“By the end of 2006, there were almost two million Iraqis living as refugees outside their country—most of them in Syria and Jordan…American policy held that these Iraqis were not refugees, that they would go back to their country as soon as it was stabilized. The U.S. Embassies in Damascus and Amman continued to turn down almost all visa applications from Iraqis. So the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world remained hidden.” – ‘Betrayed‘ by George Packer, The New Yorker
Take this essay to the right-winger who laments over how much of a humanitarian crisis would ensue if we were to leave Iraq. Chances are they won’t be all that moved by it, and think this way because of what I heard about our own refugees from New Orleans after Katrina struck. To expect a white right-winger in this country to shine a spotlight on murder and injustice in far away lands, you’d really have to assume that the politicians they voted for were responsible for creating the problem in the first place. Otherwise, it’s likely to be a cold day in hell before any story like the one I linked to above gets a second of airtime in right-wing world. The entire premise of the piece is offensive to these folks, as our gift of freedom provided by the liberator, should not be used to bad mouth the liberator. “You’ve got problems? I had to pay an extra 15 cents for gas this week, Hispanics are buying up another house two blocks from where I live, and now I can’t even hear Imus on my way to work in the morning…so you see, we’ve all got problems, and if you can’t go back to Iraq, then simply pull yourself up by your sandal-straps and find 2nd and 3rd jobs like the illegals here do.”
Thanks for commenting on my post regarding this issue, I agree that there needs to be more attention to this.
I am adding your link to my post on this issue.
http://informedvoters.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/iraq-refugee-crisis-is-growing-cnn-story-with-pictures-and-video/#comment-2649
I will also add your link to my blogroll on my political site…
http://informedvoters.wordpress.com/
Thanks again,
Catherine
When do we nuke Baghdad?
The comparison with the reactionto the victims of Katrina is a good one. While there are a lot of people who went to the coast to help clear and rebuild (and are still doing so) there is a major stigma associated with the poor from New Orleans–they should have left the city, they couldn’t be helped because they were shooting at rescuers, they are no good in some way. Fact is, many conservatives just don’t have a heart and are selfish. The Bush administration is excellent in wrapping that selfishness in an excuse package that many are willing to accept.
Thanks for the comments at Hard-boiled Dreams of the World, and the blogroll link. I’ve added your link as well.
-JoeC
This is a good comment. No one seems to be paying attention to the obvious. If conditions were all that great there would not be an exodus. What’s not to grasp?
A subtext of the story is that most refugees rarely return to their homes. After migrating and adjusting to another place going back is almost as hard as leaving was the first time. It’s like replanting an extracted tooth. And if a new generation takes root in the new country, the parents are reluctant to do to their children what was done to them, tearing them away from friends and peers.
Even foreign students who go abroad with a firm intent to return home and apply their education == doctors, engineers, business majors, other specialists — often decide to stay where they went to study. At one level it is a net gain for places like the US, world’s biggest “brain-drain” magnet. But it is tragic for the countries that lose their best and brightest.
Hootsbuddy, JoeC – thanks for the comments! This phenomenon regarding ‘brain drain’ is described very well in this last comment…as it is human nature that takes over.
The amount of professionals within Iraq having gone down to almost nothing during the past few years is going to make the work of rebuilding once the war is over that much harder.