Editor:
John and Frankie King (“Rethink refugee promise,” Letters, Nov. 27) didn’t explain why they were connecting Syrian refugees to the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. Presumably it’s because of a Syrian passport found at the scene of the attacks. They are apparently unaware of several significant considerations.
It’s not clear whether the passport was carried by an attacker or a dead bystander. Even if it was carried by an attacker, the passport may have been stolen or forged. Syrians trying to flee through the Balkans have been mugged for their passports, which can be sold for as much as several thousand euros. Passports can also be forged. Neither of these possibilities connects Syrian refugees with the Paris attacks.
It should also be noted that, even if that passport was legitimate and one of the attackers was Syrian, that doesn’t prove that all Syrian refugees (or all Muslims, for that matter) should be regarded as suspected terrorists any more than all Christians should be regarded as such because some of them engaged in terrorist attacks on a Planned Parenthood clinic and an African-American church.
The Kings’ callous disregard of the terrible suffering of the Syrian refugees is a bit disheartening, and brings to mind Canada’s woeful reaction to the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany, to the point of refusing to admit a German ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees. In fact, it is believed that a Canadian immigration official said, “None is too many” when asked how many Jews would be allowed. Only 5,000 were admitted, a rather paltry figure compared to six million.
Perhaps I should mention tangentially that – with respect to financial considerations – I don’t recall the Kings complaining when Harper was planning to spend a minimum of $9 billion on new war toys.
George Kosinski, Gibsons
