I can't go there. Whenever we've been hit internally like in the Nadal case, it's through our own stupidity. The DOD allowed this jerk to put SOA (soldier of Allah) on his Govt biz cards and ignored MANY warnings. We need to be smarter -- not react like we did during WW2.
The threat is STATELESS -- like ISIS and requires including too many innocents to alienate... Even the Boston Bombing had a certain smell of preventability to it if we had watched our borders more closely.
It is a stateless threat, but that doesn't prevent religious screening. We did just that for
communists and anarchists:
After a decade of relative tranquility in immigration law,[22] the outbreak of World War I fueled anti-alien sentiments yet again; this time, German immigrants were targeted.[23] Pushed by the anti-alien fervor, Congress even more restrictive immigrations statutes in 1917 and 1920; these statutes barred even more groups on the basis of ideology. "Sabotage and destruction of property were added to the list of forbidden beliefs, deportation, unbounded by any statute of limitations, had been introduced as a means, separate and distinct from exclusion, of controlling alien radicalism; teaching and advising had joined belief and advocacy as grounds for exclusion or deportation; membership in, or affiliation with, [forbidden] organizations ... had become grounds for exclusion and deportation; [and] writing, publishing, circulating, distributing, printing, ... displaying [or possessing for the purpose of distribution] written materials advocating forbidden doctrines had become grounds for exclusion or deportation...."[24]
The 1920 Act was passed at the tail end of the First Red Scare.[25] In the following years of relative political calm, public demands for the removal of foreign radicals waned, and fewer radicals were in fact deported.[25] As the US sank into the Great Depression in the early 1930s, however, alien radicals—now communists rather than anarchists—were again targeted.[25] Various proposals were introduced in Congress to ban communist immigrants.[26] World War II intensified anti-alien sentiment, and the Smith Act passed Congress in 1940.[26] It banned present and former belief, advocacy, and membership as well as present.[27] In 1941, Congress additionally authorized consular officers to deny visas to any person the officers had reason to believe would "engag[e] in activities which will endanger the public safety" and granted the president the power to deport or bar entry to aliens when required by the "interests of the United States."[28] As the Cold War began in the late 1940s and early 1950s, intolerance of foreigners increased further.[29]
In 1950, amidst hysteria and fear of communists, the Internal Security Act was passed into law. It expressly excluded communists, totalitarians, and fascists from the US for the first time.[30] Unlike the 1903 Immigration Act, which excluded only a few dozen anarchists, the Internal Security Act barred thousands foreigners from entering the US, at least on a temporary basis.[30] When immigration laws were overhauled in the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, these exclusions—along with all prior exclusions, such as those for anarchists—were recodified.
Think you're right that we need to include Islam as a consideration for screening. But smart folks can do that and discriminate between dangerous RADICAL connections and vast majority of Muslim Americans and visitors. I KNOW we can because if the threat was RADICAL Christianity or RADICAL Judaism, I wouldn't fear much for Civil Rights issues. ANYONE with Turkey or ME countries on their passports OUGHT to be interviewed. Just as Israel does to EVERY visitor or returning citizen..
Islam isn't to religion like Methodism or Pentacostalism are to religion, it's more like Communism or Nazism, an ideology for how to govern the world but Islam just happens to have a God reference at its foundation. So while a radical Methodist distorts the message of Methodism followed by a moderate Methodist, a radical Nazi or a radical Communist doesn't distort the message, he rather takes on a willingness to enact the message even at risk to his own well being. Radical Muslims, Nazis and Communists all must meet the necessary condition of being a Muslim, Nazi or Communist, respectively, before they can be radicalized. The ideology is what leads to radicalization, not a distortion of the ideology.
We didn't import radical Muslim immigrants, we imported Muslim immigrants who at some future time decided that they wanted to act on the truth of their religion. Upthread somewhere I included a poll done in Saudi Arabia which showed that 92% of respondents thought that ISIS was acting in accord with Islam. So who knows better what Islam means, you with your westernized sensibilities which treats Islam as a substitute for Anglican or Catholic teachings, or Muslims who live true to Islam?
Look at what happened with the Nisei, the Japanese Americans, in WWII. I'm not talking of internment, I'm speaking of allegiance properly aligned and
realized:
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the United States Army was a regimental size fighting unit composed almost entirely of American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who fought in World War II, despite the fact that many of their families were subject to internment. Beginning in 1944, the regiment fought primarily in Europe during World War II,[2] in particular Italy, southern France, and Germany. The 442nd is "the most decorated unit in U.S. military history."[3] It was awarded eight Presidential Unit Citations and twenty-one of its members were awarded the Medal of Honor for World War II.[4] Its motto was "Go for Broke".
But more than 75% indicated that they were willing to enlist and swear allegiance to the U.S. The U.S. Army called for 1,500 volunteers from Hawaii and 3,000 from the mainland. An overwhelming 10,000 men from Hawaii came forth.
What happened after
9/11?
In seven years of helping ensure the Army met its recruiting goals, Depenbrock was used to reaching out to young people, telling them what the Army could do for them, and mostly answering their questions about how they could get their college paid for by signing up.
“It was almost always for college, for money, and for having a full-time job,” she said, referring to the reasons people enlisted.
Sept. 11, 2001, changed that. In the days, weeks and months thereafter, Depenbrock, like military recruiters around the nation, watched in amazement from her Cincinnati office as people who never would have thought of joining -- or rejoining, as many would have it -- approached recruiters with the sole purpose of defending America.
Massive upswing in military enlistment but the dog that didn't bark was there was no massive Muslim upswing in enlistment. Here was an opportunity to defend America against Muslim aggression but that would entail going to fight other Muslims and that's didn't appeal to America's Muslims. They hold to an ideal greater than America, their identity is Muslim First, then American and only because it's convenient.
The mental scripts that many people use, to compare different groups, religions and ideologies are not properly aligned with what reality SHOWS us. A radical Japanese-American in WWII was different from a moderate Japanese-American and we could separate the two and the moderate showed all of America that he was an American before everything else and he would die to defend his nation. The 442nd did America proud and it rewrote the script on how Americans saw Japanese-Americans. American Muslims had a chance to rewrite the script and they passed, they unlike other Americans, didn't surge towards recruiting offices and join the military. They had the most to prove to America, to show us all that they were Americans first and foremost but they put their adherence to Islam before their love of America.
Muslims are not a radical version of a Christian sect, Islam is a totally different beast, it's not a personal religion, it's an all encompassing ideology for how to construct a society. You can't be a true Muslim while simultaneously upholding American principles and values, the two are incompatible. There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.
