You seem to be dismissing their hardships as if keeping a few extremists out is more important than saving hundreds of thousands of lives. (If that's not the case then I'm sorry) We can't be just thinking about ourselves here; they're in need and we can help. Of course a few bad apples are going to come through, but it's not going to cause anything significant enough to justify allowing hundreds of thousands of refugees to be killed.
I'm not dismissing their hardships, not at all. I even stated at the bottom of my post that we shouldn't dismiss it or abandon them:
That doesn't mean that the refugees aren't going through emotional hardship, or that they should be abandoned,
Remember that it only took a few extremists to carry out the Paris attacks last Friday. As a country we should aim to help those in need by offering asylum, but at the same time we are even more so responsible for protecting our own citizens, and the lives of those we care about here in the United States. We shouldn't risk any bad apples coming in, and mind you these aren't just criminals or bad apples, they are terrorists with ideologies that are downright demented.
Two out of your three sources are directly from the extremists themselves. They're terrorists. They use psychological warfare all the time, on the internet, in their videos, everywhere, and this is exactly the kind of fear that they want to instill. Under what circumstances do you think their information should be trusted?
They do use psychological methods, and that very well could be what they're doing. But, we can still "be prudent without being paranoid", so to speak. It's very easy for them to infiltrate the crowds and pose as refugees - this is a tactic in general they are known for. It's also very easy for them to buy fake Syrian passports (
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/fake-syrian-passports/416445/), so radicals don't even have to come from Syria.
In addition, not only was one of the terrorists (who was arrested last Friday) someone who claimed to be from CIA and came from Syria as a refugee, but also 8 other people, believed to be terrorists posing as refugees from Syria, were arrested today (
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/620249/Eight-arrested-Istanbul-airport-amid-CIA-fears).
Also, 8 Syrians were arrested today attempting to enter Texas from the Mexican border (
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/18/report-8-syrians-caught-at-texas-border-in-laredo/). This report, as quoted from the article, has "caused a stir among the sector’s Border Patrol agents." There were also the 5 Syrians arrested in Honduras possessing fake Greek passports (
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/u.s.-bound-syrians-detained-in-honduras-with-fake-passports/article/2576672 and
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris-attacks-honduras-detains-5-syrians-headed-to-u-s-with-stolen-greek-passports/). Police stated, based on the latter article, that this situation wasn't connected to the attacks in Paris, but it's still very strange. There is precedence that they are trying to enter the country, so we should be concerned and take their threats seriously.
Is there any reason to believe any significant number have not only gotten on the boats, but survived the trip and gotten through screening? Pretty weak argument if you ask me.
Your claim of 1/3-1/4 refugees are extremists also goes completely unjustified, I checked for it in all 3 sources. Even if the 4000 number is correct, that's wayyyyy less than 1/4.
Many CIA members or those suspected of involvement with CIA, including refugees, are already being arrested here in the United States (
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3322649/The-enemy-Nearly-SEVENTY-arrested-America-CIA-plots-include-refugees-given-safe-haven-turned-terror.html and
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/CIA-suspects/).
As far as I can see, we have no other option if we want to save as many people as possible. Protecting them in Syria would just put more lives in danger (Both soldiers and civilians) than if we give them a safe place to be. Not saying we should just move the entire country into Germany or something, that's just ridiculous, but make sure we can economically handle it.
Obviously, no screening system will be able to predict with 100% certainty. I also don't know how effective the screening process actually is, but it's safe to assume that it will weed out a good percentage of extremists, assuming they have well trained people doing the screening.
I'm not saying we should be afraid, I'm just saying we should be prudent. Simply opening our doors and with such an elevated risk is a very dangerous thing to do. The main thing I'm concerned about however is our vetting process. They can forge documents, and there's no real way to really tell who's a radical and who's not:
“People in that part of the world can fly under the radar,” he said. “If there’s no obvious red flag raised like military history or their own social media posts, then the bad guys can hide their true intention. It’s very, very hard for us to identify the radicals.”
(
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2015/11/18/Pa-senators-disagree-on-how-broadly-to-vet-Syrian-refugees/stories/201511180133)
In short: I'm all for bringing in the refugees, but right now the risk to our country is too great, and our vetting process for them is "seriously flawed."
