I borrow the phrase from the legendary Christopher Hitchens fisking of Maureen Dowd’s insistence on the moral authority of people like Cindy Sheehan when it comes to criticizing the war, attacking America or even slandering individuals. Or recycling White Supremacist propaganda as she has been known to do:

Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full well that my son, my family, this nation and this world were betrayed by George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agendas after 9/11.

Statements like these, coming from a degenerate thief and liar, are indeed piffle as Hitchens would so brilliantly describe, and when otherwise rational people provide cover for them or openly declare support, the statements become sinister not just in tone but in potential consequences.

Now read this statement promoted by the C.V.F., written by one of their members and articulating the group’s opposition to proposals that America allow Iraqi refugees who are endangered by their association with the coalition forces to resettle in America:

Last week I posted on a report from the Brookings Institution entitled, Iraqi Refugees in the Syrian Arab Republic, in an effort to answer the question, who are the Iraqis who have fled to Syria? Since the United States has already begun resettling this fiscal year’s goal of 12, 000, it’s important for us to know who is coming to America. See also Judy’s post about Christian Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

More from Brookings, who are they?

* ”… many [are] urban, moderate or secular Sunnis who do not want to live under the sway of Salafi insurgent groups.” Salafis are the hard-line fundamentalist Muslims.

* “Many of the Kurds seem to be crossing into Syria in the hope of obtaining third-country resettlement….” Apparently in May, Kurdish men were crossing into Syria to register as asylees but then freely returned home making them not true refugees.

* Shia Iraqis are entering Syria looking for better economic conditions, to escape hardline Islam and to obtain resettlement in third countries.

* Many Christian Iraqis went to Syria in the 1990’s to escape the Saddam Hussein regime. Others had worked for that regime and left after the regime was toppled. Many Christians who stayed in Iraq worked for foreign organizations or the multinational forces and have now left Iraq. The report mentions several times that Christians who sold alcohol were especially driven from Iraq by hard-line Islamic groups.

There are additional reports of radical Sunni insurgents asking Christians to pay the jizya to the Mosque or leave the country. The report describes the jizya as “a head-tax that non-Muslims historically paid in Muslim states.”

Brookings says the Iraqi Christians expect they cannot go back to Iraq but “that leaving Iraq will lead to the disappearance of their communities and their distinct identities.”

* Then there were 30,000 Palestinians in Iraq, ”favored under Saddam”. Many have gone to Syria and some are in refugee camps along the border between Iraq and Jordan. Somehow Hamas is involved in the “deadlock around the Palestinian refugees blocked between Iraq and Jordan.” Incidentally recent reports are that some of these Palestinians are being resettled by Brazil.

* Finally the report discusses the Sunni and Shia radical groups that have left Iraq and entered Syria. The first group right after the invasion were members of the Saddam Hussein regime and then in the last couple of years the radicals are likely a result of stepped up military action by the multi-national forces (the Surge?).

According to Brookings some of these are coming as refugees, others come “for rest-and-recuperation, or even to check up on whether other members of the group are living cleanly, in keeping with strict Islamic instructions.”

At the end of this Brookings report, there are some statistics gathered from interviews of 192 Iraqis in Syria. Although the sample must be too small to be accurate it is nonetheless worth mentioning.

44% of the Iraqis living in Syria are Sunni

22% Shia

13% Christian

73% are men

69% are aged 18-50

41% left Iraq in 2006

1% say they left due to an affiliation with the international presence

2% operated liquor stores

23% left due to sectarian violence

I kind of got a chuckle out of the statistics above. The primary reason given by the mainstream media for the persecuted refugees who must come to America immediately is because of their involvement with the US government (as translators and such), yet only 1% gave that as a reason for fleeing Iraq.

I may have been overly kind when I said it articulated their position, but it does seemingly state it. They are against allowing our allies, men and women who fought alongside our troops, safe haven when the the Democrats finally force a withdrawal and the blood bath begins.

Understand before we go in further that the official policy of the Center of Vigilant Freedom, as articulated here, is that we allow Islamists to behead the translators, policemen and other Iraqis who joined the coalition, allow their families to be murdered and raped or perhaps sold into slavery then I suppose sit back and wag our fingers at the anti-war left while saying “We told you this would happen.”

This is to them more acceptable than letting the Iraqis become Americans, I suppose because the above “evidence” indicates that most Iraqis fleeing to Syria were not coalition members.

It’s piffle to the nth degree of course. Syria is a Baathist country to which Baathists, and later those who were at least nominally allied with Baathists, fled. Syria is a de facto enemy of America, a client state of Iran run by an Islamized National Socialist regime. The difference between who would seek shelter there as opposed to who would seek shelter here in America is vast and easily understandable by all except those with the most sinister motives.

I assume the argument that “DKShideler” is trying to make is that we should abandon these brave men and women to a barbaric and blood thirsty enemy because they might be terrorists. While I’d say it’s unlikely that someone who worked with us against terrorists in Iraq, then fled the country to America is himself a terrorist, I recognize that possibility. But every Muslim and Leftist and Peace Activist and Ron Paul supporter is a potential terrorist in reality. Will we be throwing them out the country as well?

The fact is that America has a chance, and a responsibility, to save thousands of lives if the left gets their way and cedes Iraq (and eventually the entire middle east and all of Africa) to a re-emerging Caliphate. If Iraq falls, due to the betrayal of freedom and democracy by the new left, we can still be a shining light of civilization in the world, taking in our allies who fought for a free Iraq and rewarding them with the chance to become what many of them already are in their hearts: American.

It would be more politically expedient for us on the right to allow the massacre and use the images of our friends’ rapes and murders as leverage to get our seats back in the house and senate. It’d be sinister indeed if that’s the author’s intention, but I would be willing to bet that the author is motivated by fear and bigotry. That he’s not heard of the Umar Lees and Andrew Stones of the world and clings to the belief that if we only stopped letting middle easterners come here there would be no way for terror to strike. In other words it’s piffle.

And the end of my involvement with the C.V.F.