Sarah Beckstrom, one of the West Virginia National Guard members shot by Rahmanullah Lakanwal, has died.
Beckstrom was twenty. I had no connection to this young woman. But as someone who has lived nearly three times that long, I have a sense of all that was taken from her.
And for what? Blind faith in immigration policies that have proven disastrous for everyone involved.
Beckstrom’s death has led to a predictable debate about the wisdom of bringing so many Afghan refugees into the USA following the American bug-out from Afghanistan. (Which happened, incidentally, less than one year before Ukraine became “essential to our national interest”.)
Sarah Beckstrom’s murderer was one of the 77,000 Afghan refugees brought to the USA in the wake of the Taliban takeover.
I wrote on X:
“This goes both ways. I certainly wouldn’t recommend relocating 77,000 Americans to Afghanistan. If you did, there would be similar problems.
Islam is one of the world’s great civilizations. But it has never been compatible with Western civilization (or vice versa). The best way to keep peace between Islam and the West is to keep them apart.
As for the Afghan refugees post-Taliban, they should have been resettled in another Muslim-majority country. There were more than 50 to choose from. Why bring so many people to an alien civilization that so radically clashes with their own cultural values? It makes no sense.”
I am not a performative Quran burner. (That’s just asinine, not to mention very unoriginal, in 2025.) Nor am I in favor of turning a blind eye to the plight of refugees.
But nor do I agree that it makes sense for everyone to come here, as if the USA (or some other Western country) was the only option.
There are in fact, many other options, many of which would better serve refugees from non-Western countries like Afghanistan.
-ET