News & Comment
Even if Trump expels all the Muslims and Mexicans from America,
no wall will be high enough to protect Americans from themselves

News

In response to Trump’s constant claims about a huge threat to the US from Muslim terrorists, the New York Times posted a story on the 11th of February 2017, with the headline: “Husbands Are Deadlier Than Terrorists”. The New York Times quoted research from the Cato Institute showing that “between 1975 and 2015, terrorists born in the seven nations in Trump’s travel ban killed zero people in America”! However, the New York Times found that some Muslims did commit terrorist attacks in which 123 people were murdered in the US since 9/11 compared to 230,000 other murders! The New York Times ridiculed Trump’s false logic about the danger of terrorism, but Trump has said even more about killing.

Comment

The new US administration plays on the fears of its citizens to an unprecedented extent, and president Trump and his team have been busy over the first 3 weeks in office inventing false statistics in a desperate attempt to convince people that the ban on Muslim migration to the US is justified. One of his senior advisors, Kellyanne Conway was ridiculed in the media for claiming that the ban on Muslim immigration would prevent massacres such as “the Bowling Green Massacre” from happening again, when in fact the supposed massacre never even happened!

While Muslims are targeted as the greatest threat, Trump has also been busy warning about the rising crime and murder in the US, but even here he managed to expose himself to more ridicule. He told a gathering of sheriffs on the 7th of February: "The murder rate in our country is the highest it's been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? Forty-seven years. I used to use that — I'd say that in a speech and everybody was surprised because the press doesn't tell it like it is." While it is true that the murder rate is huge and that the murder rate increased in the last year for which there are statistics, it is actually less than it was at many points during the last 47 years. Again, the media corrected Trump’s false figures.

Earlier, Bill O’Reilly asked Trump why he respected Russian president Putin when Putin is a killer, to which Trump’s reply was: “You got a lot of killers. What, you think our country’s so innocent?” Admitting the guilt of US foreign policy is the most honest thing he has said during his presidency so far. All that remains is to ask Trump, if he is so fearful about the lives of US citizens in their own country, where will he build the wall to protect the thousands of Americans who will likely be murdered this year in crimes unrelated to Muslims, terrorism or Mexicans?

As for Mexicans, the Mexican government issued a warning this week for its citizens to take extra precautions for their safety in the US because of the hysteria caused by Trump’s hostile descriptions of them. This is nothing new for Muslims. The New York Times said that 6 times more Muslims were killed in the US in 2016 than the number of US citizens killed by Muslim extremists. Even if Trump expels all the Muslims from America, no wall will be high enough to protect Americans from themselves.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Abdullah Robin