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Danger Games: An Analysis of Trump’s “Radical Islam” Foreign Policy Speech

Danger Games: An Analysis of Trump’s “Radical Islam” Foreign Policy Speech

Last updated on: August 16, 2016 at 6:59 pm by Guest Contributor

Danger Games: An Analysis of Trump’s “Radical Islam” Foreign Policy Speech 2016-08-16T18:59:04-04:00 Guest Contributor

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Immigration vs. Security

Trump is using most Americans complete lack of knowledge of our immigration system to hoodwink them. Right now, in order to enter the United States, you have to be fingerprinted, have an extensive background check, an interview and medical check and provide several forms of identification before you can even get into the country.

Trump talks about hundreds of thousands of foreigners from the Middle East entering America every year. This statement gave me pause. If hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East are coming to America every year, and there are not murderous attacks on every street corner – then this proves pretty well that our immigration services and security screenings are working very well.

He talked about having new test of immigrants’ views on things dear to American values – but how do you implement a test like that? And how to do you prevent immigrants from simply learning to lie? And, if you are going to ask them about sharia law, which law are you asking about? Shia? Sunni? There are 1.7 billion Muslims in the world and many of them have their own forms of religious law they follow.

So how do you test against this? How do you test against anti-Semitism? Is it a negative statement about Jews? What about if they say positive things about Jews but say nasty things about Judaism? What if they express love and compassion for Jews and Judaism but have only negative things to say about Israel? Where is the line? How do you decide on a test with such blurry edges?

On Guantanamo, the Internet and Special Commissions

On his point about shutting down internet access for ISIS, I am really not sure again how he would implement this. The main trunk and backbone systems and switches that run the internet are owned by private companies. Many of them are overseas and not under the control of the U.S. government. How would you limit access by specific organizations and individuals in that organization from posting or getting on the internet?

Continuing incarceration of terrorists at Guantanamo and continuing to convict people in military tribunals just ensures a steady stream of recruits to the same terror organizations that Trump claims he wants to eradicate.

One of the more chilling comments he made was to make a broad comment about how those who are engaged in material support of terrorism will be dealt with much more vigorously and harshly – “viciously,” to be specific. But he did not bother to define what in a Trump administration would constitute material support. Many Muslim civil liberty organizations could become unfairly vulnerable here.

When politicians made big statements, and it involves the punishment of people it should send chills up the spines of many Americans.

An international conference on terrorism sounds on the surface like a great idea, but there are some major problems: Trump purports to invite Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Russia and maybe NATO. So, in the fight on global terrorism these are the only country on the planet that will be our allies? And, his inclusion of NATO was tepid at best.

What about Turkey, which has dealt with terrorism far worse than many nations and is inside NATO? What about Algeria, which fought terrorism and extremism for more than a decade? What about Indonesia, which successfully has implemented anti-radicalization programs and curbed terrorism?

There is little proof that the countries he mentioned have some elixir of anti-terror that will win the day. And, doing intelligence sharing with Russia is dangerous at the extreme.

Lastly, his decision to set up a commission on radical Islam after he takes office is a farce right out of the gate. What “reformist” Muslim (whatever that means) would join such an organization? I am sure it will be filled with ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Islamophobes like Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer or even worse.

At the end of his speech Trump talked a lot about how during the Cold War bipartisanship important and how working across the aisles was allowed America to remain strong in the face of many enemies.

This was the one of the only true statements made in the speech.

But Trump is being disingenuous by calling for bipartisanship and friendship among the dueling parties in America in fighting the terrorism while churlishly insulting members of the other party on every other major issue. It is like setting your neighbor’s house on fire and then telling him you will work with him on the bucket brigade to put it out.

Calls for bipartisanship are nice, but it is clear that nobody is listening any longer, and that is very scary.

Just as the Republican convention showed that there is a lot of traction in the politics of fear and hatred, this speech is an amalgamation of that hatred into a set of shortsighted dangerous policies that will leave America weaker and more vulnerable to future enemies.

Alan Howard is an engineering manager with an international Fortune 500 company. He has been engaged in community organizing and interfaith dialogue in numerous communities for over 18 years. He lives with his family in Atlanta GA.

Republican presidential candidate

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