Terrorism and Immigration

John K. Cooley writes at the Christian Science Monitor:

European-born Muslims and Muslim converts and Middle Eastern and North African Arabs often fight for Muslim causes in other lands: Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, or – since the US invasion of 2003 – Iraq. Thus far, the Islamist Hamas movement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shown little interest in the internationalist ideology of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, which preaches establishment of a global Islamist state. Since terrorist attacks by Palestinians in Europe a generation ago, very few, if any, Palestinians, Afghans, or Iraqis have turned up in violent groups operating in Western Europe. North Africans involved in terrorism in Spain and Italy and those of Pakistani origin or ancestry in Britain are often young people belonging to the second generation of immigrants. [How terrorism finds root in the West Alienation and radical European politics are factors. By John K. Cooley, May 23, 2007]

Cooley fails to ask the important question: Even if first generation immigrants are the focus of terrorism, could the US and EU select immigrants that are likely to be free of terrorist inclinations--or simply learn to live without much immigration?

The US gets 10,000,000 applications for immigration each year-and accepts around a million each year. I see no evidence the US is accepting those applicants most likely to contribute to the society here--and least likely to present a problem. Frankly, I don't see any evidence anyone in power is making any serious attempts in that area--and they won't until the public gives them every reason to be scared not to.