The Risk Of Resettlement

Resettling thousands of people from a country with a culture radically different from the American culture has its risks. One of the places where those risks are going to be most apparent is in the way women are treated in America in contrast to the way women were historically treated in Afghanistan. I will admit that I hadn’t really thought about the impact of the twenty years of the American presence in Afghanistan had on the people until I watched the video I embedded yesterday. The young lady in the interview tearfully thanking the Americans for the fact that she was allowed to go to school caused me to rethink a lot of my ideas about our presence in Afghanistan. An article that appears today in The Daily Caller makes me wonder about the wisdom of bringing the Afghan refugees to America rather than resettling them somewhere in the Arab world where the culture would be similar to the culture in Afghanistan before Americans arrived.

The article reports:

An Afghan refugee was charged with raping an 18-year-old after resettling in Missoula, Montana, Fox News reported on Thursday.

Zabihullah Muhmand, 19, ended up in Montana as part of a State Department effort to resettle people evacuated from Afghanistan after the government fell to the Taliban in mid-August, Republican Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte announced, according to Fox News. Gianforte asked the Biden administration to stop resettlement efforts so officials can look into the vetting process of evacuees.

“911 received a call from the victim and also from the local motel who wanted to report seeing some concerning behavior between a male and female,” police official Lydia Arnold said, local outlet KGVO reported. “Officers were able to connect the victim with the resources in Missoula to aid the victim with immediate medical assistance, conduct a preliminary investigation, and take a preliminary statement from the victim.”

Unfortunately there have been similar incidents in other areas of the country involving Afghan refugees. Some European countries who have accepted large numbers of Arab refugees have also had similar problems with the lack of respect for women that is woven into the Arab culture. I am not sure this is a matter of vetting–I suspect it may be a cultural matter that needs to be addressed very quickly. Any refugees coming to America from countries where women are routinely mistreated need to be educated quickly on the role of women in America. It is the responsibility of our government to protect ALL of its citizens.