OPINION:
America is at war with radical Islamic terrorism – whether or not the Democrats want to admit it.
And on Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey forewarned this culture-war will only get worse.
Testifying before Congress, Mr. Comey said when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is destroyed – and he promised it would be destroyed – there will be more terror to come. For once the so-called caliphate becomes “crushed,” many militants from Western nations will flow from the area and create new security threats, he said.
“There will be a terrorist diaspora sometime in the next two to five years like we’ve never seen before,” Mr. Comey said.
Like. We’ve. Never. Seen. Before.
His warning comes on the heels of bombings in New York and New Jersey by a radicalized jiadist, and a separate stabbing attack at a Minnesota mall. Within one year, Islamic terrorists have killed 63 people on U.S. soil alone.
And yet, all Americans are supposed to feel good about increasing the number of refugees from Syria, knowing our vetting process is anything but perfect and more terror is likely to come.
Here is where the terrible disconnect lies.
“U.S. welcomes its 10,000th Syrian refugee ahead of schedule,” a CNN headline read last month, after the Obama administration quickened the vetting process in order to meet it’s end-of-year goal. The administration has yet to comment on how a process that took 18 to 24 months was hastened to only three.
“On behalf of the President and his Administration, I extend the warmest of welcomes to each and every one of our Syrian arrivals, as well as the many other refugees resettled this year from all over the world,” National Security Adviser Susan Rice announced in a statement.
The US ambassador to Jordan, Alice Wells, described the resettlement numbers as “a floor, not a ceiling.”
That’s for sure.
Hillary Clinton would like to raise Mr. Obama’s numbers by 550 percent, to 65,000.
While the U.S. has a proud tradition of resettling refugees, our government simply lacks the information need to confidently screen Syrian refugees to identify possible terrorism connections.
Yes, the administration (and fact-checkers) will tell you we have an extensive screening process for refugees coming out of this area, but as Mr. Comey as previously said about the U.S.’s filtering ability: “We can query our databases until the cows come home, but nothing will show up because we have no record of that person…You can only query what you have collected.”
Earlier last year, FBI Assistant Director Michael Steinbach said that “the concern in Syria is that we don’t have the systems in places on the ground to collect the information… All of the data sets, the police, the intel services that normally you would go and seek that information [from], don’t exist.”
And National Intelligence Director James Clapper stated, despite security enhancements to the screening process, he remains concerned ISIS may try to infiltrate U.S.-bound refugees.
In a hearing last year he said: “we don’t obviously put it past the likes of ISIL to infiltrate operatives among these refugees.”
And this week, Mr. Comey warns of a “coming terrorist diaspora.”
Something is not right here, and the American people have picked up on it. Common sense says we should at least slow down our vetting process and enhance it – not hasten it. That we should admit prudent numbers of refugees, not increase them by 550 percent, all in the face of upcoming terror.
You don’t have to look far, to understand Donald Trump’s appeal, however radical those on the left would like you to believe.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.