First of all: TRIGGER WARNING
Righteous uproar and stunned disbelief seem to be the rule among politicos and political observers these days. One such is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut. Like most Americans Senator Murphy has marked this new administration’s steady path downward, and has joined us in cringing and shaking his head at every new step into the pit. Yesterday, regarding our new president’s ban on Muslim refugees entering the country, Murphy made plain his horror and disbelief in no uncertain terms.
Saying Trump “handed ISIS a path to rebirth", Murphy took the administration to task in a scorching op-ed for The Huffington Post
How Donald Trump Just Made America Less Safe
Donald Trump’s long-awaited Muslim ban became a reality today. No, you might say, it’s not actually the proposal he outlined during the campaign. True, the ban doesn’t cover every Muslim globally, just a set of Muslims from countries Trump perceives, rather arbitrarily, to be dangerous.
The whole piece is worth the read, and Murphy makes it very clear that this ban is both strategically dangerous and morally inexcusable.
We assail Libya and Yemen and Syria and Iraq with bombs, and then simply expect other countries to deal with the consequences. We make the mess, then expect others to clean up. This infuriates our friends and damages our partnerships. Now, Trump’s Muslim ban will risk severing ties between us and many of these nations. They will see our policy as xenophobic and detrimental to the displaced persons crisis in the region. Our ability to build a truly multi-national response to extremism will become impossible.
Finally, the decision to turn our backs on millions of men, women, and children attempting to flee torture and terror shrinks us as a nation, and marks an unconscionable abandonment of our founding principles. Remember, those who make it into the U.S. refugee program have survived the worst of the worst – they are those who are so badly injured, so in danger, that they cannot survive in refugee camps. The vast majority of them are women, young children and the elderly. They are desperate and scared, and without harbor in the United States, many of them will perish.
He wasn't done with that op-ed. Last night Murphy took to twitter and posted this haunting admonishment.
I think he was right on posting that.
The crises we face, the death and woe in Syria and elsewhere around our world, are real things. People are dying. Children are dying. By banning a significant portion of them from any chance at entry to our country this administration is turning a blind eye to that fact, and in so doing they abdicate whatever claim they might have to morality or decency.
We humans are in rough times right now. That’s why Chris Murphy's example is one to follow. Our nation was founded at least in theory on principles of inclusiveness and diversity.
And this ban stands opposed to those and every other principle of common humanity and goodness.