Kristina Wilfore claims (“County wrong to take a stand against resettlement of Syrian refugees,” March 20 op-ed) that “Refugees … undergo the most rigorous and thorough security screening of anyone admitted into the United States.”  

But such assertions merely repeat typical assurances from our government that they’re on top of affairs, while reality is obviously so different: Today’s U.S. government actually demonstrates near universal incompetence, from TSA airport screeners’ 95 percent failure rate at intercepting test contraband to the slack immigration vetting of San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik to the EPA’s flooding Colorado’s Animas River with orange, toxic mine waste.

So who believes that, with hard-to-investigate refugees, suddenly the feds will perform?

Indeed, when speaking candidly, federal officials acknowledge that they really can’t do security vetting with refugees from Syria. As FBI Director James Comey told the House Homeland Security Committee last October: “We can only query against that which we have collected. And so if someone has not made a ripple in the pond in Syria on a way that would get their identity or their interests reflected in our databases, we can query our databases until the cows come home, but nothing will show up because we have no record of that person.”

Ms. Wilfore also tells us that working abroad with citizens of developing countries has shown her that “we have lots in common, because it turns out we share similar values.” Sometimes that’s plausible, but Wilfore is wrong overall: People from vastly different societies are fundamentally dissimilar. (Else the ceaseless hectoring we endure about the blessings of “diversity” would concern merely trivial differences like skin color and ethnic foods.)

Whether it’s general dysfunction in underdeveloped countries or refugees, the U.S. can’t possibly rescue the world from its myriad woes. The best we can do is discipline ourselves to run our own society competently and, thereby, provide a useful example for others.

—Paul Nachman, Bozeman