This is a disgrace.
After the Vietnam War, the United States resettled 1.4 million Southeast Asian refugees within its broders, the largest such resettlement in the nation's history, but the US has hesitated even to acknowledge the current crisis in the Middle East. This reluctance to respond rests on a narrative of impending triumph. A 2006 State Department report found that "changed conditions" in Iraq "have expanded the possibiities for refugee repatriation," and added it is hoped that significant numbers of Iraqi refugees located throughout the Middle East and Europe will soon be able to return home." In 2007 the State Department acknowledge that an "explosion of sectarian violence" had led to widescale displacement within and from Iraq," but maintained nonetheless that "the primary goal continues to be to support efforts to create conditions that will allow Iraqis to return home." Later that year, the administration even campaigned against a bipartisan initiative to create a special immigrant visa for Iraqis who now worked for US organizations and found their lives endangered. That initiative eventually passed Congress, but the plight of former US employees, particularly translators, remains the sum total of the discussion of the crisis within American media and political circles.The result is that, although more than 30,000 Iraqis were resettled in the United States after the 1991 Gulf War, only 3,775 Iraqis were granted entry between the beginning of the 2003 invasion and the end of January 2008.
. . .
For many Iraqis, it is Sweden that is the promised land. When Leif Eriksson assumed responsibility for migration at the Swedish Embassy in Damascus in 2005, he was assured that it would not be a demanding posting. Since then, however, his country has emerged as the only Western nation to accept large numbers of Iraqi refugees . . . In all, more than 115,000 Iraqis have made their way to Sweden since 2003, and the great majority have been granted asylum.
Sweden? Sweden? A country full of a few million excessively blond people is taking in more Iraqis than the country whose beloved national icon is inscribed "Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free?" We're being beaten by Sweden? I don't even know where to begin. Let me reverse Michelle Obama: for the first time in my life, I'm utterly ashamed of my country.
I'm in favor of more open borders generally, of course, but at least that's a valid debate. Refusing to take even a trickle of the people displaced by our invasion is a deep stain on our national honor that anyone, left or right, should be eager to erase.
Agreed! The Bush administration should be ashamed.
The type of people who would look to move to the US are the same type of people necessary for democracy to have even the remotest chance of success in Iraq. Therefore it only makes sense to take in large numbers of refugees if we intend to lose. Our failure in SE Asia is why we took in so many refugees. We haven't failed in SW Asia (at least not yet); so it makes no sense to outdo Sweden in this respect.
What makes this story even more embarassing is the number of translators to whom our soldiers promised relatively easy immigration in the belief that their government would protect the people who most assisted them. Far too many translators and the soldiers who they assisted have found out the hard way that the government they served doesn't really care about that service.
Carl: So you would rather these people, many of whom are well-known targets of the militias, take a huge risk of death on a day to day basis just to keep up the appearance that we're winning? That is sick. Who are we to tell people whose lives we displaced where they can and cannot live?
If you are ashamed of this.... um.... how about the United States abiding by the Geneva Convention in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Mark,
This is a counterinsurgency. The appearance of winning is winning.
Sorry for the 2x post. As soon as I hit the button, I realized that my point was badly stated. A better way to put it:
This is a counterinsurgency. You win by appearing to win.
These people didn't *have* to leave. It's not like we said "ok, everyone out!" They could have stayed there and helped themselves (and us!) to rebuild their country. Obviously they were scared, but so were their neighbors who stuck around.
Gah--sorry for the third post. I typed in Mark's name instead of my own in the 4:46 post.
I personally want to take them all. But, if you think like the architects of this war, you shouldn't. Because:
1)The world is filled with a vast and powerful group of Islamic anti-American terrorists, whose numbers and ability make them a deep and genuine threat to the territorial integrity of the American nation and to the personal safety of the average American.
2)Iraq is a central front in the war against these terrorists, and most of the bloodshed and fighting in Iraq is the product not of sectarians fighting for control or anti-occupation insurgency, but of these terrorists, most of whom are members of Al Qaeda-- the same Al Qaeda that attacked us on September 11th.
3)The principal purpose of American government is American security, and as we all realized after 9/11, the United States could no longer afford to allow humanitarian concerns to interfere with that job.
If you think those things, as the Bush administration seems to, you can't allow in many Iraqi refugees. Because Iraq is filled with Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda is determined to follow us home, and entrance as a refugee is a perfect method to gain entry into the United States in large numbers and continue to attack.
This can't possibly have just come to your attention now, could it? This story has been out there (with varying detail) for a couple of years now.
I don't call our "leaders" Bushpigs for nothing. These are people who don't give a damn how many lives they destroy or what kind of wreckage they leave behind. Dumbya Bush is a genuinely shallow scumbag, and that should have been obvious to anyone who knew about his falsetto episode mocking Karla Faye Tucker, among other things.
These aren't people who used torture out of desperation or necessity, they're people who used torture because they could, and because they couldn't see anything wrong with using it.
We need a national recovery and some of these creatures need to be jailed and disgraced for life as part of it. If that means Dick Cheney dies in prison, so be it. He can have his own wing in Gitmo.
After the Iraq war we could do the same for those who helped us. But for those that just said "screw helping the Americans, I'm outta here" and left, why care?
It has been years since I studied this sort of phenomenon, but I think it is the default policy to house refugees as near as feasible to their homeland and to have repatriation as the ultimate goal. We did resettle large numbers of Indochinese refugees in the United States - after we lost the war. That last has yet to occur.
The result is that, although more than 30,000 Iraqis were resettled in the United States after the 1991 Gulf War, only 3,775 Iraqis were granted entry between the beginning of the 2003 invasion and the end of January 2008.
I do agree that more should have been done already, but I also fully expect that after the war, many more refugees will be accepted.
Nelson: Are you suggesting that an Iraqi family (you know, with kids in it) that fled Iraq when sectarian violence erupted should be hung out to dry?
Are you suggesting that any Iraqi who fled the violence is some kind of coward? If I lived in a country that had been invaded, and my life was in danger everywhere I went, I'd leave, unless I believed in my country a great deal. What reasons have Iraqis ever had to believe in their manufactured nation?
"The type of people who would look to move to the US are the same type of people necessary for democracy to have even the remotest chance of success in Iraq. Therefore it only makes sense to take in large numbers of refugees if we intend to lose. Our failure in SE Asia is why we took in so many refugees. We haven't failed in SW Asia (at least not yet); so it makes no sense to outdo Sweden in this respect."
Carl nails it.
Nelson: Are you suggesting that an Iraqi family (you know, with kids in it) that fled Iraq when sectarian violence erupted should be hung out to dry?
Are you suggesting that any Iraqi who fled the violence is some kind of coward? If I lived in a country that had been invaded, and my life was in danger everywhere I went, I'd leave, unless I believed in my country a great deal. What reasons have Iraqis ever had to believe in their manufactured nation?
Sweden actually has a population of some 9 million people. Doesn't matter a lot for the sake of Megan's argument, but still. Facts are facts.
The Scandinavian 5-million inhabitants country is Denmark. We're the guys who's taken the biggest (mortal) casualty hit per capita in the fighting in Afghanistan. Not that anyone in the US knows or cares. They'll just harp about those friggin' commie lovin' Scandinavian countries.
As an evil ethnocentric American wary of immigrants with no previous criminal history who come to the US from the Middle East and fly airplanes into towers, I'm generally opposed to increasing immigration among people who come from the a nation filled with carbombers and death to America chanters...
These would be some of the massive floods of Iraqi refugees you said we would see if the Lancet mortality studies were correct, I take it.
"Are you suggesting that any Iraqi who fled the violence is some kind of coward?"
Adam - I did say they were scared. I may have done the same thing they did in their situation. What's your point? It doesn't benefit us to reward those who left instead of helping us. On the other hand, residency rights and US Citizenship are great rewards for those who dedicate their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to our cause. You would dilute this prize and make it worthless.
In the meantime, it seems we could do more to make life more comfortable for exiles in Syria and Jordan. Apparently, due to work-permit issues, Iraqi refugees in Syria, especially, are having a tough time surviving. From what I understand, Baghdad had a period of ethnic cleansing in which many Sunnis were forced to leave their homes. So, the problem for many Iraqis is they may not even have a proper home to return to after things calm down. The question is; can they or will they be willing to be reintegrated into another part of the country and what will this mean for the long-term stability of the country? Will Sunnis try to take back their neighborhoods in Baghdad if we leave? Can we prevent this from happening by being more proactive and encouraging repatriation into new areas(including Jordan and Syria)? I'm not too keen on staying in Iraq much longer but it seems at least we could do a little better in this area while we're pissing around. Otherwise, I think anyone whose life is in danger due to assisting the US(ie translators) should get US citizenship...it's the least we can do. Besides, future cooperation of other Iraqis might depend on our treatment of current ones.
Indeed, it is embarassing to have a small country like Sweden take in far more refugees than the US.
People arguing that these Iraqis are the types that need to stay there are fooling themselves. Most of these refugees belong to minority groups.
I can't stress this enough. Christianity in Iraq is already on the road to being wiped out in the next few generations. These refugees are just that, people with no homes to go to.
"The Scandinavian 5-million inhabitants country is Denmark. We're the guys who's taken the biggest (mortal) casualty hit per capita in the fighting in Afghanistan. Not that anyone in the US knows or cares. "
I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know this before, but I do now, thanks to you. And for what it's worth, I care. Thank you!
Gee, who would have thought that if you invade a country and totally destroy its infrastructure there might be some refugees?
How incredibly surprising to learn that war has consequences.
If you are truly ashamed turn your shame into action. Write a letter and call a Congressman.
And no, this is not a new story at all. Maybe it's new to Megan because she was busy reading bowling stories.
America paid the cost of liberating Iraq and freeing the people from the yoke of Saddam. When all the countries that criticzed and refused to help, have taken in as many refugees per capita as Sweden, then, and only then, should the US open its doors.
"I'm in favor of more open borders generally, of course, but at least that's a valid debate. Refusing to take even a trickle of the people displaced by our invasion is a deep stain on our national honor that anyone, left or right, should be eager to erase."
Nations don't have honor they just have interests. It is not in our interest to admit a bunch of undesirable potential future terrorists to our country and we should not do so. The likelihood of this occurring is yet another reason we shouldn't have gotten into this stupid war in the first place.
The Swedes are softhearted fools.
As you claimed "Despite my core belief that I live in the best country in the entire world, I'm basically a cosmopolitan. "
Where by 'cosmopolitan', you mean that you're deeply surprised that countries that don't launch wars of aggression that you supported actually try and clean up the mess that your country leaves behind ?
Never mind. You can always ignore this on the basis that the American people are more interested in obamas bowling scores.
One thing you can say about Megan's commenters is that they are nothing if not kind-hearted.
Megan you are great!
Sadly though your economics talk in the audio section is missing. The transit one was great and I would love to listen to the other if you put it back up.
It may not be 'new' news but I think it's always worth bringing some new attention to this story, since it wasn't the focus of the recent Petraeus/Crocker hearings(at least not the part I saw with the Foreign Relations Committee), and thus got little attention. I'm not so sure the 'shame on you, America' is as effective as focusing on individual stories of a refugee's plight, because I'm sure there are many many stories to be told, to bring a more complete picture(or at least less simplified)into view. Otherwise, people(like some of the posters here) might more easily imagine that these exiles are either troublemakers or cowards or what have you. But this is a start.
Can someone help me here? I thought that the immigration quotas were set by Congress, not the Bush Administration.
Not that I don't agree with Megan, but is it really Bush's fault?
We did not take in the Indochinese because of the ongoing Vietnam War.
We took them in because we lost that war, and those who had collaborated with us on our side of Vietnam needed asylum.
This is an entirely different situation, because while we might be losing, we haven't lost yet, and this war doesn't have firm geographic boundaries. If and when we actually lose, I hope we do the right thing by those who worked with us - but that's not now.
The translator/employee issue is a different one, and a damn shame at that.
It's sad that people who love America and take great risks to help America like the translators will be betrayed by America, while people in America who hate America will find themselves living off of trust funds and going to our finest universities.
If it was up to me, I'd arrange to switch those populations.
Most of the refugees are Sunnis. If you have been following the news, you will realize Anbar is now fairly safe and Baghdad does not have much ethnic cleansing going on anymore.
The refugees can come home. Except many are afraid of living in a Shia dominated state. Well, just like white South Africans, they better get used to the new state of affairs in their country.
Offering up immigration slots (because that's what asylum ends up meaning) to Iraqis would simply end up with a huge brain drain of economic refugees. Now, if we were losing the war and planning to bug out, I would agree that we should accept many more refugees, but we are not losing, and the Sunni areas are safe now.
Also, its pretty much an international standard now to keep refugees as close to their homeland as possible, because there is a big moral hazard that being overly generous with asylum, you simply encourage more refugees.
Rex:
"Can someone help me here? I thought that the immigration quotas were set by Congress, not the Bush Administration."
I am too lazy to look it up but I believe there is a rather open-ended exception for political refugees which gives the executive a lot of discretion.
Wow, Megan. Advocating for the downtrodden--that's a first. But I say, Amen. Let's have more of it. And an unpopular cause to boot. You go girl.
Thumbs down on the Michelle Obama quote out-of-context thing. Yesterday's news. But I'm very intrigued when you admit, "for the first time in my life, I'm utterly ashamed of my country."
This means that you've never, ever, ever felt any sense of shame or remorse or guilt for what our nation has done--now or in the past. So you've never felt any shame over slavery? The treatment of Native People? Jim Crow? Japanese detention camps? Good God, as an American I am filled with shame over these things. But that doesn't mean I hate this country It does mean that I--unlike you--don't blindly love, accept and advocate for everything our country does, regardless of its morality.
The more important point is that this proves what Greenald said about your and Drezner's overall view of America. He accused both of you of believing that: "It can never be the case that there is anything profoundly wrong -- fundamentally wrong -- with the American political establishment."
You proved him right by admitting that in your entire adult life you have never felt shame for any of our country's sometimes very, very dark and shameful actions.
Blake,
America is hardly the only country with "very, very dark and shameful actions" in its history, yet it is singled out for shaming far out of proportion to its brief history.
Leif Eriksson! Leif Eriksson!
Hello,
My name is aMouseforallSeasons, and a love Blake. Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I agree with Megan that this is a horrible stain on our national honor. I also agree with James Shearer that the problem of differentiating out possible terrorists among immigrants is likely to be very difficult and that this is another reason we should never have gotten into this stupid war. Given the intense level of visa scrutiny these days at US Embassies I think it would require an unbelievable wholesale reversal of trend in immigration policy to start accepting a remotely acceptable number of refugees. And most of all, I think that the fact that we are deeply worried that the refugees we accept may be coming to the US to kill us rather than to enjoy our hospitality and become Americans like previous generations of grateful refugees should tell us that something has gone unspeakably wrong with our foreign policy in recent decades.
Ok, I'm just going to state a possible alternative here.
If you head out of Iraq, you would cross a whole lot of not-so-sh**ty countries before you reach the United States. You may just well decide to stay there rather than go any further.
If you head out of Vietnam, esp circa 1975, you were surrounded by even sh**tier countries in most directions than the one you left, so once you got to the ocean you might as well head onto America or Australia, because you don't cross much in between.
Plus, how much is a function of an already pre-existing (i.e. pre-2003) expat community?
That said, I'm all in favor of letting in any Iraqi who wants to.
One can't help but wonder what the libertarian analysis of this situation is.
Carl says,
The type of people who would look to move to the US are the same type of people necessary for democracy to have even the remotest chance of success in Iraq. Therefore it only makes sense to take in large numbers of refugees if we intend to lose. Our failure in SE Asia is why we took in so many refugees. We haven't failed in SW Asia (at least not yet); so it makes no sense to outdo Sweden in this respect.
Shorter Carl: The people who's country we've invaded, relatives we've blown up, and lives we've destroyed (all for bogus, trumped-up reasons) need to stay where we tell them so that we don't lose face.
Stay awesome, Carl, and all you Carls out there.
If the US is wary of taking in potential terrorists, why the hell did it ever bother to liberate Iraq in the first place?
To those who think the US should force Iraqis to stay behind to rebuild Iraq, do you think kids from a dying rustbelt towns should be forced to stay rather than pursue prosperity in neighboring towns and States? Making Iraq into a virtual prison, turning it's people into inmates is a nice foul cherry to set atop the giant turd sundae the US has made.
The US broke it. The US isn't going to fix it. You'd think the US would at least have the class to make things better for a few Iraqis.
Oh, and Megan, is this really the first time you've been ashamed of your country? I mean, the US is a truly great place and all, but it certainly has it's fair share of black marks throughout history.
SOOO many great comments!
Most of which could be summarized as "whiny bastards aren't grateful enough to us for invading their country".
It does make sense for them to go to nearer countries if that's possible, but then you can look at a map and say "Sweden, really?"
I guess the Mediterranean countries are going through an anti-immigrant spell, but still I think Italy or Cyprus would be a great deal closer. Even Germany is a tad closer, certainly closer in lattitude. (Although Germany has many Turks and Turks don't get along with Iraqis it seems)
If you head out of Iraq, you would cross a whole lot of not-so-sh**ty countries before you reach the United States. You may just well decide to stay there rather than go any further. - Kolohe
The countries in which Iraqi refugees arrive by land are Syria and Jordan. This is similar to the Vietnamese boat-people situation: most arrived in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia or Indonesia, where many stayed in UN-administered refugee camps for up to a decade before being granted refugee status in first-world countries, mainly the US.
Iraqi refugees do not continue on by land to Europe; they would have to go clear through Turkey, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria etc. That doesn't happen. After Syria or Jordan, refugees who continue get on airplanes, and there's little meaningful difference between a flight to Stockholm and one to New York.
Plus, how much is a function of an already pre-existing (i.e. pre-2003) expat community? - Kolohe
I don't understand what you mean here. There were less than 10,000 Vietnamese in the US in 1970, most on student visas; there was virtually no Vietnamese-American community whatsoever when refugees began pouring into the country in 1975. They arrived in a vacuum. About 175,000 came in the first immediate wave; hundreds of thousands more arrived as boat people in the late '70s, and hundreds of thousands more from those refugee camps in the late '80s, bringing us up eventually to over 1 million Vietnamese immigrants by the time immigration slowed in the '90s. The Iraqi-American community is probably better-established today than the Vietnamese-American one was in 1975.
Just noticed? Better late than never, and it's good to keep bringing it up.It is shameful. As of about a year ago, we had only let in about 600. In some cases we've used the vetting backlog as an excuse , for people that worked for us, and were already vetted! Anything to avoid admitting all is not well in Freedomistan.
Yes , Sweden!. On a few occasions when I read Iraqis asking , anyone out there , about getting out , and how to get here , I , embarrassed and ashamed, suggested that they try Sweden instead, and go from there . Got one brief positive response , months after the fact . Guess it worked out for one of them. Another brick of shame this abomistration has loaded upon us.
So.... How's it working out for the Sweeds?
"Not that I don't agree with Megan, but is it really Bush's fault?"
Yes! First of all ,who started this craptastrophe?
On this particular part , Congress , especially Ted Kennedy has tried to do something. The WH pulled out all of the usual arsenal to stop it . Obfuscation, procedural stalling, dismissive denials of the scope of it, fear-mongering , by-your-bootstraps rhetoric, patriotism, 9/11, just plain inaction, etc,etc. Watch the 60 Minutes interview of one of Condi's underlings . Keep in mind, not even what little is mentioned , was done.
To put the problem in perspective , extrapolate it to the US population . That would mean (here) 6-7 million dead, 18-20 million refugees gone to Canada and Mexico, and a similar number displaced within the country . How many refugees were there from Katrina? So the Iraqi refugee problem would be similar to 50-70 Katrinas for us? Do you think that might be a problem beyond an individual's ability solve unaided? Now remember this wasn't a natural disaster, but the result of someone's choice.Does the choser bear any responsibility to help?
"friggin' commie lovin'"
"obamas bowling scores"
Not only are there such kind-hearted commenters here, but so many of them have taken Non Sequitur 101: Making Comments That Say Absolutely Nothing, Made Simple For All!
It brings tears of joy to my eyes, this dedicated usage of the grandest of all logical fallacies. All that remains is a round of insults directed at maternal family members, and we might as well be chatting in Yahoo! for all the good it does.
MoeLarryandJesus said:
"I don't call our "leaders" Bushpigs for nothing. These are people who don't give a damn how many lives they destroy or what kind of wreckage they leave behind."
This is laughable. Did you call the Clinton Administration "Clintonpigs" for conducting a bombing campaign that permanently drove close to a million Kosovars from their homes. We still have American troops stationed in Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans although Clinton famously promised that the troops in Bosnia would be "home by Christmas" Last fall, almost ten years after the war "ended", the UN was still debating whether to make Kosovo a separate country. The Serbs burned our embassy in Belgrade a couple of months ago in protest.
How many of those refugees from that failed war, waged on the false pretense of a non-existent "genocide", without a plan for the peace were granted asylum in the United States? None of them. You and Megan need to be less selective in your outrage to be credible.
So, maybe we could give some thought to the likely plight of refugees, both our helpers and random people trying to avoid being murdered, robbed, or raped during the war, before our next adventure in imposing democracy on someplace?
One thing to keep in mind is that many of the Iraqis who fled to Jordan and especially to Syria were Baath Party members who'd served Saddam as military officers, government functionaries, and scientists involved with his various WMD programs.
We didn't grant refugee status to Nazis after World War II, or to Viet Cong fighters after the fall of Saigon. Why should we treat the Baathists differently?
Iraqi scientists who worked on Saddam's WMD programs are probably the only Iraqis who can get for the US.
Sweden was very generous taking refugees from the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s. Not any longer. It is quite impossible for anyone to legally flee to Sweden nowadays.
However, some of our Iraqi-born citizens do not seem to share this official cold attitude towards the victims of the current conflict. So through various private initiatives we have gotten quite good at receiving refugees. Unless we can find some peaceful transit country to blame, and deport the refugee to, she may stay.
Our official agencies are of course busy solving both these problems. First by bringing trafficking charges towards anyone they can find helping refugees get here. Then the immigration agency managed to find out that there is not actually any armed conflict in Iraq. Thus making it possible to deport refugees to Iraq.
The fact finding mission that drew this remarkable conclusion never visited Iraq, due to security concerns.
(The Swedish definition of armed conflict is apparently that two, or more, recognized armed groups are fighting. Since none of the various insurgency groups in Iraq has been recognized as a legitimate guerrilla force there can be no armed conflict...)
I am just curious how many Kosovar and Bosnian refugees we accepted back in those days and if they eventually went home or not.
Also, how safe does Iraq need to be before Sunnis can return to Anbar and Baghdad? In Anbar units are now rotating out that suffered ZERO losses in their tour of duty. Safe enough?
Baghdad I would concede would be the place where I can see refugees waiting until they are completely sure the death squads won't be coming back.
Final question: if you were an Iraqi refugee fleeing Iraq would you prefer to live in Jordan, Syria, or some other culturally Arabic country, or move to Sweden? If you answer, Sweden, why?
If your next answer revolves around the standard of living in Sweden, then I'd say you're supporting economic refugees instead of simply people looking for a safe haven. Jordan and Syria are as safe as Sweden for Iraqis and besides the cultural advantage, family members can make trips back to see their property, take care of business etc.
In Anbar units are now rotating out that suffered ZERO losses in their tour of duty. Safe enough? - Aaron
So as long as the returning refugee families travel in platoons, make sure their toddlers' weapons are loaded, up-armor their Humvees, keep their Kevlar on under their abas and call in artillery strikes promptly when attacked on the way to kindergarten, they should be fine.
People don't want to be refugees. We'll know whether Iraq is safe enough when all the refugees go back. If they're still in Syria, it's not safe enough.
"A country full of a few million excessively blond people is taking in more Iraqis than the country whose beloved national icon is inscribed 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free?'"
People that actually want to breathe free don't come to the US. One need only look at the immigration system in the US to recognize why. For those whom the immigration system is their first experience with US bureaucracy, it's an obvious example of how non-free the US is.
I don't really blame the people that go somewhere else when they're looking for real freedom. The US gave up on that years ago.
Megan,
Did you check the American public's interest in this topic first? Since it doesn't really appeal to the consumers of mass news, you probably shouldn't bother talking about it, no matter how important or moral it is, because that's just the way American news media work. Or so you say.
America is hardly the only country with "very, very dark and shameful actions" in its history, yet it is singled out for shaming far out of proportion to its brief history.
As I have said and will continue to say, the relative morality of the United States is immaterial; it's the actual morality that I'm interested in. America's actions can be made no more or less moral by the actions of other countries. I criticize America because I want America to be a moral agent in the world, and because America is my country-- and as a member of American democracy it is my responsibility to criticize its conduct when that conduct is immoral or inadvisable.
'If your next answer revolves around the standard of living in Sweden, then I'd say you're supporting economic refugees instead of simply people looking for a safe haven. Jordan and Syria are as safe as Sweden for Iraqis and besides the cultural advantage, family members can make trips back to see their property, take care of business etc.
Posted by Aaron
Syria has taken in over 60% of Iraqi refugees and Jordan has taken about 35%. They don't want more. They actively discourage refugees from coming in. They often decline to give them official refugee status so they can be more easily repatriated against their will. Refugees have good reason to believe that fleeing to some other nation will be more likely to preserve their lives.
Good post, but Jim brings up a bit of history:
These would be some of the massive floods of Iraqi refugees you said we would see if the Lancet mortality studies were correct, I take it.
For those who don't remember, Megan (under the nom de plume Jane Galt) argued that the Lancet estimates of Iraqi deaths had to be way too high, because if they were correct there would have been lots of refugees. She wrote:
Need I point out that if Davies is right, and Burnham et. al. [the Lancet authors] are right, then we should be seeing massive floods of refugees?
The only problem with that argument was there had already been millions of refugees, as was widely reported. (See also this comment section for more discussion.) Reminds me of Dan Drezner's argument that the torture memo wasn't getting more play because Yoo had a made any comment (in reality, he'd granted a lengthy interview).
It reminds me of the school vouchers debate quite a lot actually.
You have a broken system with people living in it, and the US Government is trying (with limited success) to fix it.
the people say: "Let us leave! This thing is broken!"
US Gov: "Don't worry, we're fixing it. Should just be another 5-15 years. Sit tight."
People: "But in those years, I'll suffer by living in this system! I want out now! I'll come back after it's fixed."
US Gov: "No, don't leave, if all the people like you leave, it'll get even harder to fix. You should stay and work with us for the good of the system, even if it's a crappy few years for you."
I understand the motivations of both sides, and they both seem reasonable, but I have a hard time with the idea of compelling the people to stay in the broken system when they want to leave.
If your analogy is going to work, Geoff, the people need to say not only "We want to leave Iraq, and we want you to give us the money that you'd spend on us to improve Iraq, and we don't particularly care that taking that money will hurt those left behind, and by the way, no oversight on how we use the money, because oversight is bureaucracy and that's what we're trying to get away from."
Correction to my 10:24 comment:
"Yoo had a made any comment" -> "Yoo hadn't made any comment"
How many Iraqi immigrants do we have to take before we "unshame" ourselves? How many Iraqis would want to come? If too many want to come, how do we decide who a real refuge and who is an economic refugee?
I would count our political inability to take in actual Iraqi refuges as one of the opportunity costs of taking in way too many economic refugees from Latin America during the last two decades.
"How many Iraqi immigrants do we have to take before we "unshame" ourselves? How many Iraqis would want to come? If too many want to come, how do we decide who a real refuge and who is an economic refugee?"
The political/economic distinction is not relevant here, because we are the direct cause of Iraq's economic and political troubles. Because of this, both groups have strong moral right to enter this country.
How many will come? Polls consistently indicate that 10% of Palestinians would accept Israeli citizenship and move to Israel if they had the chance. Palestine is less violent than Iraq, but has a much lower per-capita income, so this gives us a rough estimate for the number of refugees who would leave Iraq.
That's about 2.9 million people, roughly two years worth of immigration. That seems too high to you?
"If the US is wary of taking in potential terrorists, why the hell did it ever bother to liberate Iraq in the first place?"
To fight them over there instead of over here.
That's a gross oversimplification, and I very much doubt that Bush's team expected it to work out the way that has - or else there's no excuse at all for not supplying them with better armored vehicles long before now - but it's what has been happening. Better to have them setting up IEDs for troops in armored vehicles and Kevlar vests than to have them targeting shopping malls, and much, much better to have that going on in another country. (It's not so good for the residents of that country - but my sympathy for the Iraqis is limited considering that they tolerated the rule of a murderous psychopath for so long.)
Mirth,
As someone who is preparing a long term residency permit for a European country I can say their requirements are no easier. Personal visits to the consulate, legal papers filled out in the native language, proof of health insurance, proof of financial means to pay for myself, a lease with the apartment I will move into (get a lease before moving in to the country?), statements from the local county office stating I have always been in good standing with US authorities...
Once I get there I have 3 days in which to fill out another type of residency permit, otherwise I can not legally rent (even though I already signed a lease), can not open a bank account, etc.
If I want to buy a piece of property I have to go through another permit process with the government as a foreigner stating why I want to buy it, and what I will use it for.
European bureaucracy is probably the worse in the world, because at least you can bribe the bureaucrats in the third world. In europe the taxes are so high to make the bureaucrats well paid and beyond reproach... :) (just a joke)
Anyway, once you get past the bureaucracy many places in Europe are a fine place to live.
Carl--way up at the top nailed it, but here is another way to think about it.
We invaded Iraq out of the belief that it was in our interest to do so.
It is now in our interest to help establish a stable, democratic society there. It furthers our interest for able Iraqis to help build-up their country. It would be counter-productive for the United States to offer Iraqis U.S. residence.
We are not, by the way, preventing any Iraqi (other than prisoners) from leaving: They can go to anyplace that will take them. Sweden helps each Iraqi they take in but at the same time it hinders the rebuilding effort in Iraq. If there is a way out, people will devote their energy to getting out. If there is no way out, people will devote their energy to building a better place.
It is no accident that people advocating for mass-resettlement are the same people who think we have lost or cannot win this struggle. In that case they are sensible: We will save those we can, the rest will be left to the wolves. For those of us who belive in victory, the prize is large--nobody has to be left behind. Their country can be made into a livable, desirable place.
people displaced by our invasion
It is incorrect to say that most of the displaced Iraqis were displaced by our invasion. I know that for some people, when it rains in Iraq, it's our fault. But the proximate cause of the displacement is sectarianism, and the US invasion did not cause sectarianism in Iraq.
Moreover, I don't see how it is an apt comparison to compare Iraqis taken in during this conflict with Vietnamese taken in after the Vietnam war. How many Vietnamese refugees did we take in prior to our defeat there?
I fully accept that, if (when) Obama declares surrender in Iraq and pulls out our troops like we did in Vietnam, and civil war inevitably breaks out in full thereafter, Obama will have an obligation to take in lots and lots of refugees. But the situation now is not the same.
That said, we could still probably do a better job taking in people like Translators who have been assisting our troops there and have been targeted for doing so.
As I have said and will continue to say, the relative morality of the United States is immaterial; it's the actual morality that I'm interested in.
Freddie, there was a thread a little while ago about the Democratic candidates claims that they would withdraw from/ renegotiate NAFTA. It was pointed out that they wanted America to break its word to one of its closest allies, in order to benefit itself at that allies expense. And that that would be an immoral thing to do.
You justified their plans by writing that an American President is only responsible to and for the American people. And that effects on non-Americans do not matter.
Clearly your concern about the morality of American policy ends whenever a Democratic president enters the White House.
Some people might claim that trade policy was too unimportant to be a serious issue of morals – although wars have been fought over such issues – but someone who loved America so much that he desired its behaviour to be always unimpeachable, would not have been able to believe in your justification.
Freddie,
Sure, in any analogy there's going to be details that don't match, but I still think this one's pretty good. The refugees in this case don't just want our permission to leave, they also want us to grant them something of value which isn't granted to everyone - in this case permission to immigrate to the US. It doesn't come with a direct figure of its cash value, but I'm sure there are many who would pay for it if it did, and I'm sure it ends up as a net cost for the US Government.
But the larger issue I'm getting at isn't really about the funds - I doubt that voucher opponents would be happy if we allowed vouchers, but then increased educational funding by that amount - but the notion that by leaving the system, you make it harder to fix. If all the law-abiding productive citizens of Iraq fled, leaving only the insurgents and sectarian combatants, how much harder would it be to stabilize?
Ultimately, at a high level, you have the Gov saying "we're working on fixing this system, please don't leave just because it's broken right now"
So let me get this straight:
We can't allow Iraqi refugees into the US because there are a lot of Iraqi terrorists (who, oddly, were not terrorists 6 years ago).
I guess that means things really are going well in Iraq right now!
Either we get out of their country or we accept their refugees. You can't have it both ways if you actually want to make America safer and care about the effects that our invasion has had on the people we supposedly "helped."
You justified their plans by writing that an American President is only responsible to and for the American people. And that effects on non-Americans do not matter.
ad, you are either genuinely ignorant of (unlikely) or willfully ignoring (likely) the difference between the physical, direct and immediate effects of aggressive military action on foreign soil and the ephemeral, vague, indirect financial effects of trade policy. Invading another country by force and making minor changes to internal trade policy are entirely different, in intent, in effect, and in kind.
And, by the way, if you actually want to accurately represent my views, I said that what should matter to Presidential candidates is the opinions of their own voters, not the people of other countries. That is, of course, entirely a different statement than "effects on people in other countries doesn't matter". But you knew that. Didn't you?
No, because I was going by memory. Perhaps you could provide a link to the relevant post to disprove my memory?
If I understand your closing statement, when an MP for Liverpool was considering the abolition of the slave trade, what should have mattered to him was the opinion of his own voters, not the opinion of people being shipped from Africa to, for example, Brazil. That is a very interesting moral claim.
Assuming that you do not regard the Democratic candidates or voters as immoral, you consider it acceptable for America to break its word to Canada in order to make Canadians poorer and Americans, they believe, richer.
This implies that you are uninterested in Canadian incomes when American ones at stake.
This makes it very hard to believe that you are interested in Iraqi lives when American ones are at stake.
And the Administration, of course, believed that it was acting to enhance the physical security of Americans. That it was acting to save the lives of some of them.
To accept the first, and object to the second, on moral grounds alone, you would have to believe that to injure or kill someone else to make yourself safer from possible injury or death was wrong, and that it was acceptable to defraud someone else to make yourself richer.
A person who acted this way would not ordinarily be thought to be holding himself to a very high standard of ethics.
But the proximate cause of the displacement is sectarianism, and the US invasion did not cause sectarianism in Iraq.
No, Al, the proximate cause of the displacement of people in Iraq is having feet. If Iraqis didn't have any feet, they wouldn't be able to get around very easily, and there wouldn't be so many refugees. The US invasion did not cause Iraqis to have feet, so we are not responsible for the refugees.
I swear, you may be one of the most logic-deprived bloggers I've ever seen on the internet.
For many practical reasons, I'm not sure advocating for 2 million Iraqi refugees to get US visas is the best plan. And I'm pretty liberal.
But what seems feasible and ethical for right now(and maybe not even abhorrent to conservatives) is to use the Iraqi govt's oil funds to set up a process of assistance for sorting out who can be repatriated(and by this I mean helping them find new homes and opportunities for self-sufficiency), versus those who can't return to current hot-spots like Mosul or Basra(intra-Shia sect violence), versus those who were translators and the like who actively helped the US and are in great danger, versus those who are insurgents, etc. I'm sure it's a complicated mess, and not one size fits all. But more should be done to address the issue(this seems an area in which those UN members who don't want to assist with combat troops could assist with either money or logistical support in this humanitarian effort).
We should not admit any Iraqis to the USA.
Do you really want to read about "honor killings" in the USA? You know, when a young Arab man murders his own sister for going to school without her veil? Or would you like to see gang-rapists let off (as they have been in Sweden) because they are Arabs and their victim was a Christian girl who "invited" their attack by walking down the street with her hair loose?
Do you want to pay for lifetime medical care for many thousands of children with genetic birth defects caused by the consanguineous (incestuous) marriages of their parents? Approximately 29% of all Iraqi marriages are between first cousins and around 60% are consanguineous (one of the highest rates of inbreeding in the world). Note that Iraqis are satisfied with their cultural norms (which have served them well enough in their ancestral homeland) and would resent, resist, and evade any pressure to behave differently in the USA. They would even claim religious exemption from American incest laws. At the same time, their children with congenital birth defects who would simply perish young in Iraq would claim advanced and hideously expensive medical care, special schooling, and lifetime support in America at the expense of American taxpayers.
We must exclude all Iraqis from the USA. I don't care how cruel this sounds. The costs of the war including the woes of potential "refugees" are sunk costs. We must look forward and avoid adding new costs to those already spent (wasted). Megan particularly should understand this.
The Iraq war has been and continues to be spectacularly foolish and destructive. It has cost the USA trillions of dollars and thousands of lives; it is costing Iraqis perhaps tens of thousands of lives and uncounted dinars. The USA should pull out of Iraq immediately (yes, precipitously, with haste just short of panic). To the devil with Bush's historical reputation.
However, all the costs of the war so far are beyond recall. We must not add to them. Admitting Iraqi "refugees" (not temporary refugees, because if we admit them they will never leave) would increase war costs in both treasure and blood.
The admission of any large number of Iraqis, especially unskilled "refugees," would harm the American people above and beyond what the Bush administration has already done to them.
Virtually all Iraqis are acculturated and educated to behave in ways unsuited to life in America. Virtually all of them are tribalists, and nearly all of them are violent racist, sexist homophobes, religiously- intolerant Muslims, and ill-educated socialists with no concept of how to live in an society based on the notion of civic equality under the rule of law.
Many Iraqi "refugees" would become embittered in the USA and turn to crime or even terrorism. It is certain that most of the imams in their mosques would preach hatred, violence, and terrorism. Imams in America already do that. Many US-born children of "refugees" or child "refugees" would grow up unhappy and turn to crime or mosque-approved terrorism. Most Iraqi refugees would have few or no employable skills in the USA and would subsist on welfare and crime. The young ones would resent their awkward place in society, and the older ones would be deeply angry and bitter about the "delinquency" of the young ones as they assimilated to the hedonistic, sexually-liberal, musical, and disobedient side of America's "bad neighborhood" cultures.
Based on the performance of other tribal peoples brought to the USA in the aftermath of a failed war (e.g., Hmong from Vietnam) we can predict with confidence that Iraqi refugees would found just another permanently dysfunctional and dangerous insular ethnic community in the USA, living off taxes imposed on current Americans plus the proceeds of crimes against current Americans.
If you feel sorry for some Iraqi Arabs because they worked for the US occupation or whatever, then feel free to pay them pensions. But do not invite them, and their cousin-spouses, and their spastic children, and their violent intolerance, into the USA, onto America's welfare rolls, and into America's prisons (once they earn their spaces by murdering or maiming some woman or gay or Jew in America).
Kolohe:
"That said, I'm all in favor of letting in any Iraqi who wants to."
Wonderful. Let's welcome Al Qaeda in Iraq to the USA.
Brooksfoe @ 1:07 - good point re Iraqi transit. My second point with the expat community was exclusively about the current situation - i.e. how much of where Iraqi's end up these days is due to an exisiting community. I have heard of some ethnic communities in places one would otherwise not think of them being in, so I was wondering how much of that was the case here.
And to the rest (i.e. Wecshman and Shearer), yeah I remember growing up in NoVa in the late 70's early 80's where you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a vietnamese person either formenting communist revolution or eating dogs.
Wankers.
Has anyone ever seen Welshman and Chris Ford together?
Although I have been told that Megan is very tall, now I know it. She *must* be to get up so high on that horse. :)
Although I have been told that Megan is very tall, now I know it. She *must* be to get up so high on that horse. :)
So we're fighting for Iraqi freedom, but won't grant them the freedom to come here? That's logical. When you are forced from your home, Syria and Jordan won't take you in and Europeans are just going to be racist towards you, where are you supposed to go? Iraqis didn't ask to be invaded or be ruled by Hussein. They didn't ask for any of this. It is just sick to turn around and say to them "now that we've freed you, make sure you don't come here." Part of freedom is the freedom to decide that you don't want to stick around while your people are being ethnically cleansed. Telling them they have to stay for their own good is telling them they are children who don't know what's best for them and their families.
So we let muslims into america, some of them blow up the WTC, that leads to to muslim countries being invaded, with hundreds of thousands of muslims dying. A tragedy for all involved but the solution offered by Megan McArdle is absolutely insane.
The ultimate cause of Iraq being wrecked is us letting muslims into america. Letting in masses of more muslims into america can only up the chances of the of more US towers getting wrecked and more middle eastern countries getting wrecked in the future.
That isn't humanitarianism, that is sheer short-sighted idiocy.
jt007 quotes and writes: ""I don't call our "leaders" Bushpigs for nothing. These are people who don't give a damn how many lives they destroy or what kind of wreckage they leave behind."
This is laughable. Did you call the Clinton Administration "Clintonpigs" for conducting a bombing campaign that permanently drove close to a million Kosovars from their homes. We still have American troops stationed in Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans although Clinton famously promised that the troops in Bosnia would be "home by Christmas" Last fall, almost ten years after the war "ended", the UN was still debating whether to make Kosovo a separate country. The Serbs burned our embassy in Belgrade a couple of months ago in protest.
How many of those refugees from that failed war, waged on the false pretense of a non-existent "genocide", without a plan for the peace were granted asylum in the United States? None of them. You and Megan need to be less selective in your outrage to be credible."
Actually all anyone has to do is google "kosovar refugees" to find stories about thousands of Kosovars who were granted asylum in the US, so you're an easily proven liar, jt. But then you lie constantly, because you're a movement conservative, and it's really all you know how to do.