Donald Trump is right about not allowing in nationals of terrorist nations.
NEW YORK: What’s common between Ahmad Khan Rahami, the Afghani-American terrorist who planted bombs in New York and New Jersey, before being captured by cops in a shootout in New Jersey, on Monday, and Syed Rizwan Farook, the Pakistani-American terrorist who along with his wife Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people and injured many others in a pre-planned attack shooting at San Bernardino, California, on December 2, 2015? Both had a Pakistani-origin wife.
While Farook and Malik were killed in a police shootout the same day, Rahami’s wife fled the US a few days before Rahami struck with his bombs in New York and New Jersey, injuring more than two dozen people. She – her name has been withheld from the media – was arrested in the UAE yesterday, on Monday, reported Fox News. Farook traveled to Pakistan to marry his wife. So did Rahami, who traveled to Pakistan to marry his wife, in 2011, and then brought her to the US sometime in 2014.
It doesn’t take much common sense to realize that as Rahami was planning his dastardly attack on America and innocent citizens on this country, his wife knew exactly what was going on. She fled the US when she realized the day of reckoning was near, the bomb attacks that were to soon follow.
It’s hard for many Americans, and indeed many around the world to agree with the Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump on most issues, but perhaps one thing that does strike a chord with people from most democracies and people who believe in a civilized way of living, has been his fervent call to ban visas for those who come from terrorist-leaning nations.
Trump’s call to not give access to citizens from such terrorist nations, like Pakistan, to vet them strongly, needs to be implemented with immediate effect. The US should ban people from countries like Pakistan from getting access to the US, apart from diplomats.
On Monday, the Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton too, in a press conference in White Plains, New York, called for stronger vetting of nationals from certain countries which have strong terrorism links.
India has done the right thing, under prime minister Narendra Modi, to humiliate Pakistan diplomatically in the last few days, for Pakistan’s terrorist attack in Uri, which claimed the lives of 18 Indian soldiers.
India, like a wise and mature democracy and a nation that understands its global standing and responsibilities, did not fall into the trap of retaliating militarily against Pakistan. Instead their call is now echoing around the world, with Russia and France condemning Pakistan for their state-sponsored terrorism. The US too has warned Pakistan yet again to rein in their terrorists.
But it’s the US which needs to set an example for the rest of the world to emulate, teach Pakistan the lesson it deserves for exporting terrorists and terrorism to peaceful nations like India and the US: ban visas to the country’s nationals.
(Sujeet Rajan is Editor-in-Chief, The American Bazaar. Follow him @SujeetRajan1)