History will harshly judge America's anti-Muslim rhetoric: Jarvis DeBerry
Republican presidential candidates Ben Carson, left, and
Donald Trump talk before the start of the CNN Republican presidential
debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum on
Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, in Simi Valley, Calif. Both men have ramped
up anti-Muslim rhetoric in recent days. Carson has likened Syrian
refugees to "rabid dogs," and Trump has said he favors registering all
Muslims and shutting down mosques.
(AP Photo / Mark J. Terrill)
I write to you from November 2015, a strange but depressingly familiar time in America. We've been unsettled for much of the last 14 years, but we seemed to have reached a new low within the last 10 days. On Nov. 13, the ISIL group (also known as ISIS, also known as Daesh, also known as the Islamic State) unleashed coordinated attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. Such attacks are meant to make targeted populations afraid, and in that regard, the Paris attacks succeeded.
Fear has rippled the globe, and it seems to be finding its greatest expression here. Republican presidential candidates, Republican governors and a Republian-led House have coalesced around the idea of slamming our door shut on refugees fleeing Syria, a country that's being torn apart by a horrific civil war.
Those Republican lawmakers have been joined by some Democrats: demonstrating that the chronic inability for the parties to work together doesn't prevent them from jointly succumbing to fear.
You're probably guessing that Syrian refugees attacked Paris. That would make sense. But if you've studied 21st century American history, you'll remember that after New York and Washington were attacked by Saudis whose leader was in Afghanistan, we attacked Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
We're now witnessing the same misplaced aggression. The reputed mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was Belgian and it seems that almost all those who carried out the attacks were French or Belgian.
Although a Syrian passport was found on one of the suicide bombers, one with identical information and a different photo was found on a man in Serbia. So we can assume at least one of those passports is fake. Both may be.
The ISIL group is little more than a year old, but it's already clear its strategy isn't sending jihadis to the West but radicalizing Westerners and making jihadis out of them. A July broadcast of the National Public Radio show "On Point" began with this lead-in: "School girls from London, a couple from Frankfurt, men from Minnesota: committed to the caliphate." And the New York Times reported on "Alex," a 23-year-old baby sitter and Sunday school teacher in rural Washington who was seduced by the jihadis via Twitter.
They're reeling in Westerners who want in on "building paradise on Earth," a counterterrorism expert told NPR, and if we don't match their PR game we're in trouble.
But rather than focus on winning the PR battle, we have some politicians forfeiting the game. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has likened Syrian refugees — those running from ISIL — to "rabid dogs." Donald Trump, another Republican presidential candidate, is talking about registering and monitoring all Muslims in this country and shutting down their mosques.
Jeb Bush, another Republican presidential candidate, seems to be one of the few people in his party who hasn't completely given up on the Constitution.
"You talk about closing mosques, you talk about registering people," he said, "that's just wrong ... it's manipulating people's angst and their fears. That's not strength. That's weakness."
Despite Bush's words of caution, I fear you'll conclude that in November 2015, all Americans were lining up for a Faustian bargain, that all of us were willing to exchange our principles for the illusion of safety.
Few things sadden me as much as politicians who foment the public's fears in hopes of winning votes. I pray that it's better in the future and that you have embraced leaders who see how tawdry that approach is and how it robs innocent Americans of the chance to peacefully practice their religion or walk around in their skin without fear.
I pray that you have leaders who measure America's greatness not by the number of people we kill but by the number of people we can protect from being killed.
I pray that, in your time, America bears more resemblance to a constitutional republic than it does now and that you're not discussing closing your borders to the persecuted or rounding up all the practitioners of a particular religion.
Please know that some of us, even though we respected people's fear of attack, were steadfastly opposed to shutting out refugees or shutting down places of worship.
Know that we were heartbroken that so many Americans seemed willing to repeat the kinds of mistakes that led to Japanese-American internment camps and Jewish ghettos, the kinds of mistakes that caused America to send hundreds of Jewish refugees who had reached this continent back into the arms of Hitler.
More than anything, I hoped that you have learned from the past. Even as I acknowledge that we have not.
Jarvis DeBerry can be reached at jdeberry@nola.com. Follow him at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry.
end quote from:
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/11/syrian_refugees_opposition.html
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