A Trump-made story of banning "Terrorism!"

"Banning refugees from countries America destroyed is wrong" is complemented by some ground realities. It tells the fabricated story by US President Donald Trump on the issue of immigration.

US President Donald Trump has been busy during his first days in office. The speed of his executive orders, and the confidence with which he has signed plans to build a wall, and to replace ObamaCare with… something else has been shocking, considering how shellshocked he looked when he actually won. Trump also followed through on his campaign promises – or threats, if you prefer – to ban refugees from nations "of particular concern," if his apparent draft executive order is to be believed. Lucy Steigerwald, a contributing editor for Antiwar, and a writer for the Washington Post, the American Conservative, and other outlets, has shed light on facts, concluding that it is the US rulers who are real manifestation of terrorism and warmongering, not those who labeled by Trump and his cohorts. "Banning refugees from countries America destroyed is wrong" is complemented by some ground realities as well.                      

Which nations are included in that list? Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Let’s see, the US played both sides in Syria, helped it destabilize, bombed it; they completely took over Iraq, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, not to mention helped Iraq use chemical weapons on its soldiers and shot down one of its passenger planes in the 1980s. The US invaded Libya and turned it into a divided and devastated country; and it sent drones to Somalia and Sudan, while bombing a pharmaceutical plant in the latter for good measure! Yemen it has also sent drones to, and its buddy Saudi Arabia is currently bombing and starving their population.

There is not a nation on that list that the US doesn’t owe something to. But because people are terrified of terrorism, now, now is the time to say sorry, but we’re closed, huddled masses. We’re all filled up, and we’re starting that isolationist thing now – not by removing all troops from abroad, or stopping drone strikes, but by saying we can’t trust the people from the countries we broke.
According to the Washington Post, "If authorized, the executive action would temporarily block visas from seven countries for 90 days and suspend the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days." This isn’t a sweeping ban on refugees forever, but it’s a nasty, cowardly policy. If America breaks a country, many hawks believe it has to stay endlessly in order to allegedly "fix it" somehow, with more troops, and more bombing campaigns – then building the nation back up. The correct response to making refugees, however, is to let them immigrate to your country as recourse. After a security check, fine, but not one that will leave them in the lurch while America trembles forever in an exaggerated fear of terrorism. 

Terrorist attacks are not outside the realm of possibility, though they remain a rare risk compared to heart disease, cancer, and slipping in your bathtub. However, the most recent attacks in San Bernardino, CA and the Pulse nightclub in Florida were not performed by immigrants. Both of these alleged killers were born in America. A society with freedom contains the capacity for bloodshed by individual actors. Law is a clunky tool that rarely stops those determined to do violence, but often hinders peaceful people from working, moving, or living their lives in America.

Most refugees who are considered such a problem today are risking so much because they’re fleeing from war zones that the US helped create. Individual residents of the US may not owe something to those people; though if they backed George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, and other warhawks, perhaps they do. However, before the day comes that the people take Cheney’s wealth and hand it over to a nice Iraqi family, the US has no business banning immigration from countries it ruined.

Let's remember Hitler and the Nazi crimes against humanity; a matter that has brought considerable attention in the world. However, even if we think we know the story, most of us were not presented with the chapters where the US failed a desperate people who were in mortal peril. People were aware of what was being done by the Nazis. People knew, and they spent years thinking that someone should really do something about it. Sure, not everything is the Holocaust. Syria is a concerted, foreign-backed effort to kill civilians and destroy the country's infrastructure. And yet, in November 2015, when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie suggested that even Kindergarten-aged orphans from Syria were not safe to welcome into the land that helpfully placed the Statue of Liberty in the port that million and millions of immigrant passed through!                  
And though you can argue that the Treaty of Versailles eventually lead to Hitler, and therefore the US at least plays a part in the blame, more importantly, it would have been easy to simply open the doors, and to save people. The US didn’t. "Humanitarian", yes "Humanitarian" hawks always think that this time, this time we have to bomb and save the oppressed group!
There’s never going to be a good time to pull all US troops out of the world. It’s got to be done sometime, however. It is, however, laughably cruel to declare that now, if now is the time for Trumpian "isolationism," we, the Americans are really withdrawing from the world, and that begins with letting the refugees the US created survive on their own. From the viewpoint of the hawks in America, it’s not our problem. We can bomb their cities, but we can’t help them, that’s too dangerous!            

Meantime, Iranian officials condemned a decision by US President Donald Trump to ban the Iranian citizens from traveling to the United States, calling it against the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and the P5+1. Based on the nuclear deal, no hostile behavior should have been shown by any parties to the agreement towards Iran but "the Americans' move was hostile and ignored the nuclear deal". The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement to condemn Donald Trump Administration's travel ban against citizens of seven Muslim nations, including Iran, and vowed to reciprocate the decision that it described as a great insult to the Iranians.

The statement read: "The United States administration's decision to impose a ban against Muslims' travel to the US – though for a temporary three-month period – is a flagrant insult to the Muslim world, specially the great Iranian nation; and despite claims about confronting terrorism and protecting security of the American people, it will be recorded in the history as a great gift to extremists and their sponsors".
The Iranian foreign ministry further underlined the need for global dialogue and cooperation against radicalism and violence, and noted that the UN General Assembly's unanimous endorsement and ratification of Iran's 'World Against Violence and Extremism' (WAVE) proposal few years ago is yet another indication that Washington's decision for imposing the ban is an "undigested move". This move would deepen the gaps among nations and provide a chance for terrorists and extremists to recruit sidelined youth, and would, hence, promote violence and extremism.       
In addition, this decision has forgotten to pay heed to "the US security and intelligence agencies' reports and the previous statements of current US officials that underlined the role of the US administration and its regional allies in the creation and spread of such extremist groups as ISIL". The US administration's decision "has targeted the Iranian people and is an obvious insult to each and every member of the Iranian nation, which displays the United States' old allegations about friendship with people despite differences with the Iranian government have all been baseless. The biased move indicates that the US government and its domestic and foreign influential circles feel collective grudge against all Iranians worldwide. Moreover, the Iranian nation has long been standing against terrorism and extremists and has also been a victim of organized terrorism, and there has never been any Iranian involved in the terrorist operations conducted by different extremist and terrorist groups.
Yet, the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to differentiate between the American people and the White House hostile moves, but it also vowed to "reciprocate" the ban as long as the US administration's restriction against Iranian citizens remains in place.                

The international crooks are at it again. Secretary of Donald Trump's the Defense Department, retired Marine General James Mattis claimed unfoundedly that Iran is the “biggest destabilizing force in the Middle East.” Earlier, during his Senate confirmation hearing, Mattis said the United States needs to forge a strategy to “checkmate Iran’s goal for regional hegemony,” adding that "Iran is the biggest destabilizing force in the Middle East and its policies are contrary to our interests.”
Once again, Mathis - just like the outgoing international crooks at the White House - failed to offer any evidence to support his baseless allegations. He was unable to substantiate as to why Iran’s regional policies are destabilizing. Instead, he mostly focused on Iran's lawful support for the Regional Resistance Front as well as involvement in the war against ISIL and Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria, which he rightly said are contrary to US interests.

Lest he forgets, the Military Industrial Complex is still being consistently propped up by the concept of American exceptionalism, shadow wars, massive surveillance and untold numbers of assassinations. These bullets and beliefs make the United States the biggest war criminal, the biggest international crook, and the biggest threat to global peace and security.
Undoubtedly, much of the violence in the region can be linked back to US imperial adventures as well. The rise of ISIL in Iraq has been traced to the US war in the country. At every turn, the terrorist group’s rise has been shaped by the United States’ involvement in Iraq and its support for the terrorists.                         
Worse still, roughly 450,000 people have been killed as a result of the violence and infrastructure damage of the US-led war on Syria. The US is number one in its nuclear weapons stockpile. The US leads the world in military spending, with more than $7.6 trillion spent on the military and homeland security since 9/11. Still, the warmongers have the face to throw everything at Iran for what they themselves have done to the world!

Nor is that all. As previously, Washington’s torture, war crimes, and Military-Industrial Complex will continue to be consistently propped up by the new Trump administration. The latest anti-Iran allegations by Mattis had one purpose only: to convince the world that Iran and its regional policies pose a dire threat. These hollow words may be found interesting for the US Congress, but not for the rest of the world, the freedom-seekers in particular.

The international civil society thinks Iran has a right to defend its allies in Iraq and Syria against foreign-backed terrorist groups. More importantly, the people around the world believe it is the US which poses the greatest threat to global peace and security. These beliefs are an important window into how the rest of the world views US foreign policy - a view in stark contrast to how the so-called politicians like Trump and Mattis think of themselves.

As is, the failed war on Syria marked the beginning of the end for US superpower status. Since 2001, the US government has meddled, intervened, and invaded several Muslim countries. US actions have created an arc of violence and chaos stretching from Afghanistan to Egypt and beyond. No wonder when Mattis and his congressional allies crow that Iran is the biggest destabilizing force in the Middle East, the rest of the world snickers. The world will continue to see the US as a dire threat as long as it continues its aggressive interventionism in the world, the Muslim world in particular.

EA