Originally Posted by
Earl
From the link:
"Perhaps the departments of State and Homeland Security expected the entry that was slipped into the Federal Register to go unnoticed.
In that entry, however, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas changed the rules to allow those with membership in terrorist groups or a moderate involvement with such groups entry into the United States.
Their move comes after Rep. Jim Banks questioned why the State Department granted a visa to Iranian actor Parviz Parastui, a staunch supporter of late Iranian terror master Qassem Soleimani. Parastui subsequently assaulted an Iranian dissident. In effect, rather than explain the unexplainable, two of Biden’s top security officials are instead extending a middle finger to Congress. The proposed changes go beyond one man. To differentiate between those planting a bomb and those funding or merely cheering the bombing is disingenuous. Two decades after 9/11, Blinken has effectively signaled that terrorism is not a black-and-white issue, but rather one permeated by shades of gray. Under such circumstances, some terrorism becomes more acceptable than other terrorism.
The problem here is multifold.
The U.S. designates Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization for good reason. Even if the Quds Force, previously run by Soleimani, was the tip of the spear, the IRGC and its network of companies provided a financial engine that enabled the force to operate with plausible deniability independent of Iran's parliament’s budgetary process.
While diplomats may embrace the fiction that the IRGC conscripts innocent Iranians, this is false. Iranian men are subject to conscription into the army, but, whether for ideological reasons or because they seek better pay or opportunities within the Islamic Republic’s bureaucracy of theocracy, some volunteer for the more elite IRGC. To absolve them of their actions cannot be matched to their killing of hundreds of Americans.
The same holds true for the Lebanese Hezbollah. Like the IRGC, Hezbollah has killed hundreds of Americans over the decades. Many who join the movement, however, do not intend to participate directly in operations against Americans or Israelis. When I visited Nabatiyeh , located in the Hezbollah heartland of southern Lebanon, in December 2020, residents described how Hezbollah was hemorrhaging members as its funding dried up against the backdrop of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s "maximum pressure" campaign. While it is good that members abandoned the terrorist group, these defectors made a conscious decision to empower killings for their own wallets and should have no entitlement to visit the U.S.
Too often, Europeans excuse Hezbollah by arguing that it is not just a terrorist group, but rather a broader political and social movement that runs hospitals, clinics, and schools. That should be irrelevant: If Greenpeace put bombs on buses, would it really matter what they did with spotted owls? The Blinken policy, however, appears to embrace the European notion that effectively lets Hezbollah off the hook.
Such actions play into the hands of terrorist groups such as the IRGC, Hezbollah, or, for that matter, groups such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that set up NGOs to launder their activities.
Terrorism is a conscious choice, a tactic used to achieve aims unattainable at the ballot box or diplomatic parlor. To legitimize it empowers it. To believe that terrorism is only done by those who wield a gun is especially naive. Just as dangerous are those who would provide material support or cheer it along. There should be no shades of gray when confronting the scourge. Unfortunately, as Blinken and Mayorkas believe otherwise, people will suffer. "
Bookmarks