EDITORIAL
Trump’s Travel Ban:
Imposed by the Real Terrorists

Feb 6, 2017

President Trump’s immigration ban of refugees and immigrants from seven countries created chaos in the skies and airports, as tens of thousands of people were stranded around the world. Those who made it to this country were treated like criminals by the U.S. immigration authorities, with most forced to return to homes they no longer had, or face the very deadly conditions they were trying to flee.

President Trump claims that among these travelers, refugees and immigrants are “many bad and dangerous people,” who are out to create “death and destruction.”

Why? Because they’re refugees, or they were born in the “wrong” country?

What racist lies!

So far, no refugee has ever carried out a terrorist attack in this country. And neither have the immigrants from the seven countries named by Trump. In reality, Trump is barring the door to immigrants and refugees who are simply fleeing the violence, destruction and devastated economies inflicted on their countries by the U.S. wars.

But even if a refugee or immigrant did carry out a terrorist act, the question would still be why? Whatever attacks could happen, they would only be the by-product of all the wars that the U.S. military is carrying out for the benefit and profit of U.S. oil companies, banks and military contractors. It is these very wars that are spreading terrorism and violence all over the world. It is these wars that reinforce the cycle of violence, further stoke the flames of hatred, further encourage vengeful terrorist attacks.

Trump’s travel ban is aimed at cementing support in this country behind the repressive forces of the U.S. police and military authorities, the biggest terrorists in the world.

Trump says that he is putting “America First.” What does that mean? Trump is himself a billionaire whose business ventures span the globe in countless countries. Just like other “America First” capitalists, Trump himself profits from the exploitation of workers in many, many countries.

The real meaning of “America First” is the American capitalist class’s self-proclaimed right to wrap its tentacles around the world. It means American capitalists paying workers in other countries starvation wages, and plundering all their resources. “America First” means the U.S. military and government installing puppet governments, military dictatorships, the rule of religious fundamentalists, and terrorist gangs to control the workers and the poor in countries all over the world.

“America First” means that when the violence from local authorities isn’t enough to satisfy the interests of the American capitalists, the U.S. government goes to war. The U.S. military machine has carried out dozens and dozens and dozens of wars, open and covert, from Korea and Viet Nam to the Dominican Republic and Central America, to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia.

The capitalists demand that the American working class pay for these wars, with our tax money, our lives and our children’s lives. That’s what Trump’s “America First” boils down to: the American working class sacrificing and dying in the same old wars for the same old American capitalist class.

If workers accept this way of thinking, we won’t ever see the reality of what this capitalist class does, its exploitation of workers everywhere. And we won’t see all the wars that the U.S. military machine, by far the largest in history, has carried out, killing more people, destroying more countries than any other in history. And we won’t see what the capitalist class is doing against working people right here.

If we accept the crap that Trump is peddling, we blind ourselves. And if we do that, we won’t ever be able to stand up for ourselves in any way that matters.