Seven banned Muslim countries are victim of US terrorism: Analyst

The seven Muslim countries targeted by US President Donald Trump’s executive order are the victim of US terrorism, not sponsors of terrorism, says an American political analyst and activist based in Washington.

Brian Becker, the national coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition, a US-based protest group consisting of many antiwar and civil rights organizations, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday.

Trump's revised immigration ban includes the same seven countries targeted in the original executive order, according to The Associated Press. The initial order barred refugees and people from seven predominately Muslim countries -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen -- from entering the United States.

Becker said that the fact that Trump “selected seven particular countries with majority Muslim populations was an effort to provide some fig leaf or legal cover for what is blatantly unconstitutional and illegal in his effort to ban people from the United States based on religion.”

“By selecting individuals from these seven countries Trump is picking up on a resolution adopted by the US Congress and signed by President Barack Obama that identified these seven countries as the site of enhanced terrorism efforts against the United States or others,” he stated.

“So in other words Trump is just trying to pretend or camouflage his ban on Muslims by creating the false pretext that it’s not a ban on a religion or people who believe in a particular religion but that’s based on an effort to protect America from terrorism,” the analyst said.

“Trump’s ban on Muslims…is unconstitutional. It violates US and international law,” he emphasized.

“And he keeps resorting to banning individuals from the seven countries in an effort to overcome what is blatantly illegal about his plan,” he underlined.

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Becker said the fact of the matter is that “the seven countries are not the source of terrorism in a preeminent or prominent way. Iran, for example, has not carried out any terrorist actions against the United States.”

“In the case of Iraq, the people of Iraq and the nation of Iraq have been the victims of terrorism inflicted on their country by the United States, not the other way around,” he explained.

“The United States invaded Iraq. Iraq did not invade the United States. The United States bombed Iraq. Iraq did not bomb the United States,” he noted.

In March 2003, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in blatant violation of international law and under the pretext of finding WMDs; but no such weapons were ever discovered in Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis were killed as the result of the US-led invasion, and subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

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