Saturday’s NARN Is Today’s Headline
By Mitch Berg
Last Saturday, during my conversation with Peter Johnson of Archway Defense, we noted that 85-90% of Somalis living in the US (and Minnesota has the largest population of Somali expats living outside Kenya) are, most likely, perfectly good immigrants, on their way to being perfectly good citizens.
The remaining 10-15% seem to have some level of sympathy for Muslim extremists. That sympathy falls in several levels, listed from the most to least common:
- People who think “the extremists might have a point”, but won’t take any action, and will likely not support much in the way of overt non-rhetorical action by others.
- People who have sympathy for the cause, and don’t mind if others take some non-violent action. I’m a pro-lifer, for an example – and I want to win that battle peacefully. So I would definitely drop a dime if I heard someone was planning on killing an abortion clinic doctor. But I would likely look the other way at someone vandalizing a Planned Parenthood poster. That’s the idea, here.
- People who sympathize with the cause, but would never kill anyone, and don’t want anyone around them killing anyone, but aren’t all that upset that someone is breaking heads for the cause.
- People who’ll look the other way at people who take more aggressive action around them – for example, someone who’s brother-in-law is collecting lots ammonium nitrate and 7.62x39mm ammo for some unknown purpose.
- People who’ll take passive roles in more aggressive activities – providing information, hiding contraband, donating money – without taking aggressive action themselves.
- People who get actively involved in aggressive hostilities.
That last group is a tiny part of the population – but, as we’ve seen in the past couple of years, a tiny part of 100,000 Somalis still adds up to a disconcerting number of Minnesota residents tramping round the Horn of Africa with rifles, or blowing themselves up.
(And let’s be clear on this; most of the information our police and intelligence do have on the people in these categories comes from the other 85-90%).
Anyway – I do urge you to listen to that hour of radio…
…before reading the Strib telling you exactly the same thing.
November 17th, 2015 at 1:50 pm
The state department’s ‘vetting’ method for accepting Syrian refugees are classified.
There is no accountability. If some of the admitted refugees get together and kill a few hundred or thousand Americans, what are you going to do? Not vote for Obama? Not vote for Kerry?
November 17th, 2015 at 6:00 pm
Sadly, everyone is using these attacks to ride their respective hobby horses. There is a very real problem with European Muslims going off to join ISIS then coming back. Yes, we need to find a way to identify these men, and either don’t let them back or quarantine them in some way. But nobody is talking about that. Everybody wants to punish the refugees who are fleeing exactly the same brand of violence practiced in Paris. The politics of fear are ugly.
November 17th, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Sorry, Emery, but when we have credible intelligence that radicals are mixing in with those suffering refugees, it’s prudent to have some fear.
November 17th, 2015 at 7:39 pm
My view is that a major part of our problem in confronting ISIS like movements is the sharp political divisions within our own country that precludes responsible and unified political behavior among differing political agendas.
The reality is that ISIS is a major annoyance but not really an existential threat to the United States thus disparate political forces are not fused together in cooperation as in World War Two or in the case of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War.
Fighting ISSI for us is essentially merely one elective among a number of International toothaches. And because it is an annoyance more than the melt down of a nuclear reactors core it becomes the object of blathering bullshit and opportunistic beating of swords on shields in order to facilitate other agendas.
Any solution that your readers can come up with no matter how convincing they may be will be doomed here at home if a broad based political consensus cannot be generated that last longer than the 24 hour news cycle.
November 17th, 2015 at 10:09 pm
Clearly, no one who voted for the Iraq War should be elected president.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:12 am
I think I will slightly redefine the problem. If we were serious about defeating ISIS and preventing the next version of Al Qaeda/ISIS in the Middle East we need to abandon a Foreign Policy geared toward defending the International Status Quo. We are a country that prides ourselves on innovation and creativity. I have not seen much of that in our foreign policy in my life time.
This is the kind of out of the box thinking we need:
Logistically support the movement of two divisions of Iranian troops into the Isis Corridor in Iraq and into Syria. We would support them with logistics, air and intel. And we would complete the Shia hegemony project begun by Wolfowitz and Cheney. Not because we love the Shia, but because Iran is a much more capable and predictable regional hegemon than ISIS or our erstwhile Arab allies. For those who want to weave the Kurds into this, we would do our best for them. But using the might of Iran against ISIS would be primary.
Not pretty. But it has a chance of (A) working and (B) holding.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:18 am
Creeping Incrementalism: U.S. Strategy in Iraq and Syria from 2011 to 2015 http://csis.org/publication/creeping-incrementalism-us-strategy-iraq-and-syria-2011-2015
November 18th, 2015 at 7:19 am
Obama has made it quite clear that he is not interested in victory over anyone other than the NRA leadership and congressional republicans.
The idiot has led half the country to war against the other half.
November 18th, 2015 at 7:48 am
Emery, you may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but no one can say you don’t have a sense of humor!
Maybe we could call our two divisions of friendly Iranian troops “The Abraham Lincoln Brigade”; whadyathink?
November 18th, 2015 at 8:00 am
I know the ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’, but strengthening one anti-Western apocalyptic death cult so they can fight another antiWestern apocalyptic death cult doesn’t seem wise.
Iran isn’t really a Republic, you know. It has a group of Imams that can overrule the Iranian constitution at will. Iran is a theocracy.
November 18th, 2015 at 8:12 am
ISIS is a major annoyance
Logistically support the movement of two divisions of Iranian troops
Fighting ISSI for us is essentially merely one elective among a number of International toothaches
Is anyone else here thinks EmeryTheAntisemiticSoci@list is missing not just a few, but all the fries from his happy meal?
November 18th, 2015 at 9:59 am
You know, let’s catalog the problem. We have 25000 Somalis in Minnesota–I don’t exactly know the demographics–but at least 20 have become jihadis. One in a thousand doesn’t seem so bad until you realize that if that were all Muslims in our nation, that would be about a division for ISIS, Al Qaida, and the like.
OK, the jihadis are male (12500 Minnesota Somalis) and young (say 4000 Minnesota Somalis). So we have a relative incidence of not one in a thousand, but rather one in 200 in our risk group.
It would seem that we’ve got something of a rationale to be a little bit stricter on immigrants from countries where we cannot perform adequate background checks, to put it mildly.
November 18th, 2015 at 4:11 pm
Just took a closer look at Bento’s initial comment, and it strikes me that not only are State’s criteria classified (at least to those who have not been on Hilliary’s server of course), but they are impossible. Think about it a minute; refugees flee a state that is one of three things; unable to defend them from nasty neighbors, unwilling to defend them from nasty neighbors, or is the nasty neighbor himself.
Now tell me how you do a background check in such a situation. It is no surprise that 0.5% of Somali young men go back to the Horn to blow themselves up. It is a surprise that it is not higher, given the level of thinking that appears prevalent at the State Department.
November 19th, 2015 at 6:06 am
It’s more than a little bit troubling that in 2015 we’re still so mired in racism that national politicians can confidently call for religious and ethnic litmus tests for refugees. There was a fascinating historic poll posted earlier showing that in 1939, over 60% of Americans were opposed to allowing Jewish refugees from Germany into the country, citing nearly identical fears to those rampant now. If you think the two are substantively different, I would highly recommend some serious reflection on your convictions.
November 19th, 2015 at 9:21 am
That there is a difference between Jewish refugees in 1939 and Syrian of today is completely lost on, nay, ignored and obfuscated by EmeryTheAntisemiticSoci@list.
November 19th, 2015 at 9:22 am
Emery, refugees are often identifiable by race or religion–e.g. Sudan, Syria, anywhere–because that’s why their (former) government or neighbors are targeting them.
Honestly…..you’re overdosing on stupid these days.
November 19th, 2015 at 6:38 pm
When we turn our back on our values we diminish ourselves. FDR had a much better moment when he declared “The only thing to fear is fear itself.”
It’s how we act when we are at risk that defines who we are.