Marco Rubio must confront lazy, outdated State Department travel warnings

BENGHAZI, Libya, The State Department declares it has “no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens” and says it issues travel warnings to describe “the risks and recommended precautions for U.S. citizens.” The lack of granularity to the warnings, though, reflects diplomatic laziness, increasingly undermines U.S. policy, and may even cross the line into fraud.

Consider Somaliland. Out of deference to Mogadishu, the State Department refuses to treat Somaliland as separate from Somalia. Hence, the travel advisory warns people not to travel due to risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, mistreatment of women, and piracy, among other ills. Likewise, consider Libya. The State Department warns, “Do not travel to Libya for any reason due to crime, terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict.” Then there is Lebanon, where the State Department warns, “Do not travel … for any reason due to the risk of crime, terrorism, unrest, kidnapping, landmines, and armed conflict.” The Iraq warning is even more strident: “Do not travel to Iraq due to terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict, civil unrest, and the U.S. government’s limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq. Do not travel to Iraq for any reason. Leave now if you are there.”

The security situation in each of these countries is nuanced. Somaliland has not suffered a terrorist attack since 2008. Crime is so low that money changers leave stacks of money unattended while they take their lunch, and women serve as ministers. There was never any piracy in Somaliland. That was always a Puntland (Somalia) problem. By such standards, Somaliland is far safer than Paris, London, or New York. Likewise, the broad warning misrepresents Libya. Just as with Somalia’s president, Libyan Prime Minister Abd al Hamid Dbeibeh was appointed in a U.N. process recognized by the State Department but unelected by the people he claims to represent. Dbeibeh’s government today controls less than 19% of the country, with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces controlling the rest. While Americans remember Benghazi for the 2012 murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, today Haftar’s home city is reborn with little if any crime, where men, women, and children, Libyans and foreigners both, move around at all hours with neither security nor fear.

Three hundred fifty miles to the west, Sirte, the birthplace of Muammar Qadhafi, site of his last stand, and then capital of the Islamic State’s brief North African emirate, has zero crime, but a bustling university, new football stadium, and a corniche dotted with trendy restaurants. Similarly, despite the dire warning about Lebanon, the chance of stepping on a land mine in Beirut is zero. A bigger danger would be stepping on sea urchins off its beach. Armed conflict, meanwhile, is so localized that Lebanese gather on rooftops to watch. Beirut’s Hezbollah-populated southern suburb, Dahieh, is as different from the upscale western Beirut neighborhood of Hamra as the Bronx is from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In Iraq, visitors in the new Movenpick Hotel, let alone the resorts of Iraqi Kurdistan, laugh at warnings that appear 20 years out of date.

Overwrought warnings do harm. President Donald Trump recognizes that American investment is key to peace. But dire warnings increase insurance rates and dissuade businessmen who may not realize the warnings are decades out of date. While the State Department criticizes Russian and Chinese investment, Benghazi authorities beg for American businesses to invest, but, with few exceptions in the construction sector, find Americans reluctant to come. America’s loss is Russia, China, and Turkey’s gain.

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The warnings also undermine Trump’s immigration policy. Courts deny repatriation of criminal aliens based on warnings, with American Civil Liberties Union lawyers citing the State Department to suggest imminent torture or death to any returnee. The ACLU’s description of Middle Eastern and African countries is racist and wrong, but judges do not know that.

Many diplomats say the State Department acts from an abundance of caution, but exaggerating danger also plays into claims for hardship and danger pay, which can add 70% to their pay. American taxpayers are fleeced because of a convenient fiction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio needs to act.

Michael Rubin is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum, a distinguished fellow at India’s Usanas Foundation, and a contributor to Beltway Confidential.