Trump's Revised Travel Ban Is Denounced by 134 Foreign Policy Experts

[highplainsdem]

Source: NYT

WASHINGTON — More than 130 members of America’s foreign policy establishment denounced President Trump’s revised travel ban on Friday as just as damaging to the United States’ interests and reputation as his original order that halted refugees and froze travelers from predominantly Muslim countries.

In a letter to Mr. Trump, the former government officials and experts said even the scaled-back order will “weaken U.S. security and undermine U.S. global leadership.” And they said it continues to signal to Muslim allies that — as the Islamic State and other extremist propaganda profess — the United States is an enemy of Islam.

Several of the 134 signatories served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, including R. Nicholas Burns, who was on the National Security Council staff and a senior diplomat during President Bill Clinton’s administration before becoming under secretary of state for President George W. Bush; Richard A. Clarke, the National Security Council counterterrorism coordinator for Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton; and John E. McLaughlin, the deputy C.I.A. director for Mr. Clinton and acting C.I.A. director for Mr. Bush.

But the vast majority of those who signed the letter — including Madeleine Albright and John Kerry, the former secretaries of state; Michèle A. Flournoy, the former under secretary of defense; and Susan E. Rice, the former national security adviser — rose to senior security jobs in government under Democratic presidents.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/us/politics/trump-travel-ban-denounced-foreign-policy-experts.html

[PatSeg]

1. It would appear

that Trump doesn't even need a travel ban. His agents already are detaining, interrogating, and sending people back home on a regular basis regardless of their country of origin. Evidently Trump doesn't need laws, he just does what he wants. The travel ban is a distraction for what is already happening without it.

[LuckyLib]

2. We can fantasize that his collection of idiots might someday listen

to people in the know, but it's not likely. What do experienced professionals know, anyway?

[mpcamb]

3. Of course it doesn't make sense. It wasn't meant to. It's a distraction, created so energy gets

poured down an endless rathole and some hideous legislation takes place or some law is weaken by decree so a polluter can urinate upstream and pass off the cost of cleanup to the consumer