LePage’s refugee stance cowardly, traitorous

Gov. Paul LePage’s pronouncement this week that Maine will not accept any refugees fleeing the war in Syria is a de facto surrender to the terrorists of the Islamic State and a betrayal of the values that make America great.

Gretchen Ertl | Reuters

Gretchen Ertl | Reuters

Terrorists, by definition, aim to terrorize people. Being craven cowards themselves, they slaughter innocents who cannot fight back. Confronted with force, their first instinct is to commit suicide. Their goal is to foster fear among the populace, not win battles or claim territory. Thus, terrorists are successful to the extent they can make people live in terror. If they can also compel their enemies to abandon their proudest values and question the strength of their own protectors, that’s all gravy.

LePage has offered ISIS the full buffet: fear, bigotry, and an open declaration to the world that the United States cannot protect its citizens against ISIS even inside our homeland.

The governor is telling the terrorists that Mainers are afraid of them. Effectively, he’s saying that we’re so fearful of being attacked that we cannot even allow Syrian children inside our state’s borders because they may one day take up arms against us. A baby napping in her mother’s arms could be a sleeper cell in LePage’s paranoid estimation.

We know the governor is prone to say absurd and outlandish things. His clownish political antics made him a laughing stock years ago. But by singling out Syrian refugees, the majority of whom are Muslim, he’s engaging in bald-faced racism that shouldn’t be funny to anyone. The fact that the targets of his bigotry are innocents fleeing the horrors of war earns LePage a place among the most despicable and heartless despots of our time.

LePage and the other governors who announced their refusal to shelter Syrian refugees this week have handed ISIS a huge propaganda tool they can use to continue to intimidate innocent Syrians and recruit new members into their death cult. The news, reported around the globe, that over half the United States is unwilling to shelter Syrians caught in the crossfire of this war makes their dire situation even more hopeless — and hopelessness breeds extremism.

ISIS can now boast to all the angry, aimless young men in the region that their campaign of terror has struck fear into the hearts of leaders in the most powerful nation the world has ever known. Our reaction to the atrocities ISIS is committing should be to demonstrate the strength, confidence, compassion and commitment to justice that define American greatness. Instead, LePage is declaring that we are weak, timid, cruel and unjust.

The contention that the United States is incapable of identifying, foiling and prosecuting terrorists before they can strike is an insult to every law enforcement agency in the country. Refugees, especially those fleeing war-torn nations, are intensely scrutinized by a host of federal agencies — from the Department of the Defense to the FBI — before they are allowed to set foot on American soil. And once they’re here, as a slew of civil-liberties controversies have made all too clear, that scrutiny and surveillance hardly stops.

LePage’s baseless assertion that there are holes in our vast security state that terrorists can exploit simply by claiming to be refugees is both ignorant and reckless. Even if such a gap did exist, it would be an act of treason to declare its existence to enemies before taking steps to alert authorities to the potential breach and making every effort to close it.

The good news is that LePage does not speak for America or even the state he purportedly leads. Most citizens of Maine have never voted for him. LePage has abdicated much of his responsibility to govern out of childish frustration with the political process, if not democracy itself. A significant portion of his own party considers him a political liability.

Thankfully, LePage also lacks the authority to enforce a ban on Syrian refugees in Maine. So his rhetoric is not only hurtful and hateful, it’s toothless and pointless.

I realize there’s a slim chance any Syrian refugees will ever read this column, but if they do, they should know that Mainers are exceptionally compassionate and tough people who will welcome and protect them to the best of our ability. That’s the way life should be.

Chris Busby

About Chris Busby

Chris Busby is editor and publisher of The Bollard, a monthly magazine about Portland. He writes a weekly column for the BDN.