No matter who you talk to, it seems that people fall on one side of this argument or the other, depending on which side of their hearts are talking. Softies want to rescue the babies while toughies are thinking only of the recent Paris carnage caused by the terrorists and do not wish to see the same carnage happen here, especially while they might be shopping at the Mall of America during the Christmas season with their families. So which side is right?  Answer: both sides are right and I ask, why does it have to be one way or the other? Why can’t it be “both, and”?

Let’s get creative here instead of shooting Facebook arrows at each other and potentially damaging our feelings for one another. I repeat, it does not have to be either or, and if our government were working properly instead of “business as usual” they would be able to come up with a sensible, common sense solution to this quagmire.

However, before I even offer a suggested solution, it would be wise to watch the 5 minute overview summarizing the Syrian war and the parties involved in that war produced by Ezra Klein and can be found here on his Facebook page: Syria’s war: A 5-minute history. (Thank you Skiler Norton for re-posting it for me so I became aware of it). He explains it all and takes a complicated situation and makes it understandable, which is not an easy thing to do. The final conclusion of that summary is that the Syrian war is not going to end any time soon. Which means, keep expecting migrant refugees to flee the country looking for safety until there are no more people left to flee.

Here are some statistics that I cannot verify but seem to come from sources that would be biased against the facts they are reporting which leads me to believe they are worse than the numbers as reported.  Here’s one: “United Nations figures reveal that of the nearly 600,000 migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean this year, 69 per cent of them are men, and 55 per cent of them are from Syria.”[1]  Did you catch that number? 70% of the migrants leaving Syria are adult men. This contradicts the narrative that most of the migrants are mothers with small children needing protection. According to this article, the reality is that the able bodied young men who are capable of protecting the women and children in Syria are fleeing, leaving the most vulnerable behind unprotected.  It ought to be the other way around according to the interviewees. They say the men ought to be bringing their families to a safe place then turn around and go back to Syria to fight for the just cause (whichever side that is, and good luck determining it). But no, instead the men seem to be acting like cowards who are running from danger rather than towards danger to protect the innocent.  So, pardon me for saying so, but our incompetent government is in the business of giving shelter to a majority of migrants who are cowards (and likely some terrorists as well). Maybe the winnowing process should start there. If we want to be compassionate, save the mothers and children who are fleeing for their lives and send the men back where they came from.  That would be a start. Yes, women can be terrorists as well, women who are willing to blow themselves up with suicide vests but I have a hard time envisioning a lot of nursing mothers willing to give their lives in that violent a way compared to the many men seeking to have sex with 70 virgins in paradise (imagine that rude awakening after blowing yourself up and finding yourself tormented by 70 demons instead of having constant sex with 70 naked virgins!).

Is there a solution? I think a simple one. Did you know there is a National Guard training center in central MI that is used to train all branches of the military and is used primarily and particularly for one purpose?  That purpose is to train military soldiers how to process and care for prisoners of war. According to Popular Mechanics[2] the camp is exactly that, a replica of a POW camp designed to house POW’s.  Now if the facility is not large enough to handle the migrant women and children, the camp could easily be expanded to house more and provide shelter from the cold and from male abuse (think rape here) since the men have already been shipped back from where they came from. Camp Gitmo in Cuba could be used for the same purposes. Your first reaction to this suggestion is going to be: “but these women and children are not POW’s, and they deserve better.” Perhaps they do, but do you think they would be complaining about the living conditions if they knew they were being protected from death, disease, starvation and rape? Think of the missionary opportunities this camp could provide as well, and think of the minds that could be changed from a religion of demonic violence (Islam) to a religion of Christian love.

Now, how to pay for their heat and food and shelter? Simple again. It is a Middle East problem is it not? Why not place a 20% surcharge on every barrel of oil coming from Saudi Arabia, Quatar, the UAE, Iraq, Iran (yes even Iran) and all of the other Arab nations that are unwilling to take in their own refugees. “You want us to buy your oil and take in the victims of your Sunni/Shia wars? O.K. we will at a price, and here it is, take it or leave it.” They would take it. They need us to buy their oil. The surcharge would also be a boon to our oil companies as well making our shale oil more competitively priced than their non-shale oil.

The final objection would be this; “Will they be interned forever?” “What is the end-game?”  You got me there. I’ve just found a solution to keep them warm, safe and fed, but perhaps we need more than that. Let’s think this through a little further. The problem of taking in migrants indiscriminately is that it is currently impossible to vet them. There is no background information on any of them to do background checks so the FBI and Homeland Security are powerless to vet anybody.   So why not use the time spent in the camp to be a vetting process itself, kind of like starting over from scratch for these mothers with a new life? If you keep out the imams who are preaching jihad and let in missionaries preaching the love of Christ, do you not think the vast majority of them would reject fanatical Islam? My guess is that 99.9% of them would. And since these refugees are not American citizens, they are not privileged to be granted the same freedoms we have and enjoy. There is no reason that if they want their freedom, they could be given a choice to go back to their homeland or be released into our culture with the strictest of precautions, much like we do with paroled inmates who are not allowed to return to their former way of life. We could demand weekly church attendance instead of mosque attendance (by the way, I like Donald Trump’s idea of weeding out the imams in America who are preaching jihad since freedom of religion was never intended to be a cover for inspiring mass deaths. Just like our freedom of speech also does not allow for people to yell fire in a movie theater so why should imams be allowed to yell death to America and provide the AK-47’s and bullets to make it happen.)  We could demand immediate deportation if they ever, ever click on a jihad site or support a jihadi movement in any way.  That would be the price of their freedom in America. It would be their choice. They would be giving up a lot of their rights to privacy that we Americans are used to but again it would be their choice.

Does this sound like the way we treated Japanese citizens during WWII? Perhaps. Ideally it would be much more humane and comfortable. But remember, those citizens were interned unfairly and were inadequately vetted as we say today. Many of them, perhaps most, hated what their former countrymen were doing to the USA. Many of them would have made good soldiers in our army, just like many Germans in America did without the same suspicions.  But, in the end I think almost all of these refugee moms who are fleeing for their lives would be willing to endure the restrictions on their freedoms for the benefit of seeing their infants grow up and not blown up.

Just saying.

[1] http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/10/06/watch-syrian-women-slam-male-migrants-for-leaving-ask-who-will-protect-us/

[2] http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a12805/4312850/  This article debunks the myth of FEMA camps being built or already built around the country to house dissidents. So, no there are no FEMA camps that could be used for these purposes mentioned above.