With President Obama out of the country on official state business, Vice President delivered this week’s White House address, and he took on the many members of Congress and the right wing media who have said no Syrian refugees should be allowed into the United States under any circumstances.
Biden detailed the way in which all war refugees are vetted before being allowed to remain in the United States and rightly noted about the refugees from Syria:
“To turn them away would play right into the terrorists; hands.”
And the Vice President also said that many of the refugees seeking asylum are the most vulnerable:
“Let’s also remember who the vast majority of these refugees are: women, children, orphans, survivors of torture, people desperately in need medical help.
“To turn them away and say there is no way you can ever get here would play right into the terrorists’ hands. We know what ISIL – we know what they hope to accomplish. They flat-out told us.”
The leader of ISIS, Biden noted, has clearly said what the group hopes to accomplish:
“Earlier this year, the top ISIL leader al-Baghdadi revealed the true goal of their attacks. Here’s what he said: ‘Compel the crusaders to actively destroy the gray zone themselves. Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one and two choices. Either apostatize or emigrate to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution.’ So it’s clear. It’s clear what ISIL wants. They want to manufacture a clash between civilizations. They want frightened people to think in terms of ‘us versus them.'”
Ending his address on an emotional note, Biden said:
“They want us to turn our backs on Muslims victimized by terrorism. But this gang of thugs peddling a warped ideology, they will never prevail. The world is united in our resolve to end their evil. And the only thing ISIL can do is spread terror in hopes that we will in turn, turn on ourselves. We will betray our ideals and take actions, actions motivated by fear that will drive more recruits into the arms of ISIL. That’s how they win. We win by prioritizing our security as we’ve been doing. Refusing to compromise our fundamental American values: freedom, openness, tolerance. That’s who we are. That’s how we win.”
Watch the Vice President’s Address
Featured image by Flickr, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
