The Heritage Insider: What it would take to defeat ISIS, we can both help the refugees and keep America safe, civil asset forfeiture is still a problem, and more
November 21, 2015
ISIS
What it would take to defeat ISIS: “We cannot defeat ISIS or al Qaeda with airstrikes, but we can damage both groups much more significantly than we have so far. We can force them to go to ground, to stop maneuvering vehicles, and to stop massing forces. Doing so would degrade their abilities to conduct offensive operations significantly and would facilitate the formation of opposition groups that could ultimately recapture ground they now hold. […]
“The U.S. military footprint required is likely around 10,000 troops. Iraq does not at this point need American combat brigades leading the fight. It needs more U.S. Special Forces, tactical air controllers to direct precision strikes in direct support of Iraqis fighting on the ground, additional helicopter and artillery support, and a variety of other technical capabilities that only the U.S. can provide.”
—Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, “Dos and Don’ts: How the US Should Respond to the Paris Attacks,” American Enterprise Institute, November 20
We can both help the refugees, and keep the homeland secure: “There are individuals whom the U.S. knows little or nothing about, and whom the U.S. should not be looking to accept without a reasonable vetting system. There are other refugee applicants, however, where the U.S. already has some information and/or can gather more information. In other words, some refugee applicants are more ideal candidates than others because we have better information with which to vet them.
“These individuals should be the focus of our refugee efforts. This effort also speaks to the importance of providing U.S. officials with adequate intelligence tools and resources.
“Additionally and subject to intelligence assessments, the U.S. should be looking to accept individuals likely to be those in greatest need from refugee camps in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, rather than those already in Europe.”
—James Carafano, Steven Bucci, and David Inserra, “What a Responsible Syrian Refugee Policy Looks Like for US After Paris Attacks,” Daily Signal, November 17
Priorities: “The recent U.S. quota has been to accept 70,000 refugees per year. President Obama has proposed expanding the number to include 10,000 refugees from Syria. That seems entirely noble and good. But let’s pause and consider 10,000 refugees is less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the 11 million refugees in Syria, of which 4 million have been able to escape the country. In other words, any American-bound refugees are tokens of concern in the big picture. What is Obama doing — what is America doing — to help the 11 million? Saving refugees is morally right, but it is also morally right to go to war against ISIS and create a safe zone. It is morally right to commit to a long-term multinational occupation of Palmyra, Aleppo, and Raqqa that restores order and peace.
“It’s not cowardice to ask for a pause and better screening of refugees from Syria. It’s not cowardice to suggest prioritizing the most vulnerable refugees: the children, the elderly, the families, and yes, those who are being slaughtered because of their faith and gender, over the young single males most prone to terrorism. If we can only give refuge to less than 1 percent of Syrian refugees, why can’t the President offer a commonsense compromise that refuge be given to the most vulnerable?”
—Tim Kane, “Common Sense on Syrian Refugees,” National Review, November 20
Analogy failure: Comparing Europe’s Jews in the 1930s to the Syrian refugees today. “There was no international conspiracy of German Jews in the 1930s attempting to carry out daily attacks on civilians on several continents. No self-identifying Jews in the early 20th century were randomly massacring European citizens in magazine offices and concert halls, and there was no ‘Jewish State’ establishing sovereignty over tens of thousands of square miles of territory, and publicly slaughtering anyone who opposed its advance. Among Syrian Muslims, there is. The vast majority of Syrian Muslims are not party to these strains of radicalism and violence, but it would be dangerous to suggest that they do not exist, or that our refugee-resettlement program need not take account of them. […]
“Of the 18,000 refugee-resettlement referrals that the United States has received from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘the vast majority,’ according to the State Department, are from Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, and Egypt (and Iraq, parts of which remain sanctuaries from the Islamic State). It is one thing to rescue Jews from imminent danger; it is another to offer greater safety to those who already have it.”
—Ian Tuttle, “There Are Serious, Unbigoted Reasons to Be Wary of a Flood of Syrian Refugees,” National Review, November 18
Did 13 percent of Europe’s Jews sympathize with Hitler? Thirteen percent of Syrian refugees sympathize with ISIS, according to a 2014 survey of Arab opinion (see data in fourth row). The survey asked: “In general, do you have a positive or negative view of ISIL?”
—“The Military Campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant: Arab Public Opinion,” Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, November 11, 2014
TAXES
The ten best state business tax climates: (1) Wyoming, (2) South Dakota, (3) Alaska, (4) Florida, (5) Nevada, (6) Montana, (7) New Hampshire, (8) Indiana, (9) Utah, and (10) Texas.
The ten worst state business tax climates: (41) Maryland, (42) Ohio, (43) Wisconsin, (44) Connecticut, (45) Rhode Island, (46) Vermont, (47) Minnesota, (48) California, (49) New York, and (50) New Jersey.
And, by virtue of letting bad policy lapse, Illinois has the most improved state business tax climate for 2016: “Illinois improved eight ranks overall, from 31st to 23rd, due to the sunset of corporate and individual income tax increases first imposed in 2011 as temporary levies to address the state’s backlog of unpaid bills. These temporary tax increases gave Illinois one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the country (the state’s corporate income tax is two separate taxes on income, which yielded a combined rate of 9.5 percent) and were permitted to expire on schedule in 2015. This rate reduction translated into an improvement of eight places on the Index overall and ten places on the corporate tax component. The combined corporate income tax rate now stands at 7.75 percent, and the individual income tax declined from 5 percent to 3.75 percent.”
—Jared Walczak, Scott Drenkard, and Joseph Henchman, “2016 State Business Tax Climate Index,” Tax Foundation, November 17
CRIME AND JUSTICE
Charles Clarke lost his life savings in 2014 because the police thought he was a drug dealer. He was never convicted but the police kept his money anyway thanks to a practice known as civil asset forfeiture: Unless you can prove your property is innocent of a crime, the police get to keep it.
In spite of news stories about Clarke’s and others cases, reform of civil asset forfeiture has a long way to go. “Equitable sharing allows state and local law enforcement to team with the federal government to forfeit property under federal law instead of state law. Participating agencies receive up to 80 percent of proceeds, creating a strong incentive to use equitable sharing to circumvent more restrictive state laws. The Department of Justice announced new policies in January 2015 intended to curb one type of equitable sharing—federal ‘adoptions’ of locally seized assets. But the changes and subsequent clarifications largely left intact another vehicle for equitable sharing—joint task forces and investigations involving federal law enforcement.
“Between 2000 and 2013, annual DOJ equitable sharing payments to state and local law enforcement more than tripled, growing from $198 million to $643 million. In all, the DOJ paid state and local agencies $4.7 billion in forfeiture proceeds from 2000 to 2013.
“Only 18 percent of those proceeds resulted from federal adoptions of locally seized assets. The lion’s share—82 percent—resulted from joint task forces and investigations, procedures largely unaffected by new DOJ rules.”
Meanwhile, most states still have bad forfeiture laws on the books: “Thirty-one states and the federal government set ‘preponderance of the evidence’ as the standard of proof for all civil forfeitures, making it the most common standard nationally. A preponderance of the evidence standard means that property is more likely than not connected to a crime. It is often thought of as a 51 percent standard, meaning the evidence must be a bit more than 50–50—or slightly better than a coin flip—in favor of the government, a much lower hurdle than beyond a reasonable doubt. Remarkably, Massachusetts and North Dakota set a lower standard still, requiring only probable cause for civil forfeiture.”
—Dick M. Carpenter, Lisa Kneper, Angela Erickson, Jennifer McDonald, “Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture, 2d Edition,” Institute for Justice, November 10
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