Bono — the international statesman, global thought-leader and occasional musician — has told Congress exactly what it needs to do solve the global refugee crisis and Islamic extremism.

Firstly, the West needs to welcome in more refugees from North Africa and the Middle East – lots more – and learn to see them not as a “burden” but as a “benefit.”

Secondly, instead of confronting Islamist terror with the unhelpful language of hate and military hardware, it needs to find a kinder, gentler, funnier way of winning them over – using comedians like Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, and Sacha Baron Cohen.

Bono was delivering his wisdom to the Senate appropriations subcommittee on Capitol Hill.

He said:

“It’s like, you speak violence, you speak their language. But you laugh at them when they are goose-stepping down the street and it takes away their power. So I am suggesting that the Senate send in Amy Schumer and Chris Rock and Sacha Baron Cohen, thank you.”

Amy Schumer and Sacha Baron Cohen are both Jewish – a faith to which ISIS (and Al Qaeda and Boko Haram et al) have not hitherto shown themselves to be particularly sympathetic. On the contrary last year ISIS announced that they were planning a Second Holocaust in which all the world’s Jews would be extinguished. Perhaps Bono is under the impression that Amy Schumer’s wit would grant her an exemption – though up and until now there has been little evidence that ISIS has much of a sense of humour.

Nor do Islamic terror groups respond terribly well to homosexuals like Bruno, the camp Austrian played by Baron Cohen; or even to people who look like they might be homosexuals, such as Borat, when he is wearing his mankini. Their preferred method of dealing with them – in accordance with their scriptures – is to throw them off high buildings or bury them beneath a wall.

So while Bono may think this is a joking matter – or at least one about which we can all be good-natured and touchy-feely – it bears so little accordance with the reality of life on the ground in places controlled by Islamic State (and similar groups) that you wonder whether he ever bothers to read a newspaper or even look out of his window when he goes on his global fact finding tours.

Bono also took the opportunity to give Congress his tuppenny ha’penny’s worth on European politics.

He noted that countries like Poland and Hungary were moving towards the right – what he called “hyper nationalism”

And that Britain was considering leaving the EU.

“This is unthinkable stuff. And you should be very nervous in America about it,” he said, arguing that Europe and the Middle East needed a “new Marshall Plan”.

Before delivering his bizarre testimony, Bono posed for photos with three members of Code Pink – “a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism” – who wore pink tiaras and held cardboard torches and signs reading “Refugees Welcome.”

Bono – approximate net worth $700 million – owns at least three houses: one in New York, one in the exclusive retreat of Killiney, Ireland, and a villa in the South of France. In his speech to Congress he made no mention of whether or not he would be throwing open these properties to any of the rape gangs desperate and vulnerable migrants currently enriching Europe (and, increasingly, the US). But if he doesn’t want to give a couple of hundred of them a home, it’s certainly not for want of space.

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