What Trump's travel ban ignores: Radicalized U.S. citizens pose the greatest threat

[DonViejo]

By Michael Morell and Robert Pape February 27 at 11:02 AM

Michael Morell is the former acting director and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Robert Pape is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats.

Good facts and good analysis make good policy. They guide decision-makers toward effective policies and prevent us from acting on ideology or singular events. This is why every meeting of the National Security Council, across multiple administrations, has begun with an intelligence briefing.

What should the intelligence briefing look like at a hypothetical NSC discussion on President Trump’s travel ban? It should address the current terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland as well as the implications of the travel ban.

On the threat, the briefing should draw on something like the detailed analysis being done by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST), a research program associated with the University of Chicago. CPOST has studied the 125 individuals who in the past 36 months either were indicted by the Justice Department for Islamic State-related crimes or who would have been indicted had they not died perpetrating a terrorist attack in the United States or fighting for Islamic State on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-trumps-travel-ban-ignores-radicalized-us-citizens-pose-the-greatest-threat/2017/02/27/4f928eb4-fc91-11e6-8ebe-6e0dbe4f2bca_story.html?utm_term=.1160cdb6539c&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

[unblock]

1. that's travel ban 2.0. round 'em all up, even if they're citizens.

do not think for one moment that it can't happen here.

[MosheFeingold]

2. This is a stupid argument

Let's assume, for argument's sake, that converts to Islam poised some risk. Let's say 10% (yes, I am intentionally picking absurd numbers -- to make the math easy) of them were radical nutcases. And there 200 converts. So 20 domestic nuts.

And also assume, for arguments sake, that persons from the 7 countries poised a risk, say 1%, and there 100 of them So 1 is an imported nut. Now, we have 21 nuts. Would it be better to get rid of 20 or 21 nuts, than 1? Sure.

But getting rid of 1 is better than getting rid of none. Note, all this is for argument's sake. I don't buy into the belief that immigrants (or converts) poise a special risk. And there are all sorts of harms that flow from such policies.

Just noting that this particular argument is flawed.

Worse, it give the radical Republicans something to aim for.