Kerby Anderson

As 2016 came to a conclusion, I wanted to cover some of the important stories of the year. One of the top stories, of course, was terrorism and the terrorist attacks both in this country and abroad. The problem is that there are so many any more that is hard to keep track of all of them.

In a recent column, Cal Thomas expressed the same frustration. You have the recent terrorist attacks in Turkey and Germany, but also attacks in France and even in the United States. He wonders if we should begin the list of attacks “with the plane hijackings in the ‘60s and ‘70s, or the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, or the USS Cole attack in 2000, or the second World Trade Center attack in 2001, or Ft. Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris or Nice?”

His list is a stark reminder of how many attacks there have been and how we seem to have become jaded to this growing list of terrorist attacks. Are we beginning to grow numb from all of these attacks? Do they no longer elicit anger or fear from us any more?

Cal Thomas also reminds us that during the great wave of immigration in the last century, the U.S. barred immigrants afflicted with tuberculosis, venereal disease, trachoma, and other serious diseases from entering this country. He adds that: “Now a different kind of infection is invading Europe and increasingly the United States. It’s called radical Islamic terrorism.”

Of course, there is a difference. It was relatively easy to diagnose some of the physical diseases we would not allow in this country. It is more difficult to determine if the Muslim refugee wants to live peacefully in America or join a terrorist cell in this country. Most come to this country to assimilate, but some come here to destroy.

The debate in 2017 over immigration procedures and vetting needs to take place as we remember the long and growing list of terrorist attacks in this country and around the world.