those not fighting extremists. Recently, the United States government has weakened our relations with the Pakistani government and has withheld a good amount of security aid ($1.3 billion). The administration views Pakistan as a “safe haven” for terrorists coming in from Afghanistan and cited that the Pakistani government isn’t working intensively on fighting terrorism.
Pakistan is nearly entirely Muslim(over 90% of their population), so of course, this administration would view a Muslim majority country as a threat (since radical extremists from Afghanistan can enter their country). I’d say this was a smart move by the administration because we cannot continue to throw away money to countries that aren’t using it efficiently. Trump definitely saw this as a win-lose situation and did the right thing. Our deficit continues to rise daily and it wouldn’t be so high if we didn’t give away our money to useless things. I know we used to give them $20 million to fund Sesame Street, so I understand Trump’s frustration on the excessive amounts of money we give away. If you do not do enough to fight extremism in your country, then no more security aid AND Sesame Street for you! It’s possible if Pakistan does a better job at monitoring those entering their country and fighting off extremists, then we can give them a few hundred million annually.
To be honest we should also be focusing on countries that the US has not attempted to add on the travel bans. Citizens from countries such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt have killed thousands of our people, and our diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia remains very tight. It is evident that we are always thinking about what’s in our best interest and not focusing 100% on protecting our fellow citizens(what Trump’s supposedly trying to do with the travel bans). Saudi Arabia is one of the largest exporters of crude oil, and if we were to criticize and impose sanctions, gas prices are likely to rise(something we don’t need). It wouldn’t hurt to tell them to help us out in the fight of extremists during our visits to their nations. I’m sure that they’re fighting them too, and wouldn’t mind lending their hand to the fight. What else can we do to fight extremists around the world?We should ask countries to carefully monitor any suspicious activities and behavior and to report back to the United States intelligence agencies. Any countries in Europe, Northern Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East should be using their intelligence agencies to monitor any suspicious behavior on social media and possibly listening for anything suspicious in phone calls. The rest of the world should still continue to monitor activities and report anything if the person is traveling abroad. We would all collectively help each other out to prevent these attackers from traveling around.
They should not directly focus merely on those who have ancestry in the Middle East because terrorist groups aren’t just Muslim. They come in all colors, so not singling anyone out. Each country should create their own special hotline that receives calls of any possible radicalization of a person or group, and intelligence agencies would proceed to carefully monitor to make sure that they are not mistaken. The caller will remain anonymous and any major attacks would be prevented!
Those who have attacked have been under the country's radar. To prevent this from happening frequently, we should ask them to invest more in their intelligence agencies. I’m sure they would come to a collective agreement because there shouldn’t be more attacks on innocent civilians. If these countries comply adequately, I’m sure this administration wouldn’t mind giving them a small amount to continue to invest in intelligence agencies. Those who dare to not comply would see the consequences(other than Trump tweeting about them).
There haven’t been any major attacks in the past couple of months and it should remain that way. European countries should continue to invest in their own intelligence agencies and continue to do constant raids. The U.S. should prioritize those countries willing to help us in the fight against extremists and help them protect their citizens. The fight should not one-sided, and the fight will always continue on. We cannot get rid of extremists 100%, but we can invest our time and resources to the right country to help us fight.
Joseline Jimenez
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