President Bush's surprise visit to Iraq this morning was focused, primarily, on military strategy and political issues... in both countries. There are other issues whirling around the war, including the question of Iraqi refugees. The State Department once promised to allow 7,000 Iraqis into the United States by the end of this month, but lowered that number to 2,000. So far, reports show anywhere from 190 to around 700 Iraqis have been allowed into the United States. In an op-ed last Friday in the New York Times, retired General Joseph Hoar argued that this is an issue of national security for the United States. The country owes it to the Iraqis who risked their lives to work as translators and in other jobs for the military, he says. Does the US owe Iraqi refugees a path into the country?
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I agree with Gen Hoar; I am ashamed and dismayed that our administration has ignored the refugee problem from Iraq. We should overwhelming the State Department with requests to do its job and arrange to make it easier for thousands of refugees to be accepted into the US.
We should begin paying for the costs for Iraqi refugees by taking the personal fortunes of Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, every legislator who voted for the invasion and others who supported the Iraq War. Those of us who opposed this fiasco should not have to pay in dollars, lack of security and dimunition of our quality of life to bring hordes of new refugees to this county. Pay Jordan and other countries to maintain the refugees and help to resettle them in Iraq after the country is partitioned. We have too many people in this country now and do not need more people prone to sectarian violence and taking up our valuable financial resources and open spaces. Enough! Take care of our educational infrastructure, the cities that are rotting out from the inside and bleeding from violence. Enough, no more massive refugee influxes.
I agree totally with Gen. Hoar. We as a nation have a responsibility to provide refuge to those who had no say in the US invasion but who supported the rebuilding effort and are now threatened with death.
I just returned from Iraqi Kurdistan where I interviewed dozens of people who had fled Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and other Iraqi cities. Most fled after they were targeted by various Islamist groups, mostly because they had worked with the US military or US companies or were perceived as supporting in some way the 'infidels.' Others had already been kidnapped, tortured and escaped after paying exorbitant ransoms.
I lived in Baghdad and Kurdistan for more than 2 years as a researcher and reporter and training Iraqis to be reporters. I used to help my employees, colleagues and trainees get university schooling and professional training outside Iraq and always lectured them on their responsibility to return to their country and serve others with what they had learned.
Now, I do everything I can to help get them out of Iraq and stay out of Iraq.
Most all of the Iraqi people I know are exactly they kinds of immigrants we want in the US: smart, motivated, democratic minded and only looking for an opportunity to build a meaningful life. We should welcome them as our neighbors. I have always thought that Americans would be surprised how much in common they have with Iraqi people.
The sluggishness of the US government to provide assistance to refugees in neighboring countries and to admit eligible refugees who assisted them in their country, into this country is absolutely unconscionable.
I am glad to hear the call from our military for the US to admit more Iraqi refugees - most especially those who have served as translators for our men and women, putting their own lives at risk.
What I want to know is how can the US citizen help to move this effort forward? Do we need to voice our concern to Congress, to the State Department or both? Is there need for sponsors for the refugees?
I feel a keen responsibility to help move this idea forward, but am not sure how best to do that.
Suggestions, please, for those of us who agree with the moral imperative to provide safe haven for those who have risked their lives and the lives of their loved ones to assist the US military in Iraq.
General Hoar follows an outdated vision of America. America is no longer about freedom, democracy, or fairness, it is about hegemony and empire. We are in Iraq for control of oil and rights for our oil companies to profit (witness the failed Iraqi hydrocarbon bills giving generous PSA terms). There's lots of talk, but I don't think we will leave Iraq until the oil is gone. It may require a draft, or better, hiring (charging to the future) mercinaries through DynCorps.
Besides, the war has been a stunning success for those industries involved and for the military industrial complex weapons makers. People don't matter. The war machine does. We spend more on "defense" than the combined expenditures of all other countries.
The Bill of Rights has been stripped away through the Patriot Act and has not been restored by either party in order to handle domestic unrest due to the end of oil. The Caspian was an oil bust. The supply lines are getting pretty long for this civilization. Collapse may be closer than you think.
A conspiracy theory? Read the Ministry of Defense DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme (January 2007). It claims that the chief challenge to the United Kingdom's military in the next thirty years will be domestic. Why?
Let Iraqis into the empire? How does that fit into the vision?
While I empathize with the poor Iraqi refugees, we also need to ask what is in Americans' rational economic selfish interest. Can we afford to host thousands of Iraqi immigrants?
The United States is currently, by far, the world's third most populous nation, right behind the middle class (sic) havens of India and China (what lovely company to be in!). Out nation is now under assault by tens of millions of illegal aliens and our population is currently projected to explode to over 450 million by 2050.
How much strain will this population explosion put on our environment? How will our nation be able to maintain a middle class when the number of resources (land, fresh water, farm land, minerals, etc.) is finite? How will we maintain a healthy middle class when we continue to export jobs overseas while importing foreign workers on work visas?
I feel badly for the Iraqi refugees and perhaps we could welcome them with open arms if we didn't have 20+ million illegal aliens in the country and mass immigration. I wish we could let the good Iraqis in.
However, sadly, my concern about the well-being and quality of life of Americans leads me to oppose an influx of Iraqi refugees.
Right now our nation is under assault by tens of millions illegal aliens
Several administrations made hollow promises of support to the Kurds during the Sadam years with disasterous effects for them. If our words are made hollow by our lack of action and support, we lose more and more credibility in the world at a time when our standing in the world is diminishing. I feel we need to step up to the plate to help the Iraqi people who are daily risking their lives to help us. To do less is morally unconscionsable. And why didn't this administration plan beyond its foolish prediction that the Iraqi people would welcome us with roses thrown at at feet when we invaded?
We are the ones who removed the existing political structure from Iraq, without any regard to the far-reaching consequences that should have been obvious to the most superficial student of Iraq's contentious history. We owe those who are fleeing Iraq in fear of their lives some sort of safe haven. How can we listen to the stories of women who have been raped, and human beings who have lost sons, daughters, fathers, cousins and mothers to the pervasive violence of a civil war--and deny them even a faint hope of escape? However difficult it is--these refugees are our responsibility and our problem, and I am ashamed of the notable lack of response our country and its leaders have shown thus far.
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