Drone On, Reparations Now, Trump's Pro-Refugee Travel Ban

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Drone On
Iran has shot down a U.S. drone over international waters. This is not one of those drones you gave your husband for Christmas. These babies are filled with significant technology. The cost for each one range in the millions of dollars.

The media this morning are engaged in their usual charade. It goes something like this: “Iran says they shot down a U.S. drone over their territory. The U.S. claims the drone was in international air space. Who to believe?” Let me help them: Believe your country even when you don’t like your president.

The theme of the day is, we are hurtling toward war with Iran. The truth is Iran has been at war with us since its Islamic revolution in 1979. The stated purpose of the regime’s existence is to destroy the “Great Satan” – the U.S. and the “Little Satan” – Israel, followed by Islam conquering the world.

The list of Iranian acts of war against us are too numerous to put in this daily report. Here are a few:

• The attack on the U.S. Marine Corps Barracks in 1983 that killed 307 Marines while they slept.
• They tried to stop the flow of oil in 1988, causing President Reagan to authorize our Navy to engage theirs: 6 Iranian ships were sunk.
• The Pentagon reported a few months ago that Iran is directly responsible for the deaths of at least 600 U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

In spite of all this and much more, when Barack Obama took the reins of power with John Kerry as his secretary of state, they negotiated a sweetheart nuclear deal with Iran. As part of the deal, Iran received tens of billions of U.S. dollars, including more than a billion in cash and gold secretly delivered in the middle of the night. Iran promptly used their windfall to increase their support for terrorism around the world.

Fortunately, Donald Trump got us out of the nuclear deal, but the money was already in Iran’s hands. By the way, this will be a big 2020 issue. Every leading candidate on the progressive side wants us back in the deal.

No one knows what happens next. President Trump is displaying incredible restraint. But if Iran’s provocations force us into war, you can thank Barack Obama’s and John Kerry’s appeasement.

Reparations Now?
Progressives on Capitol Hill yesterday suddenly rediscovered the issue of reparations for slavery. Oddly, when progressives control the White House, the issue never comes up. Ironically, it is only a priority when a president from the party of Lincoln is in charge.

It is hard to imagine a proposal more likely to stoke racial tensions and further divide our country. Polling shows the public overwhelmingly opposes the idea. But it is a great way for the left to get out their votes.

No one who was a slave in America is alive today. No one who owned a slave in America is alive today. The Democrat Party was built in the South on the issue of slavery. The KKK sprang out of the Democrat Party. All the well-known segregationists of the 1950’s were Southern Democrats. Some conservative commentators are sarcastically pointing out that if reparations are going to be paid, the Democrat National Committee should make the payments.

Trump’s Pro-Refugee Travel Ban
One year ago the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to uphold President Trump’s authority to ban travel into the United States from seven nations. Liberal pundits howled at the ruling after doing everything in their power to prevent it. Now we see again how narrow the margin is to prevent terrorist strikes on our shores.

The FBI announced the arrest yesterday of a Syrian refugee, Mustafa Mousad Alowemer, on charges of planning to bomb a Christian church in Pittsburgh. Alowemer had been in contact with FBI agents who he mistakenly thought were ISIS allies as he sought bomb-making supplies, a weapon equipped with a silencer and diagrams he could use to create an escape route from the church, the Legacy International Worship Center. Alowemer, who filmed a selfie-video proclaiming his devotion to ISIS and its leader Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, reportedly targeted the church because of its ties to the Nigerian resistance to ISIS radicals in that country. The blast he plotted was allegedly to be big enough to flatten the church and kill many in the surrounding neighborhood.


Let’s see if the media rush to point out the obvious. Syria is one of the seven countries covered by the Trump Administration’s travel policy. Trump made clear during his campaign for the White House that he intended to limit automatic entry into the United States from countries that could reasonably be seen as hotspots for terrorist infiltration. This wasn’t because of the religious tenets of Islam nor was it meant to be permanent – it was a temporary policy, under the president’s national security powers, until America could shore up its vetting policy in these countries.

The left’s lawyers and progressive groups pounced on the policy and, as they do on almost every issue, denounced it as bigotry. They also delayed it – by a year and a half – until the Supreme Court ruled, by the narrowest of margins, that the president had acted constitutionally. Alowemer entered the United States in 2016, which suggests that whatever our vetting practices were three years ago they were not strong enough to avert the admittance of a man who yearned to become our next mass murderer.

Don’t expect to see any apologies from the ACLU or the various immigrant rights groups that sprang up to defend our porous border policies. Already some of the media reports on Alowemer are suggesting how impotent ISIS has become or how rare such plots have become. Small comfort to you if you are among the dozens of people killed in a “rare” event committed by someone who could have been stopped at a border 6,700 miles away.

Don’t forget this other irony. Alowemer isn’t the only refugee in this story. He meant to include among his victims another group of refugees – African Christians, who, unlike him, had fled to America for safety and religious freedom. When the ACLU tells you they stand for refugees, remind them of the Legacy International Worship Center. And of President Trump’s resolute stand for these refugees in our midst.
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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