RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Liberal Parents, Radical Children,” was the title of a 1975 book by Midge Decter, which tried to make sense of how a generation of munificent parents raised that self-obsessed, politically spastic generation known as the Baby Boomers. The book was a case study in the tragedy of good intentions.

“We proclaimed you sound when you were foolish in order to avoid taking part in the long, slow, slogging effort that is the only route to genuine maturity of mind and feeling,” Miss Decter told the Boomers. “While you were the most indulged generation, you were also in many ways the most abandoned to your own meager devices.”

Meager devices came to mind last week while reading the “Statement of Solidarity” from Nancy Cantor, chancellor of the Newark, N.J., campus of Rutgers University. Solidarity with whom, or what? Well, Paris, but that was just for starters. Ms. Cantor also made a point of mentioning lives lost to terrorist attacks this year in Beirut and Kenya, and children “lost at sea seeking freedom,” and “lives lost that so mattered in Ferguson and Baltimore and on,” and “students facing racial harassment on campuses from Missouri to Ithaca and on.”

As we learn more about the Islamic State-backed terror attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, and about other threats like the one that caused Brussels to go on highest alert over the weekend, it has become increasingly clear: America and its allies have failed to gather and process the intelligence necessary to protect their citizens.

It is unsurprising that Americans are worried about the threat at home. Islamic State, or ISIS, has long sought to conduct attacks in the U.S. by recruiting Americans to its cause through various social media outlets, from Twitter to YouTube. In the past week alone, ISIS has claimed that it has operatives in the U.S. ready to take action, including specifically against New York City and Washington, D.C.

Some of this is undoubtedly classic terrorist rhetoric, but the Paris attacks show that ISIS has both the capacity and the desire to inflict mass casualties on Western countries. Al Qaeda is hardly out of the picture; its allies in Mali claimed responsibility for the bloody rampage Friday in Bamako at a Radisson hotel favored by Western visitors, leaving 27 dead.

It is entirely understandable that there is great consternation about the obvious national security issues created by admitting aliens who claim to be refugees from Syria into the United States. The vetting process of such aliens is fatally flawed because our officials do not have access to databases or other sources of reliable information to ascertain the true identities and backgrounds of these foreign nationals.

Consequently, a growing list of governors and other elected officials, from both parties, are calling for suspending the administration’s plans to re-settle Syrian refugees in the United States, until and unless the fatal flaws within the vetting process are remedied.

On November 19, 2015 the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, chaired by Congressman Trey Gowdy, conducted a hearing on the topic, “The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Its Impact on the Security of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.”

The toll of Islamist carnage keeps growing: 130 killed and 352 injured in Paris; 229 mostly Russian airline passengers killed in the skies over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula; 19 dead in Bamako, Mali, at the Radisson Blu, a hotel favored by Westerners. Germany has confirmed that plots to kill hundreds more were disrupted in the nick of time. France has extended its state of emergency for three months. Over the weekend, Brussels was virtually locked down as police hunted for suspects linked to the Paris attacks, who may be preparing another operation in Belgium, home of the European Union. Such assaults throughout the Middle East, Africa, and now Europe prompt an all-too-familiar question: Can militant Islamist terrorists strike the United States again?

Before French president François Hollande had even addressed his traumatized nation, President Obama was downplaying the terror threat. At a conference in Asia, he characterized what he called the “sickening” assault in Paris as a “setback.” His strategy for containing ISIS was working, he insisted. Echoing the theme, FBI director James B. Comey said that he knew of no “credible threat of a Paris type attack here.” In New York, NYPD commissioner William Bratton stressed that there was no reason to be afraid, dismissing a new ISIS video warning that New York was its next target as old footage and, hence, old news. Still, Bratton urged New Yorkers to be “vigilant” and embrace his department’s counterterrorism credo, “If you see something, say something.”