At the Daily Beast, Justin Miller and Michael Weiss write:
One of the Paris attackers was supposedly found with a Syrian passport—leading Republican governors here in America to vow to block Syrian refugees from entering their states.
But that passport was a fake, French officials told The Wall Street Journal, which means the governors’ freakout over refugees was likely based on a lie.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, pal. The passport might not match the attacker, but fingerprints are tougher to fake.
Fingerprints from one of the suicide bombers behind the attacks at the Stade de France in Paris matched the prints of a man registered in Greece in October, a French prosecutor said on Monday.
“At this stage, while the authenticity of a passport in the name of Ahmad al Mohammad, born Sept. 10 1990 in Idlib, Syria needs to be verified, there are similarities between the fingerprints of the suicide bomber and those taken during a control in Greece in October,” the Paris prosecutor said in a statement.
What, did he switch fingertips with some other guy?
When a Comedian’s Reflexive Snark Goes Very, Very, Very Wrong
On September 28, HBO’s John Oliver criticized a Fox News report about fears that terrorists could be infiltrating Europe by hiding amongst the waves of refugees pouting into those countries.
“If you are going to use misleading old footage to try and make people frightened of Muslims why stop there? Just go the whole way and use a clip from True Lies . . . That’s only about ten percent more racist than what you did.”
Oliver later lamented, “People still have fears — fears that migrants might have an ISIS member lurking among them, which there has been no credible example of.”
Of course, after Paris, the fear that terrorists could be coming in along with the refugees has proven to be well-founded.
Although the practice appears rare, a French intelligence official said it would not be the first time that a militant had mingled in the stream of migrants arriving in Europe via Turkey and Greece. He said French security services had recently identified one in Calais. A former senior intelligence official, who is still well briefed, said: “This is becoming a strategy for them: to embed among the migrants.”
Oliver lamented that the refugees were being asked to wait several years before an appointment to consider their application. (Gee, it’s almost like they’re veterans waiting for care at the VA, huh?) Oliver seems quite irate that European countries weren’t prepared to house, feed, process and employ tens of thousands of refugees suddenly showing up at their border.
Oliver argued that Europe should be welcoming the migrants because of their aging population . . . offering the most spectacularly bad “funny” graphics of all time, an image that looks utterly tasteless and obnoxious today:
Yeah, right now a whole bunch of Parisians never lived to see old age.
The Ace of Spades assesses Oliver’s make-up effort, which consisted of touting the joys of French culture and declaring, “If you’re picking a Lifestyle and Culture war with the French, good luck!”
This incredibly stupid [cleaning up a bit of Ace’s metaphors] of reality-dodging sophistry is being praised among the Cult of the Left for its daring. Vox claims it’s “exactly the right way” to deal with the terrorists; the Daily Beast [gets excited] to praise John Oliver for breaking out the Big Guns against Terror: routine profanity favored by idiot bloggers who are entirely impotent of power and so who shout Nasty Things at the great big world they can’t actually touch in any meaningful way.
They don’t seem to notice that IS did not mount a “Lifestyle and Culture war” against the French; rather, they have, in a series of attacks over the past year (remember Charlie Hebdo?), launched an actual war, a bullet and bomb war, against France.
Distrust of the system that will vet refugees is not xenophobia. Remember, all of the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. legally on tourist, business, and student visas. Stolen and fake passports are common. In Sanilurfa, Turkey, you can get a fake Syrian passport good enough to fool authorities for just $2,000. And of course, many refugees lost their papers and identification while fleeing.
By the way, get the idea of a religious test for refugees out of your head. Besides the Constitutional challenges such a litmus test would undoubtedly face — “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” – any self-respecting jihadist will just lie. If they have to peruse the Bible and offer a few “Halleluiahs” to slip past the infidel’s watchdogs, they’ll do it.
Having said that, our policies are neglecting the Syrian Christians. “Of 2,184 Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, only 53 (2.4 percent) have been Christians while 2098 (or 96 percent) have been Muslims, according to State Department statistics updated on Monday.”
White House: Relax, No Specific, Credible Threats against the Homeland
Clip and save this comment from Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s deputy national-security adviser:
Hey, guys, the day before the attacks, the president said it was “premature” to label ISIS the greatest terror threat in the world and that “I don’t think they’re gaining strength” and “we have contained them.” The president, his team, and the intelligence team were indisputably blindsided by the Paris attacks.
ISIS — or at the very least, a like-minded group — just brought down a Russian airliner and executed six simultaneous attacks on Paris. Here’s the latest threatening video from ISIS:
“We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day, God willing, like France’s and by God, as we struck France in the center of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington,” the man said.
In light of all this, sorry, any sensible mind must walk the streets of our nation’s capital with caution, knowing that it’s quite possible ISIS isn’t contained, and that they might have more than just “aspirations” of killing Americans on U.S. soil; they may have a plan.
Look, maybe nothing happens for the next year. But after Paris, how much would you want to bet that ISIS doesn’t pull off anything on American soil?
This is so farstunkin’ predictable. Last year I said, “We have a wartime vice president and a peacetime president,” in response to Obama’s statement, “We know that if we are joined by the international community, we can continue to shrink ISIL’s sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its military capability to the point where it is a manageable problem.”
Our Stephen Miller: “There was a revealing moment Sunday at the G20 summit in Turkey: As all stood for a moment of silence to honor the victims of the Paris terror attacks, Barack Obama walked in late. This is the president who made the start time for the Chicago Bulls home opener just fine, mind you. Still, tardiness has been the norm for the duration of Obama’s presidency. The country and the world are always meant to wait for him, for both revolve around his leisure.”
ADDENDA: What an honor!
This week the good folks at the Young Conservatives Coalition will award four young professional conservatives with their prestigious Young Conservative Leadership “Buckley Award.” The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, November 19th from 6:00-8:00pm at The Capitol Hill Club, at 300 First Street, SE, Washington, D.C. Co-sponsors include Townhall Media, The Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, Conservative Book Club, America’s Future Foundation, DB Capitol Strategies, Intermarkets, and Eberle Associates.
The awards will recognize individuals between the ages of 21-45 who’ve made a significant contribution to the conservative movement at large in the last year. The awards are in honor of the late William F. Buckley, Jr. — the conservative movement icon who founded National Review and wrote God & Man at Yale all before the age of 30.
Award Winners:
Jim Geraghty – Senior Political Correspondent, National Review
Mollie Hemingway – Senior Editor, The Federalist
Kristen Soltis Anderson – Co-Founder & Republican Pollster, Echelon Insights
Lachlan Markay – Staff Writer, Washington Free Beacon
Hope to see you there.