Posted on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 01:44 pm:

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Pulibongaram:

Every applicant should be interviewed by an ethnically and religiously diverse panel made up of experts on ideological extremism, who would then advise the government on whether or not to allow the applicant to proceed along the road to citizenship. Muslim applicants need not feel singled out; the panel would look out for any individual whose political convictions, religious or otherwise, radically clash with the government and principles to which the applicant is preparing to swear allegiance.

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Posted on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 01:43 pm:

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Pulibongaram:

To repeat: The proportion may be small, but the number of Americans committed to political Islam and willing to contemplate violence to advance it is surely not trivial. And rising immigration from the Muslim world is likely to increase the proportion of Americans sympathetic to political Islam.

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Pulibongaram:

One measure employed during the Cold War was to question prospective citizens about whether they had ever been members of the Communist Party, a recognition that communism was an ideology fundamentally hostile to the American way of life. That question about the Communist Party is still asked today, even though the threat posed by communism has receded to a few desperate holdouts. I was surprised to encounter it not once but twice during my own application process. And it got me thinking: Is it not time to update the application form, substituting political Islam for Communism?

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Pulibongaram:

The question now is whether the interview process should remain so devoid of meaning. Is that what we want for the next zealot of political Islam who wants to enjoy the benefits of American citizenship until the day he tries to slaughter as many of us as possible?

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Posted on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 01:40 pm:

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Pulibongaram:

In a 2011 Pew survey, 1% of American Muslims said that suicide bombings were "often justified"—a tiny proportion, to be sure. The overwhelming majority of American Muslims want to lead peaceful lives. But 7% of those surveyed said that suicide bombers were "sometimes justified," and 5% said they were "rarely justified." Taking Pew's conservative estimate that Muslims now constitute 0.6% of the adult population of the U.S., this means that more than 180,000 American Muslims regard suicide bombings as being justified in some way.

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Posted on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 01:39 pm:

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Pulibongaram:

What is political Islam? It is not precisely the same as the spiritual dimension of the faith. Islam is multidimensional. It has a religious and social aspect but also a very strong political dimension. Political Islam is a comprehensive vision of ideas and ideals derived from Islamic scripture as interpreted by various scholars widely accepted as authorities on its meaning. Virtually all of these scholars agree that Muslim societies must accept Allah as the sovereign power and struggle to abide strictly by Shariah law as exemplified in the Sunna (the life, words and deeds of the Prophet). Political Islam prescribes a set of specific social, economic and legal practices in a way that is very different from the more general social teachings (such as calls to practice charity or strive for justice) found in the spiritual dimension of Islam, Christianity, Judaism and other world religions.

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Posted on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 01:38 pm:

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Pulibongaram:

Prior to sentencing, the judge asked Mr. Shahzad about the oath of allegiance he had taken, in which he did "absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen." The defendant replied: "I sweared [sic], but I didn't mean it." He then expressed his regret about the failure of his plot and added that he would gladly have sacrificed a thousand lives in the service of Allah. He concluded by predicting the downfall of his new homeland.

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Posted on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 01:37 pm:

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Pulibongaram:

As the whole world now knows, that new U.S. citizen was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, only 19 years old. He had taken the oath just seven months earlier—on Sept. 11, in fact, a grim irony whose lessons we are still struggling to learn. His alleged partner in crime and mentor was his elder brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who himself had applied for citizenship and was well into the process, awaiting approval and the invitation to take the same precious oath.

That approval and invitation would surely have come, because Americans—we Americans—are a generous people. And yet, strangely, today's debate about immigration reform has little to do with keeping out people like Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

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