This post by Milo is ***** and an exaggeration of what is happening in Iraq and what the travel ban is. You could walk down any street in Iran yelling "I am an American" right now and be safer than walking in a similar area of America.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-inf ... ates/CrimeThis is the problem with many, many Americans. They have zero idea about what Iraq and Iran actually are and what's going on there and this Marine is lying to you. This marine is clearly stationed in a hostile area, probably Sunni and probably one that was once occupied by ISIS. Americans can and do walk around Kurdistan and Southern Iraq and as much as 2/3's of Iraq is deemed safe enough for reporters to not have security details and is safe enough for the average American to travel to. I currently have a friend working in Iraq right now for a NGO and I see him taking pictures and talking about the safe areas of the country in detail on Facebook. I'l share one of the 300 photos he's posted aobut his work there. Here's a picture of him eating fried spiced lamb's testicles at a butcher's in some small town in Iraq he just posted for everyone. He's the jewish guy puking on the ground. They travel with zero security and he says it's fine.
here's an article on what parts of Iraq are safe to travel into now and how much.
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/sout ... afe-place/IT IS NOT SAFE to walk around Baghdad and other Sunni mixed or controlled areas. THIS IS A COUNTRY IN A CIVIL WAR.
BUT NONE OF THIS IS THE POINT OF THE TRAVEL BAN. The travel ban includes ALL areas and it also includes ALL people who have ever had citizenship or lived in Iraq including those who haven't lived in Iraq for years or decades. The travel ban includes those who have citizenship in any other country but once had or currently still have citizenship in one of these countries. If you include green card holders (and the travel did at first) this means that everyone who fled when Tehran fell will now be sent back.
This is not normal and is radically different and new to our foreign relations and to our nation. It is the beginning of a Muslim Ban and an attack on our refugee programs. It has already damaged us internationally and will make us less safe in the world.There absolutely should be greater screening and vetting of visa applicants from these countries, AND THERE ALREADY IS. Visa screenings for these countries already take more than a year to get done. Refugee screenings for travel to America from these countries take 2 to 2 and half years to work through. This is 100 times as much as most countries on average in current visa wait times, AS IT SHOULD BE. This isn't what Trump did. He immediately stopped ALL visa, refugee and resident applications for these countries. This has never been done before in the history of the United States to a country that we were not at war with. Before any Trump idiots say Obama did it; Obama stopped all Visa WAIVERS in Iraq for 6 months making it much, much harder to get a Visa or refugee status out of there but he never did anything like what Trump did. Several years ago, Obama also increased vetting on 4 of these countries and HLS increased vetting for the other 3 independently. This all happened years ago and is why it's so hard to get a visa from these countries now.
As for the other countries,
Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Syria of course are all in civil wars right now with varying amounts of safe areas. Currently it's completely safe to visit Tripoli and Damascus (and any government controlled area of Syria) with most precautions. Somalia's still pretty bad but getting better.
You could walk in any area in Iran and be fine. It's absolute nonsense that anyone says it is not safe to visit. Northern Sudan is also very safe. They ARE hard core Islamic theocratic dictatorships and you don't have the same freedoms or rights to do things as you would in America. This of course needs to change and the only way things like this do change is by allowing their citizens to see our freedoms and country by allowing them to visit, study and experience our culture and take it back to their country to try and change their world.