We have the means, motive and opportunities....

Submitted by Michel C. Zala (Switzerland), Apr 30, 2012 at 14:19

Solutions I consider as doable, if we really have the will and strength

While I can empathize with you, your approach isn't ideal or practical for a variety of reasons. Deportation of citizens, naturalized or born, would violate present fundamental laws our societies are based upon. IMHO, Certain manifestations of a harsher approach for instance in the US, where citizens abroad, declared members of Al Kaeda, become the target of assassinations (something I for one most definitely supported), or even the indication on US citizenship papers, where country of origin with naturalized citizens is indicated, lead us down a very slippery slope, as far as fundamental law, law enforcement, civil rights and liberties are concerned. I also never really bought into the practice in the US to differentiate race in almost all of the official documentation up to and not limited to work applications, where one always has to indicate white, hispanic, black, asian or other. The lines between important info for census reasons, statistics etc. vs. discrimination have become truly blurry, which bothers even me, a staunch supporter of the US Republican Party and member of its subfaction, the Tea Party, which is a movement comparable to solidly conservative parties in Europe.

IMHO the needed work must be done, before one becomes a citizen. Every immigrant should be solidly vetted, examined, background checked, and must own the burden of proof to be able to add value to the host society.I can only speak for the US system, which is utterly flawed, bureaucratic, slow, yet insufficient and unprofessional, allowing so many immigrants to slip through, hide their true intentions and cheat blatantly. It is the immigration administration of each host nation to be a veritable first line of defense against infiltration and terror. And, by most accounts, those administrations of the entire west seem to fail miserably in that regard, as deep vetting is oftentimes mistaken as too expensive. Albeit, just taking the cost of lives and property lost during terror attacks into account, how extensive is too expensive? Talk about Means - judges, politicians, DAs and so many other "important" people are routinely vetted prior to assuming the respective position. To my knowledge there hasn't been a case of such a person ever who was later outed or revealed himself as a terrorist.

In other words, we do have the means to mount a solid first line of defense, but lack the willingness to deploy these means on a broader scale.

By most accounts most terrorists followed a line of escalation like most "standard" criminals. They did not just wake up one day and decided to suicide bomb a subway, and they usually attracted the attention of law enforcement long before the actual terror attack, which is why so often later information percolated that intelligence and law enforcement agencies would have had ample warning signs and were blamed for not noticing or acting upon them. While I concede that hindsight is always 20/20, I nevertheless believe that a significant percentage of terror activities could have been prevented, if local law permitted enforcement to act decisively. A great example of lack of any common sense is for instance the debate in the US about the Arizona Immigration law which is currently being subject of a lawsuit brought by the Obama Administration against the State of Arizona. Can you imagine that police officers are at present not allowed to check immigration status during a routine police stop for fear of "racial profiling"? Can you imagine that there are ongoing lawsuits to prevent election officers to demand identification papers clearly demonstrating citizenship, thus the right to vote? Thus, the most sacred right of every citizen, born or during a lenghty, painful and invasive process, lasting up to 20 years, naturalized citizen is being perverted into a joke.

Aforementioned are just a few of the many idiotic examples of lack of any common sense in regard to Immigration and citizenship. To various degrees most western countries have the same weak, toothless, ineffective and inefficient framework of immigration laws, hampering and limiting any meaningful law enforcement work.

This second line of defense against terror consist in a fundamental reform of that legal framework.

Here a few propositions, specifically tailored to the USA, the latter however possible solutions which could be implemented throughout the West:

- As implemented in Switzerland - Immigrants must live and work for an extensive period of time prior to naturalization in one Kanton (State). Naturalization finally is being voted upon by the citizens of the community he/she resides in (Not some far removed apparatchik in the capital). This to some extent forces the immigrant to assimilate, take part in the activities of the community and demonstrate over a period of time the ability to becoming an added value for that host nation. Even though Switzerland is as multi-cultural as the US with the higher immigration rate per capita than for instance California, those ghettos, infamous in the US, where specific minorities settle and complete foreign entities form, where the language of the host nation isn't spoken, where even street signs display the language of the ghetto - hotspots for terrorism and racial unrest - are being prevented.

Did you know that New York ( Chinatown) is in the top 20 of the largest Chinese cities? Almost every one of the large cities in the US has several of those Little Chinas, Koreatowns, Little Vietnam and so on. This fractures the society and is hugely dangerous in terms of national identity and culture. Immigrants (mainly seekers of asylum) in Switzerland do not have the right to settle wherever they wish, and form those enclaves. They are by law spread evenly (during this initial immigration period) across the entirety of the country.

- As implemented in Switzerland - Citizen Control. Sounds invasive, I know, but all residents, citizens or not, must, when moving, register with the municipal authority in the township they wish to live in. Living in Switzerland is a right which comes with obligations, such as the mandatory process of notification of the local municipality prior to residence. This eliminates the in the USA needed (oftentimes inaccurate and outdated) statistical data collection via the clumsy census every 5 years. Any discussion about rights to vote and personal identification becomes mute and irrelevant, since the local township, municipality and/or authority has the respective information at hand.

- As implemented in Switzerland - Personal ID Card. Only issued to legal residents, citizens and immigrants. Credit card size, simple to carry and easy to check. Eliminates again voter ID fraud or acquisition of services or other documents under false pretenses. In Europe even international travel is possible with this simple identification tool.

Aforementioned examples from the Swiss law result in much higher assimilation pressure and much lower potential for racial or cultural conflict.

- Any crime committed by an alien, legal or undocumented - not just terror acts - should immediately result in deportation to the country of origin. Definition of a crime would be everything resulting in a criminal record. From theft to robbery to drugs to violent crimes. Stop any escalation from the get go.

- Create the legal framework - if need be a constitutional amendment - to allow for stripping a naturalized individual of his/her citizenship in cases of capital crime, treason or terror.

- Mandatory death sentence for terror acts for all born and naturalized citizens as well as legal and illegal aliens.

-legal framework for some form of collective responsibility whereby family members are liable for the misdeeds of their relatives. Since terror almost never occurs in a vaccum and early signs are usually prevalent, the society can so exert pressure upon "clans" and cells and thus instigate a level of self-control and responsibility. If misguided members of such a clan contemplated to commit an act of terror, but the entire family would face deportation, it seems to me that a strong deterrent could thus be implemented. Let us not forget that family ties are tight, especially within muslim families.

- As implemented in France recently - Travel to and training in terrorist nations, even associatons with known terrorist orgs should be penalized and be subject to ramifications up to and not limited to immediate deportation. (Merah could thus have been stopped in his tracks).

- Highten airport and air travel security. Face the elephant in the room and profile muslims for the time being, as it is not the grey haired white grandmother who poses the danger. Do no longer hide behind the self-righteous indignation about racial or cultural profiling. It is time to recognize and appreciate the reality of things, where the danger of terrorism clearly and presently orignates from the muslim community.

- UK - Undercover Mosque (UTube) - it is time to monitor, heck, put any muslim school or mosque under (periodical) surveillance. Not all such centers are hotspots for radicalism and violence, but all known islamist terrorists have been members of such communities. Hate is not preached in all those houses of woreship, but many, way too many have been known to condone, excuse or justify muslim terror. All imams or preachers even remotely supporting anything but peace, cooperation, collaboration and tolerance should immediately face hate crime statutes and be deported.

- Financing laws - Especially Saudi Arabia pours Billions of Petro-Dollars into the funding of worldwide indoctrination centers. Those institutions must be mandated to open up their books and disclose such funding, upon which the government should decide. IMHO such foreign funding should be disallowed or some form of percentage or quota be implemented as to the level of foreign vs local funding of such entities. It is also time to revisit the in the US granted tax exempt status for religious organizations, particularly of muslim types. Reciprocity should be enforced, whereas such orgs can only accept funds from a foreign nation, if the same freedom applies in this nation as well. In Saudi Arabia for instance religions other than Islam are being suppressed on all dimensions, whereas exactly the Saudis are the ones funding the most aggressive Quran schools all over the world.

In conclusion, IMHO it is time to clamp down on all muslims and mount the pressure to a level, which will motivate the silent majority to get out from under it by actively and outspokenly take a position against their own fundamentalists. The corresponding legal framework must be implemented, before future terror acts will result in a rise of the mob and widespread lynching and vigilantism. While noone's right to freely exercise his/her religion should be limited, all public manifestations of Islam at this time must be subject to tight legislature. It is time to acknowledge the fact that we in the West are not Muslims and Islam has no moral or legal right to demand the same rights and freedoms as the traditional churches.

Having said that, they too should be able to earn those rights, build credit and trust over decades. For as long, as 90% of the worldwide terror stems from Islam, this religion cannot be treated with the same consideration as the other world religions. For as long, as there is no significant opposition from within against Islamism and Djihaadism, some form of national muslim movements in support of reformation of this ancient dogma, all Muslims must be considered as having forfeited their (public) rights as granted to other religions in the West. It is radical, it is tough and it will be unfair to many of the peaceful muslims living in western host nations. But life is not fair and the other approach of appeasement, tolerance, kumbayah has evidently not worked. Future soft target terror acts of the likes of Merah are to be anticipated and at some point the treshold for serious racial and cultural unrest and repercussions will be reached with grave consequences, if we, the citizens of the West do not act and act decisively. The Quran, as it stands today, is like the Old Testament a scripture which can way too easily be abused in cynical justification of evil acts. Almost every single day innocent people are being killed in the name of Allah., which is why this book must be rewritten, re-interpreted and reformed, as the Bible had to evolve.

Until that happens and a broad based movement, call it Moderate Islam, appears, deserving and earning all rights and freedoms granted to all other world religions, all muslims should feel the consequences and ramifications caused by their own fanatics. I appeal to all western societies to apply common sense, strength and backbone to address this growing danger. I call for cool, pragmatic and unemotional action, not hateful revenge or retribution.

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