Please help a lazy Doper out. I keep seeing quotes from right-wing politicians, and their supporters among my friends, that ISIS agents are crossing our borders to commit terrorism here in God’s Own U. S. of A. Is there any credible evidence for this? I am very skeptical of GOP claims these days, particularly when they serve to whip up tempers in their base. But I could be wrong - what’s the Straight Dope? Thanks!
(I put this in Great Debates because I’m afraid it will devolve here anyway. Mods please move this wherever y’all think best.)
The only suggestion of anything like that is that a twitter account associated with ISIS posted a picture of the ISIS flag outside the gates to the White House. There’s also the risk that westerners associated with ISIS might come back to their home country eventually and make mischief. But there doesn’t seem to be an immediate threat to the United States itself, although, as the White House has stated, there are threats to American interests overseas. But ISIS didn’t seem to really pay much attention to the US until we started bombing them. They seem to be focused on more local and regional goals (like establishing a state in the parts of Syria and Iraq that they control).
Anyone remember what the situation was before 9/11? As I recall virtually no one took the risk of major terrorist attacks seriously.
The ISIS people are massively more skilled than the 9/11 people were. They are recruiting a lot of people from Western countries who could be trained to do terrorist acts–and then easily return to those countries as they are citizens. And considering how porous our borders are to illegal immigrants, terrorists could also easily sneak across.
But of course everyone here believes how competent Homeland Security is! Right?
But ISIS’s whole raison d’etre has nothing to do with terrorist attacks on the West. In terms of what they actually want to achieve, they want to worry/annoy the West enough to ginger up their own support base, but no more. An all-out war on them by the US is not something they would particularly seek.
My question is do you have any evidence for the ISIS part of this, or has any other source put forward evidence of this? I’ll stipulate that DHS is not the most competent agency on the planet, but then who is?
Without a factual basis the people pushing this point of view are asking us to be afraid of the boogerman under our beds. (And like Monty Burns, I said “boogerman” instead og bogeyman.)
The fact that there’s no evidence might simply point to the fact that no one has been caught. You don’t think ISIS might take advantage of a porous border? Common sense dictates that border controls should be tightened rather than relaxed.
If ISIS agents want to enter the U.S., they can fly in through JFK. There’s nothing stopping them from doing that now. It’s certainly easier than flying to Mexico and sneaking across the border.
The poster you were replying to has a point. Terrorist and radical organizations do evolve. What they are one day is not what they are the next. Individuals change, organizations change. Keeping an eye out for immigrants both legal and illegal is worth doing. I dont know about the US but im sure some of these guys will return to the UK. What their motive is in returning may be open to debate. I suspect some will settle back into civilian life, others will not. However, when they do return they will have certain deadly skills returning with them.
Nevermind, you have trumped any legitimate concern we might have with a slighltly humorous quote from The Simpsons. Game, set and match to you.
Hum… no, not really ? I mean they’re decent at guerilla warfare, getting culled by it over a few years will do that. They’ve learned quite a lot about turning technological gadgets into rudimentary tools (I fondly remember a picture, early into the Syrian rebellion, where a group had turned an iPad into a mortar aiming tool. Of course, they were holding the mortar tube by hand insuring any angle calculated would be irrelevant, and they could have achieved the same result with a goddamn plumb line… but it was still a cool idea. The geek in me approved.) but masterminds they are not, and they have no network outside of the Arab world.
Nonsense. Prove it.
So… where are all them terrists then ? I swear, terrorism is the new Reds. Hide under the sheets, Martha !
And beyond the factuality of said recruitment, what would possibly be the purpose of sneaking dastardly terrists into the US ? ISIS is a local band of warlords. They’re not geopolitical, they don’t want to send a message and they don’t need to impress anyone, and the last thing they need is the attention of a Western military into their little mom and pop genocide stand.
Oh, and they don’t have access to Bin Laden’s fortune & international connections either. They’re thugs with AK-47s. They’re not Cobra Command.
I expect ISIS wants many things according to which ISIS fanboy you ask. But one of their stated goals is the establishment of the Kalifat on all grounds which at some point in history has been Muslim. This includes large parts of Europe. So yes, their raison d’etre stands in direct conflict with the West.
There may not be any immediate identifiable threat. But various Western intelligence services have warning about the threat. Especially of ISIS terrorists returning radicalised and with training.
Really? The restoration of Al-Andalus is ISIS’ biggest going concern right now? You sure it isn’t the Kurds?
As soon as the murderous thugs manage to control the middl east, subsume Turkey and push across Egypt, then I think you could argue they present a threat to “the West”. Right now, they’re a regional army funded by oil and pillage.
They’re more of a threat to established countries in the region than to the US or EU.
Actually, I could accept this statement. The folks leading ISIS appear to be focused more on short-term acheivable goals than Al Qaeda ever was. Al Qaeda did the flashy thing, sure. But all it did was anger the most powerful country in the world and get a lot of people killed.
By avoiding that, and simply focusing on wanting to build an Islamic state, ISIS provides a much more complicated problem. Because it’s hard to get the American people up in arms about people ‘over there’ killing each other and trying to realign nation states that we don’t particularly care about. Sure, the administration might care about the Kurds and a stable Iraq, but I’d be willing to bet that Joe Blow middle American doesn’t give a shit. It’s harder to fight and harder to JUSTIFY fighting.
Sure, they have the big splashy long-term stated goals of establishing a complete caliphate, but I’d be surprised if they believed in it, even in their longest term goals. It’s PR designed to win some measure of support from the true believers.
This is so obvious that I suspect some people are deliberately putting their head in the sand to avoid confronting the issue. We know Al Qaeda did morph into a number of different sub groups. Some remained loyal to its original goals, some changed as time went on. Much of the change being due to local influences and factors. What influences a returning ISIS fighter to Saudi Arabia may be entirely different to an ISIS member returning to Europe or North American.
It’s all ok though. These valid concerns are easily dismissed by countering us with lazy cultural references to1950’s America or by quoting The Simpsons.
No one is arguing that there shouldn’t be some concern. It’s the while “Venezuelan children will be trained by ISIS to sneak into god’s own country and destroy us!” attitude that’s strange.
Yes, some westerners have gone to fight. Most will die, some will come back, and some of those will still be committed to striking the evil infidels. It’s not the biggest concern we should have.