A Word About Refugees

There's a strong argument to be made for bringing certain Afghan refugees, particularly those who acted as interpreters for our military, to the United States. While I certainly think we should, I also think we need to be smart about it and careful about the rhetoric used in this discussion.

The Afghan translators were not doing us a "favor." The notion that they were helping us is exactly backwards. We did them a favor when we went into Afghanistan, defeated Al Qaeda and tried to give the Afghan people freedom. 

In other words, we went into the middle of an Afghan civil war and sided with Afghans like those who were paid to be our translators. This was a mutually beneficial relationship. Thousands of our men died. It's estimated that 50,000 to 60,000 Afghans died fighting the Taliban and various ISIS cells. 

President Trump touched on this last night during an interview with Sean Hannity. He said, "We're also going to help people that helped us. And we have to be very careful with the vetting, because you have some rough people in there."

Being careful with vetting is probably too much to expect from the current administration. 

The same "experts" who caused this crisis in Afghanistan are the same "experts" who caused the crisis on our southern border!  We're intercepting all manner of terrorist threats, including jihadis, at the southern border because of Biden's malfeasance. 

But these refugees must be thoroughly vetted. I would prefer such vetting be done in one of our Middle East allies – the UAE, Egypt, Jordan – rather than our military bases in Texas, Wisconsin and Virginia. 

We know from experience that the Taliban had infiltrated the American military and Afghan fighting units. Sometimes they turned their guns on us. 

We know from bitter experience that refugees in both Europe and the United States have turned against the West. (Here, here and here.) A little Somali girl we rescued from a refugee camp came to the United States and now sits in Congress. Her name is Ilhan Omar.  She's an anti-Semite who hates the American military. 

As Christians, we are called to be compassionate. But Christ does not require us to be stupid. We are under no moral obligation whatsoever to import more hate and anti-Semitism into the United States.