Trump's Foreign Policy - Part 1

Part 2, Part 3

Donald Trump is a foreign policy genius.  At least he believes he is:

Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he talks with consistently about foreign policy, Drumpf responded, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things."

"I know what I’m doing and I listen to a lot of people, I talk to a lot of people and at the appropriate time I’ll tell you who the people are," Drumpf said. “But my primary consultant is myself and I have a good instinct for this stuff."

One of Trump's boldest foreign policy proposals thus far is a proposal to --- temporarily --- bar all Muslims from entering the U.S. The rationale for this proposal, of course, is that there are some Muslim terrorists in the Middle East who have attacked the U.S.  Enacting this policy would be roughly akin to putting all of the Cliven Bundy-supporting yahoos under house arrest just because a handful of them illegally occupied that wildlife refuge in Oregon --- but of course THAT would never happen because those guys are white Americans, and anyway most of them probably support Trump.

When asked how he would enforce this policy, Trump said --- and I'm not making this up --- that border agents should ask visitors whether they are Muslim before allowing them in the country.  And that's some foreign policy genius, right there.  To demonstrate the genius of the plan, I've devised a little game I like to call 'Is Donald Trump Smarter than a Terrorist?'  The way you play is, you select a terrorist to try to illegally sneak into America, and see if Donald Trump is smart enough to stop him.  Give it a whirl!

Choose a terrorist to try to outsmart Donald Trump! Armenian Terrorist Bolivian Terrorist Catholic Terrorist Militia Terrorist Muslim Terrorist Palestinian Terrorist Saudi Terrorist

Trump: Are you a Muslim? Terrorist: No.

Notice that the result is pretty much the same no matter what kind of terrorist tries to sneak through.  And that list of potential terrorists isn't totally a joke, either.  Some Palestinians are definitely terrorists, as are some Catholics (think Irish Republican Army).  And of course, practically all of the September 11 hijackers hailed from our good friend and ally, Saudi Arabia.  So not only is it easy for actual Muslim terrorists to evade Trump's clever plan, focusing on one religious group means that other kinds of terrorists get missed.

"But," you say, "I'm sure Trump will actually find better ways to identify the Muslims!  And of course he wouldn't focus only on Muslims!  He would make sure other checks were done to stop all terrorists!"

Maybe, although given his foreign policy brilliance so far, I have my doubts.  But yes, there are ways of trying to determine whether a person is lying about their religion --- it just seems like a waste of time when there are also checks to determine whether that person is likely to be a terrorist.  Checks which are already being done.

So not only would Trump's policy be ineffective, there's no need for it in the first place.  In reality, the only reason to implement a policy of barring Muslims from the U.S. is if you just don't like Muslims, which of course is bigotry.  And Trump's supporters may still believe that it doesn't hurt to have a temporary ban in place, just in case --- but of course that belief is quite wrong, as subsequent posts will discuss.