The Wrong Questions and Fears about the Syrian refugees are being discussed.

1. Some people compare the Jewish refugees (into the USA) from Europe in the 20th century with Muslim refugees from the 21st century as if they were totally similar issues. To my knowledge, there were no incidents of organized radical Jewish terrorism against the United States, but there have been incidents of organized radical Islamic terrorism against the United States.  This difference is not generally acknowledged in discussions.

2. Note that Islamic terror in Europe has occurred with some frequency and many (most?) of the local perpetrators grew up in Europe, rather than being first generation immigrants.  To some extent, Europe is dealing with a "no good deed goes unpunished" scenario for letting in previous generations of Muslims and not properly assimlating them. Indeed, there are Muslim ghettos in Europe. Thus, even a perfect vetting process for accepting Syrian refugees may not be sufficient to curtail much of the future danger from local radical Islamic terrorists, unless the Muslims are properly assimilated.

3. The refusal to accept Syrian refugees because of their faith will prevent their offspring from being locally grown terrorists. But, it will likely make assimilation of current and future Muslim Americans into the American melting pot problematical.  Furthermore, refusing to accept Syrian refugees because of their faith will convince some overseas Muslims that America is their enemy.  On balance, I think there is more danger to America in not accepting and assimilating Syrian refugees.

4.  Comments from some Chistians about only accepting Christians because of terrorism are very interesting.  If one is going to restrict immigration for fear of terrorism using a religious test, then the USA should give preference to atheists.  Not only are there essentially no instances of faith-based attacks by atheists, atheists are also much less likely to commit crimes of any type than religious people.

5.  The discussion we should be having is about how we can best protect Americans and American liberty from religious extremists.  A necessary part of this protection is good vetting of the Syrian refugees, but that, by itself,  is not sufficient. Another part has to be proper assimilation of the Syrian refugees, so that we can avoid European-style Muslim ghettos  and avoid the "no good deed goes unpunished" scenario.