America: Love It or Leave It

We all watched the aftermath of the Paris bombings and shootings in horror. 80 people gunned down in a concert hall. Gunmen opening up on diners at sidewalk cafes. Suicide bombers thwarted in their attempt to detonate bomb vests inside a soccer stadium with 80,000 people. 

129 people were murdered by radical members of the Islamic State. Over 300 were injured. Bombers didn’t make it into the stadium, or this attack would have been much worse. And the French have already stopped five or six other attacks this year.

It’s easy for us to say that radical Islamists are a bunch of murderous lunatics. It’s true, they are. The members of the Islamic State are psychopaths first and religious people second. But what are we going to do about it? How do we in the West — Americans, Canadians, Europeans — stem the tide of this hatred?

The fact is, there are answers to this. There are things that can be done, though they may not be easy or popular. Many people will point to immigration as an obvious way that terrorists can exploit Europe and North America. 

Immigration policy has long been a contentious issue in France, just like it is here in the U.S. In the post-World War II era, French birth rates fell, and immigration was a way to keep the labor force strong. Then in the 1950s and ’60s, wars of liberation in former European colonies led to an increase in Muslim immigrants.

In 1962, the year former French colony Algeria won independence, 350,000 “French Muslims” were counted in the census. By 1982, it was 800,000. Did France have some responsibility to the people of its former colony? 

When the U.S. left Vietnam, many in the military felt we had a responsibility to the South Vietnamese who helped the American war effort, a responsibility that we didn’t completely honor. Vietnamese who worked for the U.S. were rounded up and executed or sent to “re-education” work camps for years. 

To my knowledge, the U.S. has yet to see a Vietnamese terrorist attack. But France has seen Algerian terrorists before. The two main murderers in the Charlie Hebdo killings early this year were born in France to Algerian parents. Why is that?

And what about the flood of Syrian refugees in to Europe? Should Europe turn its back on hundreds of thousands of Syrians who are being gassed and bombed by Assad? Would we, as Americans? You saw the picture of that 3-year-old Syrian boy who washed up on the beach in Greece. As a parent, what could be worse than having your child die as you fled murderous attacks in your homeland? Could you turn a makeshift boat away from American shores, knowing it will sink and the occupants drown?

But is it also any surprise that the Islamic State is using the flood of refugees to smuggle more terrorists into Europe?    

The United States spends more in humanitarian aid than any other country. It’s a fundamental American value to help people who are truly in need. And generally, when American aid can make a difference, we all support and applaud our efforts to relieve suffering.

Our House, Our Rules

There shouldn’t be any argument that immigration done right is important for any developed country. In the U.S., we benefit from the unskilled labor that immigrates here. But we downright thrive from the students, professionals, and entrepreneurs that are here come from other countries.

The whole “they take our jobs” protest is simply not true. (And please understand I’m not talking about illegal immigration here — that’s a different problem.)

One of the basic problems of immigration is assimilation. Do the immigrants want to be immersed in American or European culture? Will they embrace the values of their new culture? And will the citizens of the new country accept them as equals? 

The answers to these questions are obviously mixed. Most immigrants want to be a part of their new culture. That’s why they’ve come. But immigrants also have a tendency to form their own enclaves in their new country. Every major northern city in the U.S. has a Little Italy or Chinatown. Assimilation can take a generation or longer. And in countries where there is a lot of hostility toward immigrants, assimilation may never truly happen. 

If you remember, the Tsarnaev brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon had difficulty assimilating into U.S. culture. The Chechens were semi-outcasts at school, and this fueled their anger that opened them to being radicalized.

Immigrants from Pakistan have been persecuted by street thugs in London. North Africans receive the same in France.

This is not to say that France or the U.S. is somehow responsible for these people’s happiness with their lives. 

In support of “a certain idea of living together,” France has banned headscarves in public schools and face-covering burkas in public. I applaud this. In Western culture, we value freedom and equality. A woman in black robes with her face covered is the opposite of free and equal. Maybe that’s culturally insensitive, but I’m fine with that. You can come to the U.S. if you want, but you have to be willing to accept American culture if you want to enjoy the protection of our laws and the benefit of our economy.

Our house, our rules. That’s not negotiable. 

Of course, that’s all easier said than done. The U.S. Constitution offers certain protections that make it so you can’t force assimilation into U.S. culture. And we do not want these protections weakened, because they if they are weakened for some, they are weakened for all of us.

Ultimately, shutting borders is not the most effective solution here. Because the terrorists don’t come from just anywhere… they’re not Vietnamese, and they’re not Pakistanis.

You Broke It, You Bought It

More scrutiny of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East is warranted at this time. And so are boots on the ground.

Now, I know we are all “war weary.” We’ve lost enough American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and haven’t achieved much.

In fact, I’ve been supportive of Obama’s stepping away from the Middle East. However much I wish he would articulate his foreign policy goals, it’s the people of the Middle East (not the U.S.) who must decide what type of governments they want and what type of lives they want to lead.

In other words, revolutions have to be homegrown. You can’t import them. The problem is with the types of revolutions that occur in the Middle East. The Iranian revolution that ousted the Shah resulted in an oppressive religious government that hasn’t been very friendly to the West. The Arab Spring brought the Islamic Brotherhood to power in Egypt, another fundamentalist government that was likely to be unfriendly to the West.

At this point, there can be no doubt that removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq was a huge mistake. He was a brute, but he kept the peace. The power vacuum his removal created encouraged al-Qaeda and now the Islamic State. It’s no coincidence that the Islamic State now controls parts of Iraq and Syria.

Enough is enough. The self-determination “experiment” in the Middle East has failed. Powerful puppet masters (probably Saudi Arabia) continue to support the spread of fundamental and radical Islam in the Middle East. It is absolutely a direct threat to U.S. security and to Europe’s.

And now that Russia has stepped into the Syrian fray, Putin seems ready to be an ally in the fight against the Islamic State. A rare moment of global cooperation is at hand.

There is only one message from the Paris murders: It’s time for the military might of the West to put a stop to this insanity. The time for drone strikes is over. It’s time to put as many boots on the ground as needed to wipe radical Islam off the face of the map.

Until next time,

Until next time,

Briton Ryle

@BritonRyle on Twitter

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A 21-year veteran of the newsletter business, Briton Ryle is the editor of The Wealth Advisory income stock newsletter, with a focus on top-quality dividend growth stocks and REITs. Briton also manages the Real Income Trader advisory service, where his readers take regular cash payouts using a low-risk covered call option strategy. He is also the managing editor of the Wealth Daily e-letter. To learn more about Briton, click here.