![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This makes me sick. I had no idea:
Millions of Iraqis are refugees of the horrible situation ravaging in their country. Each day, 50,000 refugess escape the terror they can no lnger face. That's 50,000 each and every day, more than 2000 per hour. They are escaping battle zones, insurgents, surprise bombings, and local dictators. A memorable quote: "Before the US invasion, we had Sadaam Hussein. Now we have 10,000 Sadaams."
Syria has accepted about 1.2 million refugees, Jordan has accepted 750,000, Egypt has accepted about 100,000, Iran has accepted many thousands, and Saudi Arabia has gotten a few thousand but is currently putting up a wall between their countries to stop the movement (sound familiar?). None of these are accepting Iraqis as immigrants, however, and cannot work or buy a place. They are sent home after a short time.
The Bushies who caused all this have declared that the United States will "do our part" to help "our Iraqi friends" with this refugee crisis - which is greater than in Darfur, by the way. However, so far we have accepted only a few hundred into our country. Last month, we accepted one Iraqi refugee. One. England is similarly negligent. If we are to "do our part," and we are largely responsible for what's happened to these people, then we should accept as many people as our adventure over there has displaced. But we accept fewer than one-quarter of the refugees who try to escape Iraq each hour.
The United Nations is not officially dealing with this civilian catastrophe, and no nations are officially assisting it. These millions of refugees are not living in UN refugee camps with resources and beds; they are dropping into the local nations on temporary visas and sent home as soon as they run out.
How can we as a nation destroy another nation and not do anything about the refugees? We must take responsibility for our actions, and the very least thing we can do for "our Iraqi friends" is allow them to shelter in our nation until theirs is stable again. Anyone out there work for a Congressional representative who might create a bill to start doing "our part"?
Story was on Up to Date on NPR.
Here's a story on this from the New York Times.
Chris
Millions of Iraqis are refugees of the horrible situation ravaging in their country. Each day, 50,000 refugess escape the terror they can no lnger face. That's 50,000 each and every day, more than 2000 per hour. They are escaping battle zones, insurgents, surprise bombings, and local dictators. A memorable quote: "Before the US invasion, we had Sadaam Hussein. Now we have 10,000 Sadaams."
Syria has accepted about 1.2 million refugees, Jordan has accepted 750,000, Egypt has accepted about 100,000, Iran has accepted many thousands, and Saudi Arabia has gotten a few thousand but is currently putting up a wall between their countries to stop the movement (sound familiar?). None of these are accepting Iraqis as immigrants, however, and cannot work or buy a place. They are sent home after a short time.
The Bushies who caused all this have declared that the United States will "do our part" to help "our Iraqi friends" with this refugee crisis - which is greater than in Darfur, by the way. However, so far we have accepted only a few hundred into our country. Last month, we accepted one Iraqi refugee. One. England is similarly negligent. If we are to "do our part," and we are largely responsible for what's happened to these people, then we should accept as many people as our adventure over there has displaced. But we accept fewer than one-quarter of the refugees who try to escape Iraq each hour.
The United Nations is not officially dealing with this civilian catastrophe, and no nations are officially assisting it. These millions of refugees are not living in UN refugee camps with resources and beds; they are dropping into the local nations on temporary visas and sent home as soon as they run out.
How can we as a nation destroy another nation and not do anything about the refugees? We must take responsibility for our actions, and the very least thing we can do for "our Iraqi friends" is allow them to shelter in our nation until theirs is stable again. Anyone out there work for a Congressional representative who might create a bill to start doing "our part"?
Story was on Up to Date on NPR.
Here's a story on this from the New York Times.
Chris
Tags: