Ben Carson Likens Syrian Refugees to 'Rabid Dogs'
The leading Republican was speaking at a campaign event in Alabama
By Andrew Buncombe
November 20, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - "The
Independent" - The debate over
whether to allow Syrian refugees to settle in the US took a dark
twist after a leading presidential candidate likened those fleeing
the violence in the Middle East to “rabid dogs”.
Republican Ben Carson told a campaign event in
Mobile, Alabama, that allowing Syrian migrants into the US could put
Americans at risk.
“If there is a rabid dog running around your
neighborhood, you’re probably not going to assume something good
about that dog,” he said on Thursday, according to
Reuters
“By the same token, we have to have in place
screening mechanisms that allow us to determine who the mad dogs
are, quite frankly.”
The US is driven by debate over whether or not to
permit the entry of refugees fleeing Syria, which has suffered from
the violence of more than four years of civil war.
President Barack Obama has said he wants to admit
10,000 refugees within a year, after close vetting.
A number of campaigners have called that figure
too low and pointed to nations such as Germany that have accepted
hundreds of thousands of people.
But in the US, a number of Republicans have
suggested Mr Obama is allow too many to enter. The governors of more
than 30 states have said they do not want refugees from Syria and
will do all they can to block them.
Two Syrian families were forced to travel to
Connecticut after the governor of Indiana, where they were
initially due to be settled, said they would not be welcome there.
On the same day that Mr Carson spoke, the US House
of Representatives passed Republican-backed legislation to suspend
Mr Obama’s programme to passed admit the 10,000 refugees in the next
year. The president has said he would veto any such legislation.
Concern in the US about the purported danger
presented by the refugees - something for which Mr Obama mocked
Republicans - has intensified after an unconfirmed report that one
of the Paris attackers may have entered Europe among migrants
registered in Greece.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based
Council on American-Islamic Relations, denounced Mr Carson's
comments as “unconscionable”, saying they pointed to a "complete
disregard” for American Muslims.
“It really is unconscionable that he would stoop
to such levels in smearing people who are fleeing violence and
oppression, seeking a better life. Something he, himself, would do
if put in the same circumstances,” he said.
Mr Carson has called for Congress to cut off
funding to programs used to bring refugees into the country.
See also -
WorldNetDaily Pundit: 'Bomb Mecca Off The
Face Of The Earth': Columnist
Burt Prelutsky writes today that he has an ingenious but
“politically incorrect suggestion” of how to defeat ISIS, namely
that the U.S. “bomb Mecca off the face of the earth, letting the
Muslims know once and for all that our God is far more powerful and,
yes, vengeful than their own puny deity.”
Anti-Syrian Muslim Refugee Rhetoric Mirrors
Calls to Reject Jews During Nazi Era:
During the 1930s and early 1940s, the United States resisted
accepting large numbers of Jewish refugees escaping the Nazi terror
sweeping Europe, in large part because of fearmongering by a small
but vocal crowd.
