Niger: American Deaths and Lack of Paper in Chad

Could a lack of passport paper in Chad, which led to it being placed in Trump’s travel ban list, have caused the deaths of four American soldiers? Chad has been a key player in the fight against ISIS in central Africa. After it was placed on the travel ban list in late September, it withdrew its troops from neighboring Niger. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow connected the dots of how the inexplicable travel ban destabilized the region and could have contributed to the deaths of four American Soldiers on October 4th.

Maddow began by walking through the extensive history of the groups of African and French fighters who have managed to battle Islamic extremists like ISIS and Boko Haram in central Africa and actually win. Most of these groups are headquartered in Chad, because the best of the best soldiers managed to run out the majority of the terrorist groups.

Yet, somehow, Chad ended up on Trump’s travel ban list. When it did, there was an uproar of foreign policy experts who warned this was a terrible decision because it would destabilize the region and isolate American troops fighting there. Both the State and Defense Departments were also opposed to Trump’s decision to put Chad on the list, because they knew it would cause military problems in the area. But the Trump administration demanded it.

“Several terrorist groups are active in Chad,” Maddow cited the administration’s reasoning. “If that’s the reason you end up on the travel ban list, why wouldn’t you put Mali or Niger or even Iraq and Afghanistan?”

A former State Department official who worked on that region went even further, telling the New York Times that putting Chad on that list could truly put Americans in harm’s way.

Chad then began to withdraw their troops from the fight against Boko Haram in Niger. In fact, Chad’s troops were gone a week after Trump added Chad to the ban list. According to Reuters, once the soldiers left, Boko Haram moved back in and people began to flee for their lives again. Shortly after the “battle-hardened” Chad fighters left, four American soldiers were attacked and killed in an ambush by ISIS extremists in Niger. Chad announced it began pulling its troops out two weeks ago on Oct. 13, which Maddow said would put their timeline for withdrawal at the end of September.

The Pentagon is still scrambling for an explanation and Donald trump has yet to make a statement about the incident that is the worst combat fatalities of the Trump regime. There are a lot of questions yet to be answered. We’re waiting.