in theory, yes - in practice, problems

Submitted by Jeffrey (United States), Dec 11, 2015 at 16:55

In theory, you are right that the solution to this problem is that Westerners must distinguish between Islamists and non- or anti-Islamist Muslims. The problem is that even the people working in our government agencies are unable to make these crucial distinctions. You'll recall that several years ago a journalist asked several senior US counterterrorism officials if they knew the difference between Sunni and Shi'a Islam. Not only did most not know the difference, but many argued that this was something they didn't need to know! When one is dealing with that level of egregious ignorance, even with senior officials, it's unrealistic to expect that lower level (say, customs) officials would be able to distinguish between Islamists and regular Muslims, esp. since so many of the former (e.g., from CAIR and the whole network of MB-linked organizations in the US) pose disingenously as moderates.

As every aware person knows, State Dept apparatchiks, the Obama Admin, and elements within the US intell community all seriously seem to believe that the MB is a "moderate" organization, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Be that as it may, Trump's formulation was, as usual, unnecessarily provocative and counterproductive, but his underlying point is that NO foreign nationals should be allowed into the US without being adequately vetted, a sensible position that most Americans would support.

So why not have a moratorium on all immigration and asylum until such time as more effective vetting procedures are instituted (hopefully including those that may help officials distinguish between Islamists or other fundamentalists and other types of Muslims). The current procedures are completely inadequate to vet legal immigrants (not to mention the problems of unvetted illegal immigrants coming across the border into the US).

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