“It is about time, and I think Paris should wake us up to the fact that we can’t just let anyone come to this country,” he added.
“Paul initially signaled that the legislation would extend to all refugees, but his office clarified that moratorium only extends to the approximately 30 high-risk countries that Paul said have “significant jihadist movements.”
The restriction bars all visas in those countries, including for students and tourists, and would be lifted once Congress certifies that a country has complete control over who is crossing its borders.
The proposal would also institute a 30-day waiting period for visas from countries that are currently part of America’s Visa Waiver Program, which includes France.”
“The Obama administration did not tell Congress, until recently, that Syrian Refugees were arriving in Louisiana. According to a House Homeland Security Committee aide, Congress did not know about 13 Syrian refugees who arrived in New Orleans over the past two fiscal years until it was reported by a local news outlet 10 days ago.
This eliciting a warning from from the Committee about the lack of current intelligence regarding the refugees who are in the U.S. and those who will arrive in the future.”
““While all refugees are vetted against all known intelligence community holdings, the Committee is concerned that the lack of current, reliable intelligence on the ground in Syria makes it very difficult to determine with any certainty who is entering the United States. We could very well be accepting individuals connected to ISIS, al-Nusra, al-Qaeda or any one of the terror groups currently operating in Syria,” a committee aide told the Daily Caller in an e-mail.”
I see no reason to believe the Daily Mail. The the article only uses “alleged” and “claims” to show the connection, and they reference a Serbian media source (who for some unknown reason apparently knows more than the French authorities do). In other words, the Mail is perpetuating a rumour – which is what they often do, as they are more of a gossip publication than anything else.
AJ – (re: the supposed two choices) I think what the writer meant was that was what ISIS believes will be their choices, not the words of the writer herself.
“Police on Leros registered the man under the identity in the passport he showed them: Ahmad AlMohammad, 25, from Syria. The same passport was found near the man’s body outside the stadium on Friday night.
Whoever the man was, he posed as one of the many refugees fleeing Syria’s war—including the violence of Islamic State—to enter Europe through its lightly controlled frontier in the Aegean Sea.”
“What made it worse? Sunday’s revelation that at least one of the Paris terrorists who killed more than 120 people on Friday entered Europe as just another face in the crowd — embedded in the current wave of Syrian war refugees. The development appears likely to fire up the security debate over what to do with them.
One of the men who attacked Paris held an emergency passport or similar document, according to an unnamed French senator who was briefed by the French Ministry of the Interior. The senator told CNN the bomber falsely declared himself to be a Syrian named Ahmad al Muhammad, born on September 10, 1990, and was allowed to enter Greece on October 3. From there he moved to Macedonia, then Serbia and Croatia, where he registered in the Opatovac refugee camp, the lawmaker said. Eventually, he made his way to Paris, where he was one of three men who blew themselves up at the Stade de France.
Fingerprints on the passport matched those of the Stade de France bomber, the French senator told CNN.
The fingerprint was not in the French database, the senator said, and therefore officials believe the man was among a group of refugees and migrants.”
Wandering Views 
The picture of Obama, Putin and two other guys with their heads together that I saw on TV yesterday scares me.
I’m not sure why. It just does.
Nothing good is going to come of that.
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Chas, At least Putin was there to watch out for the interests of Christians and heterosexuals.
LikeLiked by 2 people
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/11/16/media-turn-on-obama-for-low-key-response-to-massacre-in-paris/?intcmp=hpbt3
“There is a new and darker mood in the media in the wake of the Paris attacks — and a far greater willingness to take on President Obama for the lack of progress against the ISIS killers.”
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“The Islamic State’s trap for Europe”
“The strategy is explicit. The Islamic State explained after the January attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine that such attacks “compel the Crusaders to actively destroy the grayzone themselves. . . . Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize . . . or they [emigrate] to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the Crusader governments and citizens.” The group calculates that a small number of attackers can profoundly shift the way that European society views its 44 million Muslim members and, as a result, the way European Muslims view themselves. Through this provocation, it seeks to set conditions for an apocalyptic war with the West.
Unfortunately, elements of European society are reacting as the Islamic State desires.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hating-muslim-refugees-is-exactly-what-the-islamic-state-wants-europe-to-do/2015/11/15/dfe0ca84-87d1-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html
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I’m sympathetic to those who are complaining that so little attention to others who have been killed by ISIL compared to Paris. I don’t have a problem with the flag colors on FB, but really, grim though it was, why only Paris on our radars?
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Michelle – There’s been a discussion about that on a Facebook post of Kyle Ambrose’s (a former WMB regular – remember him?). The conclusion we came to is that it is natural to care more about people who are closer to us in proximity or culture.
Also, we are, unfortunately, used to hearing about these things in Middle Eastern countries, so when it happens in a Western country, we are more shocked.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Michelle,
There has definitely been little attention paid to certain victims of ISIS. Especially from certain people in high political office. In fact some are trying to deny Christian victims any protections at all. They want Syrian refugees, just not the Christian victims. I’m referring of course, to the Obama WH and State Dept.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427044/christians-isis-genocide-obama-administration?ZDZ78TZiYoavvhGr.01
“A report by a renowned journalist states that Christians are to be excluded from an impending official United States government declaration of ISIS genocide. If true, it would reflect a familiar pattern within the administration of a politically correct bias that views Christians — even non-Western congregations such as those in Iraq and Syria — never as victims but always as Inquisition-style oppressors. (That a State Department genocide designation for ISIS may be imminent was acknowledged last week in congressional testimony, by Ambassador Anne Patterson, the assistant secretary of the State Department’s Near East Bureau.)
Yazidis, according to the story by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, are going to be officially recognized as genocide victims, and rightly so. Yet Christians, who are also among the most vulnerable religious minority groups that have been deliberately and mercilessly targeted for eradication by ISIS, are not. This is not an academic matter. A genocide designation would have significant policy implications for American efforts to restore property and lands taken from the minority groups and for offers of aid, asylum, and other protections to such victims. Worse, it would mean that, under the Genocide Convention, the United States and other governments would not be bound to act to suppress or even prevent the genocide of these Christians.
An unnamed State Department official was quoted by Isikoff as saying that only the attacks on Yazidis have made “the high bar” of the genocide standard and as pointing to the mass killing of 1,000 Yazidi men and the enslavement of thousands of Yazidi women and girls. To propose that Christians have been simply driven off their land but not suffered similar fates is deeply misinformed. In fact, the last Christians to pray in the language spoken by Jesus are also being deliberately targeted for extinction through equally brutal measures.
Christians have been executed by the thousands. Christian women and girls are vulnerable to sexual enslavement. Many of their clergy have been assassinated and their churches and ancient monasteries demolished or desecrated. They have been systematically stripped of all their wealth, and those too elderly or sick to flee ISIS-controlled territory have been forcibly converted to Islam or killed, such as an 80-year-old woman who was burned to death for refusing to abide by ISIS religious rules. Pope Francis pronounced their suffering “genocide” in July. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and a broad array of other churches have done so as well. Analysis from an office of the Holocaust Museum apparently relied on by the State Department asserts that ISIS protects Christians in exchange for jizya, an Islamic tax for “People of the Book,” but the assertion is simply not grounded in fact.”
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Also see the story right below at the link above.
“For Christians and Yazidis Fleeing Genocide, the Obama Administration Has No Room at the Inn”
“More than a year after it began, ISIS’s persecution continues. Some 3,000 Yazidi women and girls and smaller numbers of Christians remain enslaved by ISIS for sex. The practice of sexual enslavement, explicitly directed against Christians and Yazidis, is now institutionalized by the Islamic State. It was revived last year by ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself when he took captive and serially raped American humanitarian Kayla Mueller.
Hundreds of other Christian civilians remain ISIS prisoners, including 460 taken during the spring and summer from northern Syria. Others have been slaughtered. Catholic priest Father Jacques Mourad was captured in Syria in July and has disappeared. Another Iraqi priest was killed and returned in pieces to his family, despite a payment of $120,000 in ransom. This seems to be a new trend: Recently other Iraqi Christian hostages have been killed despite ransom payments.”
Some regional Christian leaders are now imploring the world for asylum for their flocks. “I am calling on the international community,” says Yohanna Mouche, the Syriac Catholic archbishop of Mosul. “If they cannot protect us, then they must open their doors and help us start a new life elsewhere.” Bishop Jammo has long pressed this point but emphasizes that Iraqi and Syrian Christians should be resettled in large communities so that their Aramaic language, spoken by Jesus and his apostles, and their precious ancient culture and traditions might be preserved.
The Obama administration has offered no assurance that it will look outside the U.N. system to ensure that any Christians and Yazidis who fled ISIS will be included under the U.S. quota program. Whether out of indifference or by intent, the administration is abandoning the members of these religious minorities. In so doing, it is impeding their chances of survival, along with dooming the imperative of “never again.”
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Jesus would sure make folks mad if He showed up on a U.S. college campus.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/11/could_jesus_crack_campus_speech_codes.html
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Karen,
About the WaPo article….
“The strategy is explicit. The Islamic State explained after the January attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine that such attacks “compel the Crusaders to actively destroy the grayzone themselves. . . . Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize . . . or they [emigrate] to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the Crusader governments and citizens.” The group calculates that a small number of attackers can profoundly shift the way that European society views its 44 million Muslim members and, as a result, the way European Muslims view themselves. Through this provocation, it seeks to set conditions for an apocalyptic war with the West.”
Only 2 choices? That’s not true at all. They could start policing there own and pointing out the radicals to the authorities. They could vocally attempt to retrieve their religion from these same radicals who’ve hijacked it. Other surrounding Muslim countries could step up to the plate. There’s a lot of other choices.
But her answer is to leave the borders open and don’t anger them or they might do bad things? Why not just surrender now and be done with it? 🙄
LikeLike
It should be pointed out that thus far, there has been no firm connection between Syrian refugees and the terrorist attacks. The report of a Syrian passport found next to a terrorist is unconfirmed – in other word it is only a rumour, and thus should not sway anyone’s actions. So far the terrorists whom the authorities have identified are French nationals (as would be expected, since Syrian nationals would not have knowledge of Parisian locations). Also, as someone on the radio observed today, refugees, as refugees, are unlikely to have such a passport as they have fled without first getting travel papers. So, there is no proven connection. As I observed some time ago, some 3000 ISIS operatives in Syria have come from Europe and North America – which means ISIS is already among us and does not need to come in with the Syrian refugees.
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No firm connection? Not exactly….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3318379/Hunt-Isis-killers-Syrian-passport-body-suicide-bomber-Stade-France.html
“This is the face of one of the Paris killers who allegedly sneaked into France by posing as a refugee after being rescued from a sinking migrant boat as it emerged a woman and three brothers may have been part of the eight-strong ISIS kamikaze terror squad.
Serbian media claims Ahmed Almuhamed, 25, whose Syrian passport was found on the body of a suicide bomber, allegedly blew himself up at the Bataclan concert hall, where at least 89 people were slaughtered on Friday.
The newspaper, Blic, claims Almuhamed arrived with another of the bombers in Europe on the Greek island of Leros on October 3 on his way to Paris. Greek website Protothema have published ferry tickets showing the name of a second man, Mohammed Almuhamed, who could be a relation.
French police are hunting 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, from Brussels, who is accused of renting a Volkswagen Polo used by the suicide bombers who killed 89 people at the Bataclan music venue on Friday.”
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How did Brussle’s become a hot-bed for radicals? One word.
Immigration.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/16/how-belgium-became-breeding-ground-international-terrorists
“Given the increasingly evident role that the country has played in the Paris attacks, this now looks like a mistake. By some estimates, Belgium has supplied the highest per capita number of fighters to Syria of any European nation – between 350 and 550, out of a total population of 11 million that includes fewer than half a million Muslims.
This is a problem that has been building for many years. As elsewhere in Europe, Belgium suffered waves of terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s linked to unrest in the Middle East. “There is a very long history of connection between Belgium and France in the realm of terrorism,” said Rik Coolsaet , an expert in terrorism at the University of Ghent.”
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No go zones were said to be a myth. They’re not, and this is what happens when you allow it.
http://www.nytimes.com/live/paris-attacks-live-updates/belgium-doesnt-have-control-over-molenbeek-interior-minister-says/?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur
“Belgium’s home affairs minister said that the government does not “have control of the situation in Molenbeek,” a working-class neighborhood of Brussels that has been linked to several terrorism plots in recent years.
Speaking on the VRT television channel on Sunday, the minister, Jan Jambon, said that the government would “step up efforts” to bring order to the area of the Belgian capital.
“I see that Mayor Françoise Schepmans is also asking our help, and that the local police chief is willing to cooperate,” Mr. Jambon said. “We should join forces and clean up the last bit that needs to be done; that’s really necessary.”
Prime Minister Charles Michel of Belgium said he was also concerned about jihadist networks in Molenbeek.”
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More here…..
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-terror-attacks-visiting-molenbeek-the-police-no-go-zone-that-was-home-to-two-of-the-gunmen-a6735551.html
“Perhaps with good reason: Molenbeek has been connected to almost all of Belgium’s terrorism-related incidents in recent years. Moroccan national Ayoub el-Khazzani, who opened fire with a Kalashnikov on a high-speed Thalys train in August had lived in Molenbeek. French-Algerian Mehdi Nemmouche, who killed four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels last year, spent time in the area. And the two suspected terrorists killed by Belgian police in a shootout in the eastern town of Verviers in January were from Molenbeek.
As well as being home to many ethnic Moroccans and Turks, Molenbeek is also one of the country’s poorest areas. It has a 30 per cent unemployment rate, and one in four of its 95,000 inhabitants does not have a Belgian passport. Like gang violence, Islamic radicalism has fed on Molenbeek’s marginalisation, despair and festering resentment of authority. Police say the most dangerous among around 30 Brussels gangs come from Molenbeek. ”
“Brice De Ruyver, who spent eight years as security adviser to then-Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, said Molenbeek suffers from a cocktail of problems. “Youths are poorly educated, attracted by petty crime, have run-ins with police, and then there is a vicious circle, which leads to recruitment by radical groups,” he said, adding that the problems are now so serious, that it is hard to find police willing to bother tackling them.
“We don’t officially have no-go zones in Brussels, but in reality, there are, and they are in Molenbeek.””
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Sounds sensible. I think we can all agree we shouldn’t stop accepting refugees, but they need to be thoroughly vetted first, which we’re not doing now.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/260294-paul-moving-to-halt-refugee-visas#
“Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), a GOP presidential candidate, is proposing a bill to halt visas from all countries with “significant jihadist movements” in light of Friday night’s terror attacks in Paris for which Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility.
“The best way to defend the country from attackers that don’t really have an army, but come here as individuals, is to prevent their access into this country,” Paul told reporters on Monday.
“It is about time, and I think Paris should wake us up to the fact that we can’t just let anyone come to this country,” he added.
“Paul initially signaled that the legislation would extend to all refugees, but his office clarified that moratorium only extends to the approximately 30 high-risk countries that Paul said have “significant jihadist movements.”
The restriction bars all visas in those countries, including for students and tourists, and would be lifted once Congress certifies that a country has complete control over who is crossing its borders.
The proposal would also institute a 30-day waiting period for visas from countries that are currently part of America’s Visa Waiver Program, which includes France.”
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And nonsense like this needs to stop.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/14/cong-source-syrian-refugees-coming-to-u-s-for-last-two-fiscal-years/?
“The Obama administration did not tell Congress, until recently, that Syrian Refugees were arriving in Louisiana. According to a House Homeland Security Committee aide, Congress did not know about 13 Syrian refugees who arrived in New Orleans over the past two fiscal years until it was reported by a local news outlet 10 days ago.
This eliciting a warning from from the Committee about the lack of current intelligence regarding the refugees who are in the U.S. and those who will arrive in the future.”
““While all refugees are vetted against all known intelligence community holdings, the Committee is concerned that the lack of current, reliable intelligence on the ground in Syria makes it very difficult to determine with any certainty who is entering the United States. We could very well be accepting individuals connected to ISIS, al-Nusra, al-Qaeda or any one of the terror groups currently operating in Syria,” a committee aide told the Daily Caller in an e-mail.”
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I see no reason to believe the Daily Mail. The the article only uses “alleged” and “claims” to show the connection, and they reference a Serbian media source (who for some unknown reason apparently knows more than the French authorities do). In other words, the Mail is perpetuating a rumour – which is what they often do, as they are more of a gossip publication than anything else.
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AJ – (re: the supposed two choices) I think what the writer meant was that was what ISIS believes will be their choices, not the words of the writer herself.
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Fair enough, except The Daily Mail is hardly the only one providing these detail.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/serbian-police-arrest-man-with-syrian-passport-matching-paris-attackers
If you prefer a US source….
See also,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/paris-stadium-attacker-entered-europe-via-greece-1447698583
“Police on Leros registered the man under the identity in the passport he showed them: Ahmad AlMohammad, 25, from Syria. The same passport was found near the man’s body outside the stadium on Friday night.
Whoever the man was, he posed as one of the many refugees fleeing Syria’s war—including the violence of Islamic State—to enter Europe through its lightly controlled frontier in the Aegean Sea.”
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More.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/15/europe/paris-attacks-passports/index.html
“What made it worse? Sunday’s revelation that at least one of the Paris terrorists who killed more than 120 people on Friday entered Europe as just another face in the crowd — embedded in the current wave of Syrian war refugees. The development appears likely to fire up the security debate over what to do with them.
One of the men who attacked Paris held an emergency passport or similar document, according to an unnamed French senator who was briefed by the French Ministry of the Interior. The senator told CNN the bomber falsely declared himself to be a Syrian named Ahmad al Muhammad, born on September 10, 1990, and was allowed to enter Greece on October 3. From there he moved to Macedonia, then Serbia and Croatia, where he registered in the Opatovac refugee camp, the lawmaker said. Eventually, he made his way to Paris, where he was one of three men who blew themselves up at the Stade de France.
Fingerprints on the passport matched those of the Stade de France bomber, the French senator told CNN.
The fingerprint was not in the French database, the senator said, and therefore officials believe the man was among a group of refugees and migrants.”
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