Speaking on NPR’s Morning Edition, career foreign service officer and former acting undersecretary for arms control Tom Countryman (above) explained why President Trump’s temporary travel ban is dangerously wrong-headed.
According to the ex-career civil servant, the ban signals the world that the U.S. is at war with Islam (i.e. all Muslims). Radical Islamic terrorists (or whatever Mr. Countryman called them) will capitalize on America’s religious intolerance to recruit more proto-terrorists. All of which makes America less safe.
The idea that President Trump’s Executive Order would “radicalize” susceptible Muslims is patently ridiculous. It assumes that potential recruits saw America as a bright shining beacon of freedom and tolerance — until Trump’s temporary immigration ban turned them to the “dark side.”
Tens of millions of Muslims already consider America The Great Satan. Progressives portraying the Executive Order as a terrorist recruitment tool fail to appreciate that our enemies are hardly struggling to find reasons to hate the U.S.A. and the Jewish and Christian inhabitants therein. The latest debauched Hollywood film provides plenty of grist for their death cult mill.
Bottom line: radical Islam seeks our destruction, regardless of what we say or do.
This delusion — that America’s “failure” to live up to its professed virtues encourages terrorism — is the same sort of affliction found amongst Americans promoting gun control. Gun control advocates consider violent criminals are mistreated, misguided, disadvantaged individuals, created by society. Armed criminals can be “convinced” to abandon their violent ways through preventive social programs or the elimination of “easy access” to firearms.
We lock our doors to dangerous criminals. America’s new immigration policy locks our country’s doors to potential terrorists. We check out unknown visitors before opening our doors, The Trump administration is seeking to create more effective ways to screen people who want to live amongst us. What’s wrong with that?
Most Americans support Trump’s temporary immigration ban — for the same reason most Americans oppose gun control. Practical problems require practical solutions.