As IF Times

Source: Trump’s Immigration Order Tests Limits of Law and Executive Power – The New York Times

Donald Trump has officially been in office just over one week.  In that time, he has produced a virtual avalanche of directives that have his detractors feel as if they were drinking from a firehose in attempting to react to them.  Who could have known that he would: approve the building of a wall at the Mexico border, move to redact and repeal Obamacare, move to reduce burdens of over regulation, restrain the EPA, approve the Keystone pipeline and now restrict the movement of individuals from areas of the world where terrorism is endemic?

Actually, if anyone was paying attention, everyone should have known!  For well over a year, his entire campaign platform had all these planks firmly front and center without apology or reservation.  Now that he’s acting with the blessing of the recent vote, detractors are ‘shocked’.  Imagine that; a political executive doing what he promised.  It’s not as if his campaign rhetoric included promises to lower the oceans and heal the earth. You may not like the guy, but a liar and a slacker, he ain’t.

The most current uproar surrounds the “sudden” restrictions imposed on persons travelling from areas of the world known to be terrorist hot spots.  Again, no one was paying attention to his campaign rhetoric if they think this was ‘sudden’.  Predictably, a collective howl has arisen from all corners of the usual leftist world, invoking racism, Nazism, etc etc.  On the very next day of the travel restrictions, headlines were already screaming about how Trump has impeded the progress of science.

We are not in the lawyer racket, (and amen to that), but claims of Trump’s actions being illegal and unconstitutional are as valid as Michael Moore beauty products.  The primary mandate of the president of the nation is to keep the nation safe.

No doubt, many innocents will be caught up by this policy, but a logical question arises.  Why do refugees and immigrants need to come to the US, or for that matter, any country.  Nations have the right to restrict people from entering their borders, or else, why have borders?  But a more logical question may be framed this way: If a person was being persecuted for religious or personal safety reasons, why would they board a plane and make the onerous trip all the way around the world when there are presumably options in the immediate vicinity? Why not Germany or Sweden or even Canada, all known for their expansive immigration policies.  Or how about any of the nation states within a 4 hour drive, such as Saudi Arabia? Oddly, most Muslim dominant nations have been quiet so far on this.

One of the more kooky critiques of the new policy is that this will serve to further inflame anti-American sentiment among certain nations and that this will be another recruitment incentive for radicals to join ISIS.  Really?  There’s yet another notch of hatred above what we’ve seen?  How far does this scale go?

To be clear, the new policy is not a permanent ban.  It is a temporary measure to allow more scrutiny of people from dangerous areas of the world.  If this is irrational, then so are security lines at airports, so are travel restrictions upon persons travelling from disease infected locales; recall the SARS outbreak of many years ago.  But as we’ve seen, almost half of the population are not known for any ability to think rationally.

link BBC News – Newsnight – Yemen al-Qaeda link to Guantanamo Bay prison

Not sure of the point of this story. We are informed that some ex-residents of Guantanamo prison were released a couple of years ago. They were sent to Saudi Arabia for rehab, only to fall off the wagon. They slipped into Yemen and got back with the boys in the hood, er the dunes.

In fact, two of these guys, Mohammed al-Awfi and Said al-Shihri were ambitious enough to found their own Al Qaeda chapter, even getting their own acronym, AQAP. Apparently, they were none too impressed with the rehab stint in Saudi Arabia, so they set about returning to their unsociable ways even making a recruiting video. This impressed numerous conscripts to their cause including the now famous undie bomber this past Christmas.

Oddly, al-Awfi returned to Saudi Arabia and gave it all up because according to him,

“…it was because he had received a phone call from his wife telling him to return to look after her and the children…”

!!!! That’s it???!! The wife says, “you get your sorry butt back here and look after us or I’ll send you to 20 virgins myself” and he returns??

As the writer suspects, there’s probably more to this story than is being revealed by al-Awfi, though of course, we’ve never met his wife. We’re not sure if the idea is to convince us that rehab actually works, or that prisoners should not be released in the first place.

The descriptions of ‘enhanced interrogation’ are not for the squeamish as anyone who has watched the recent Casino Royale James Bond movie will attest, for it sounds like the techniques were lifted straight from the movie. It should be pointed out that this allegedly occurred in Afghanistan, not Gitmo. It should also be pointed out that to expect to be treated otherwise is pretty naive considering they were in the blowing up innocent people business. I would say he’s pretty fortunate to be now living in relative luxury and comfort given the escapades he’s been involved with.

Maybe he’s being sincere. If so, he should maybe star in a video telling others in the fuse business that it’s all wrong, that no religion should be offing disbelievers, even if they are infidels. Of course, the video would be more convincing without his wife hovering nearby with a rolling pin in hand.

As for fighting the war on terror, how about researching the idea of marrying off all the single guys in that part of the world, it seems pretty effective.