It is fair to say most columnists write on a broad array of subjects. Some have gained knowledge over many years of being involved in a particular issue. Some issues become the issue of the day, and you must immerse yourself in sifting through the news to discern the best version of the facts to provide for your readers. Then there are issues where the writer possesses in-depth knowledge and thus can speak with authority. President Trump nailed the travel ban and I can speak from authority.
The Beautiful Wife (BW) and I have been to 92 countries together and all seven continents. BW keeps a detailed list of the countries we have been to and the year(s) we were there. The list also contains where we have not been but want to go, and which ones we have firm plans to see. I am always scouring the list of the other 102 countries to which we may wish to travel. For example, our recent trip to South America provided us ample evidence from local sources we should add Bolivia to our list.
People often ask me two questions. Where do you want to return to and where will you not go? I have in recent years developed a standard answer to the second question – any place where I could potentially get kidnapped.
The list evolves over time. Times change. I tell people I regret not going to Venezuela before Hugo Chavez took over in 1999 when it had South America’s #1 economy. Over the next 14 years he destroyed the country and then handed it to Nicolás Maduro who drove the country further into the ground. We have been all over South America but would not set foot in that country. President Trump was correct to put in the travel ban and exclude anyone from that country coming here. Venezuela is on the partial ban list.
Trump did not do this willy-nilly. He worked with his national security team. As he stated in the announcement, “I considered foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism goals. And I further considered various factors, including each country’s screening and vetting capabilities, information sharing policies, and country-specific risk factors — including whether each country has a significant terrorist presence within its territory, its visa-overstay rate, and its cooperation with accepting back its removable nationals.” These countries are train wrecks and there is no way to vet the people coming to our country to protect our citizens.
The Dirty Dozen he fully banned are Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. These countries are all a mess, and we would not get near any of them. Sometimes we read of an American being kidnapped in one of these countries and I ask BW why in God’s name was an American there in the first place.
In 2021, we were in Africa on safari. We were in Uganda trekking for gorilla sightings. Rwanda is the other well-known destination to see gorillas, and we are going there next year. While driving to our destination in Uganda, our guide turned to us and pointed to our right. He said,” That right there is The Congo. You do not want to go there.” I guess some of his ill-informed passengers at times venture over across that border. That was not in the cards for us.
Trump also partially restricted entry from seven other countries and I can tell you I am not sure how these seven are treated differently, but here they are: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Laos is on our list to go to, but none of the rest are currently.
There are others to be considered. Jay Nordlinger, a legit journalist, wrote a book I read called Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators. Quite a novel look at history. The last eight or so dictators were from modern Africa. It led me to explore the map of Africa and discovering there are loads of questionable countries I would not get near for our safety. These include Angola, Mali, Niger, Guinea, Nigeria, Chad, and Burkina Faso. There may be a few more and maybe the Trump team had reasons not to include these countries on their list. We are not going to any of them and neither should you.
There are complainers about this new Trump policy. First, there are some who complain about anything Trump does in a knee-jerk manner. If Trump does it, it must be wrong. Second, they will talk of the fine people they know from these countries. That is not the basis on which a policy is made. There are wonderful people from every country on the planet, and I am sure some are here in the United States. You must be able to vet people coming to your country and keep track of them while they are here. We have been negligent in that regard. It is high time we started to do this with all the nutcases running around the world. This policy will not eliminate all those people, so we need to do other enforcement procedures to protect our citizens. And this does not mean bad people will not get into our country from countries not on the list.
The good news is things are always changing. Next year we are going to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman. These are countries where we would not have travelled ten years ago. Now we are excited about going to these places. Perhaps matters will change in the banned countries and we will be able to travel there, and we will be able to accept their citizens as guests in our country.
In the meantime, 170 other countries in the world are considered safe to visit. And I can tell you there are people in all those countries who want to come to America. You should consider visiting their countries. Happy travels.
