The ban interpretation is because Trump campaigned on banning Muslims from the country. The EO was on Muslim majority countries. Throw in an exemption for victims of religious persecution, who will mostly be non-Muslim, and it becomes a defacto ban on Muslims. Which is how the courts are seeing it.

If it had been done with some consideration and guidance in how to implement it, it might not have been unreasonable. That wasn't the case. It was a cluster in which border officers had no clear instructions on who was or wasn't allowed. They even kept turning people back after the courts ordered a stay on the EO.

Six of the seven countries covered were already under the strictest vetting process for those seeking to come to the US. Syria was the one not already named in current laws. Trump had a chance to name Saudi Arabia and the UAE, places were nationals have come to the US to commit terrorist acts.

This EO wasn't some reasonable attempt at preventing a bad guy in. It didn't include places where known bad guys have come from, and was just a mess in implementation. Which doesn't matter to Trump, for it was just political pandering to his base that he can point too has keeping his campaign promise, and he will shift blame to someone else if someone asks why it didn't work.

Trump may have called it a "ban" originally, but he reconsidered and it became a 90-day PAUSE and REVIEW. It is NOT a "ban".

Correct. The 90-day pause to review did NOT include places where known bad guys come from, such as Saudi Arabia. The list was NOT drafted by Trump. The list was drafted by Obama.

You may be happy with the prior vetting process, but I see no problem with the new White House homeowner making sure all the "doors to the nation", so to speak, are properly locked for our safety.

The list was in legislation that passed under Obama. It had only 6 countries listed. Trump's EO added a seventh, Syria.

He could have added as many countries as he wished. Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt not being included was a choice made he and his team. People have come from all of them that have committed terrorists acts in this country, but they are also places where Trump has businesses.

WaPo indicates that four countries were named in the 2015 legislation and that BHO added three by executive order. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.db532db60705 Syria was listed by our State Department as a state sponsor of terror.

Saudi, UAE and Egypt all have functioning security systems and governments that control the territory withing their borders. Should we be shocked that DJT doesn't have a hotel in Somolia or the Sudan?

It strikes me as a fundamentally misguided security model to only afford heightened scrutiny to a population after it has successfully perpetrated an act rather than assessing threats prospectively.

It is also misguided to issue an order without giving the effected agencies at least a heads up. That's why the implementation was such a boon doggle.

A pause on travlers is fine, but it could have been done without the disruption that did occur; highlighting the administration's inexperience and providing recruitment propaganda for terrorists groups.

The same is also true of Iran.

No one is calling for a lessening of visa vetting on Iranian residents, because one haven't been caught committing an act. Previous attacks wasn't the sole criteria in past security models.

This is a barn doors argument in which not all the horses have fled. Many of the 9/11 criminals, and the planner, were Saudi Arabian. The royalty there still supports the teaching of wahhabism at the very least. Not including that country under the same visa vetting process as Iran has very little to do with security.

Trump giving them a pass to them and other countries in this EO is just evidence of "draining the swamp" was nothing more than rhetoric, and his administration isn't going to be some changing force in Washington, but that it is no different than previous ones.

Iran has been a state sponsor of terror since the shah left.

As a matter of logic, it does not follow that because is due regarding counties with broken security services and extraordinary domestic chaos, than one must not afford greater scrutiny where a longstanding state sponsor of terror is involved.

Previous attacks are the explicit applied in the critique that DJT missed his chance to afford greater scrutiny to

That is a retrospective standard.

Note that the planner did not find refuge in Saudi.

Here you've implied that the family's uneasy political bargain with Wahhabhi clerics is equivalent to a shiite state intent on dragging a population out of a functional relationship with the rest of the world, and which is active in destabilizing the area. In fact, despite the difficulties presented by wahhabhism, the family are reasonably good allies with we share ample interests.

The conclusion that not putting Saudi on the list has little to do with security isn't well founded.

People seem as upset as they are precisely because it strikes them as different.

So the real reason for the travel 'ban' or pause is because those countries on the list are run by governments that are uncooperative with sharing their counter terrorism intelligence (if it exists) with the US or they do not do a good job of keeping track of this stuff? On the other hand, we were fine without the ban still.

As much as I hate the Saudis and Wahhabism, what I keep hearing is that the Wahhabi clerics have got the Sauds (who probably do not even believe that stuff) by the balls since Wahhabi extremists violently took control of the holy sites in 1979. I hear that, like you said, Saudi Arabia takes terrorism extremely seriously when it is within their borders (can't say the same for outside of their borders that they sponsor or used to), has radicalization programs, and shares its intel. Pakistan, on the other hand, lol. Iraq was just removed from the list since they have a government and coalition in place that cooperates closely with the US and it also has translators that served US forces. But why won't Trump just cite the real reasons then? He's just pandering to xenophobes with his us vs. them rhetoric.

The family are thousands of people, so I don't think the issue is whether they believe it, but that their political power results in enforcement of wahhabhi standards of conduct. I think the way these people live is appalling.

Pakistan has lots of problems, a fact most keenly appreciated by governing class pakistanis.

You may judge the US to have been "fine" without a moratorium on routine administrative processing, but that one doesn't share an enthusiasm for a specific security measure doesn't render it unreasonable.

It isn't an expression of an irrational phobia to see the significant immigration problems of europe and seek to avoid those problems. Germans don't seem all that happy about the immigrants they already had, let alone the tidal wave they see coming from the east. This isn't a peculiar american phobia.

DJT clearly announced that he would seek to reduce immigration before he was elected. He was elected, and is now doing what one might have anticipated he would do if elected. Pandering? That's how representative government is supposed to work.

When you're a powerful person who has huge global influences and of whoms decisions can influence and affect people in all corners of the globe, you have to deliver things a certain way.

"I Donald J Trump am calling for a complete ban on all Muslims into the United States"

Those were his exact words if I remember correctly, and no doubt they were his exact intentions too. Why even say that? Why deliver it in such a demoralising offensive way? Why even mention "Muslims" why not just tell people he was considering a temporary travel ban from citizens of countries where terrorism is very active? Is Ireland included? They must be the terror capital of Europe, car bombs and uncovered terror plots almost every week, both religious and political motives, but those stories might offend the Irish heritage in the US, and don't help the islamophibic population in the US build thier hate, so probably don't get aired.