Letter: Trump travel ban will fuel radicalism
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting on the federal budget in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017. Credit: AP
The opinion piece by Qanta A. Ahmed, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, reeks of partisanship [“Trump’s travel limits make sense,” Opinion, Feb. 2]. Ahmed describes President Donald Trump’s ban on immigrants from seven countries as “pragmatic and presidential” and not “anti-Muslim.”
She attributes the destabilization of Iraq and the Middle East to President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of forces, rather than acknowledging that the destabilization is a direct result of President George W. Bush’s ill-conceived war that was sold to the American public under false pretenses.
The writer’s praise of the executive order as pragmatic is not supported by history or logic. She claims that the incubation of radical Islam thrives in the chaos of the seven listed countries. Is it absent in Saudi Arabia? The perpetrators of the 9/11 attack originated from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. None of them are among the seven targeted countries.
Rather than ensure the safety of Americans, a ban on immigrants will be the oxygen necessary for embers of radicalism to burst into the flames of terrorism that we are all attempting to avoid.
Vivian Viloria-Fisher Setauket
Editor’s note: The writer is a former Democratic legislator for Suffolk County.
