Trump is encouraging radicalization
Among the first refugees blocked last night from entering the US under the President’s new executive order were an Iraqi who had worked for 10 years for the US government and the spouse of one already in the US who had worked for a US contractor. Both had been extensively screened and presumably had good grounds for fearing persecution, which is a requirement for refugee status. This is the way America treats those who work on its behalf?
The President also let it be known yesterday that he intends to favor Christians once reopening the door to refugees from temporarily blocked Muslim countries. He claims, without any evidence whatsoever, that they were discriminated against previously. Let there be no doubt: Christians may have good reason to fear persecution in some of these countries and would likely be a higher percentage of the refugees than anticipated based on their population. But favoring them across the board is, as my Twitter feed put it yesterday, “rank bigotry.” What better way is there to convince Muslims that America is biased against them?
I have no doubt but that some of these idiocies will in due course be corrected. The Congress and courts, respectively, are not going to go along with them. As in other cases, the President will yield to pressure: people who worked for the US government and Muslims will get into the US, after long and entirely unnecessary delays that put their lives at increased risk.
That is little comfort. The damage will already have been done. Muslims worldwide are watching this administration and learning that it regards them as America’s enemy. Alienation and exclusion are primary factors in radicalization. Some small percentage of those watching will move in that direction. Trump is giving them more reason to do so, not less. This of course includes American Muslims, who have been responsible for the vast majority of terrorist plots inside the US in recent years. None of those plots have involved refugees from the countries Trump has blocked.
The US has been at war with Islamic extremism at least since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Trump has pledged to eradicate it. Instead he is giving people more reason to target Americans, who are at risk both at home and abroad. Let there be no doubt: Trump is encouraging radicalization.
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Thanks for NOT BEING afraid to bring up a difficult conversation.
In the first week of this US administration, it has already done damage to the global image of America that won’t be apparent immediately. It has caused our allies and partners to question how they can work with us. More than anything for more than 60 million refugees and internally displaced persons around the world, it is dimming the hopes of achieving durable solutions in their already trauma-filled lives.
Land of the brave? Still?
Trump’s supporters not only are not objecting to this insanity, but are saying they feel safer already because of it. And since for these supporters feelings outweigh intellectual understanding, appeals to fact or simple common sense are useless. Somehow the belief that all persons are equal before the law has morphed into “my ideas are as good as anyone else’s” no matter how little intelligence or effort has gone into their formulation. And finally, somebody is reassuring them that their resentments and prejudices are being respected, and that those who looked down on them for clinging to their religion and their guns will be punished and humiliated. They’re not going to have to fear anybody again, their champion will smite all those untrustworthy foreigners and uppity women and over-paid professors and restore the righteous to their deserved place in the universe, secure behind high walls and presidential edicts and even more nuclear weapons.
The next few years are apt to be more instructive than pleasant.
Admire both today’s and yesterday’s postings. One important suggestion, however:
“The US has been at war with Islamic extremism at least since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.” I’d argue the U.S. has been at war with Islamic extremism since at least the invasion of NEW YORK in 2001, with Afghanistan a follow up incursion at the time.
A SELF-CORRECTION:
I should have said the invasion of NEW YORK, WASHINGTON DC, AND PENNSYLVANIA.