The Iraqi refugee crisis

January 2, 2007

Thousands of Iraqis are desperately fleeing their country every day, leading many to believe the U.S. should do far more to help the refugees, including welcoming them to our country.

With thousands of Iraqis desperately fleeing this country every day, advocates for refugees, and even some American officials, say there is an urgent need to allow more Iraqi refugees into the United States.

Until recently the Bush administration had planned to resettle just 500 Iraqis this year, a mere fraction of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who are now believed to be fleeing their country each month…. Until recently, the administration did not appear to understand the gravity of the problem.

If only I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that sentence.

“We’re not even meeting our basic obligation to the Iraqis who’ve been imperiled because they worked for the U.S. government,” said Kirk W. Johnson, who worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Falluja in 2005. “We could not have functioned without their hard work, and it’s shameful that we’ve nothing to offer them in their bleakest hour.”

Added Lavinia Limon, president of the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a nongovernmental refugee resettlement agency, “I don’t know of anyone inside the administration who sees this as a priority area. If you think you’re winning, you think they’re going to go back soon.”

The crisis seems to be headed for the desk of Ellen Sauerbrey, the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Is she up to the task? I’m glad you asked.

Sauerbrey has literally no background in setting up refugee camps, delivering emergency supplies, and mobilizing international responses to humanitarian crises. Upon being nominted, her only “qualification” for the job seemed to be that she was a Republican activist looking for a job in the administration.

Indeed, the moment Bush nominated Sauerbrey for the post, advocates for refugees balked. Tapping Sauerbrey to lead an agency with a $700-million annual budget, responsible for coordinating the nation’s response to refugee crises during natural disasters and wars, despite no relevant job experience, seemed like a spectacularly bad idea.

During her confirmation hearings, Senate Dems, with the Michael Brown/FEMA story on their minds, said Sauerbrey’s background wasn’t good enough.

Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), whose staff played a key role in organizing opposition to Sauerbrey, named previous holders of the post, noting that many had extensive expertise in refugee matters. “It’s really raising the question about the qualifications that you bring to handle this refugee issue,” he said.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said: “I think the concern here is just that the issues of refugee relief are a very specific and extraordinarily difficult task, and it doesn’t appear that this is an area where you have specific experience.”

Senate Republicans, true to form, approved her nomination anyway.

Given the scope and the seriousness of the Iraqi refugee crisis, who’s confident that Sauerbrey is the best person for the job?

You know, it’s going to sound awfully Goode of me, but frankly I don’t want to trust the Bushites with the responsibility of deciding which Iraqis to allow into this country. Considering their noted incompetence at everything else (not to mention occasional corruption) I’d expect Jihadists to pay their way into the United States while translators who worked with us are left to be slaughtered in Iraq.

I mean, are we fighting a war “there” so that they can sneak their way into “here”.

  • Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes: “It’s really raising the question about the qualifications that you bring to handle this refugee issue,” he said.

    Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said: “I think the concern here is just that the issues of refugee relief are a very specific and extraordinarily difficult task, and it doesn’t appear that this is an area where you have specific experience.”

    I guess politicians learn to talk in law school. How about saying, “You suck.” “You can’t do this job.” “You’re not qualified for this job.” “This is total bullshit!”

  • Don’t worry Lance, (you do sound a bit of a Goode-y Two Shoes) I’m sure any Iraqi citizen who wants to come to a country where he has been alternately portrayed as a victim of a dictator or a terrorist depending on La Deciderer’s needs, will be kept some where “safe.” There’s that old prison at Gitmo for starters… Although I think it would be fairly amusing to put everyone in Virginia, give them a baseball bat and a picture of Virgil.

    I doubt who gets in (and their intentions) will ever become an issue with assclowns like E.S. in charge. Files will go missing, applications will be delayed, names of people wanted by various death squads will be publicly released, every one with the last name Hussein (Hassain, Hussan etc) will have to undergo cavity probes of such intensity they’ll decide to stay put…

    Besides, a sudden flood of refugees from Iraq might give the impression that success is not just around the corner and you know BushBaby won’t want that. These people will be left in limbo until 2009, settle in somewhere else or die, allowing the ReThugs to say the refugee problem was blown out of proportion by the librul media.

    tAiO

    p.s. Amen Dale! A-fucking-MEN!

  • Is that a helicopter I hear on the roof?
    Comment by Frak

    🙂 New usenet group: out.of.iraq.whack.whack.whack.

  • Wow, another totally unqualified Bush crony. What a shock.

    Dale, you wouldn’t make a good politician, and that’s a compliment.

    Lance, I hear what you’re saying, but if the bad guys wanted to come here, all they would have to do is walk over the Canadian or Mexican border. Once here, they could hijack a couple of fuel tankers and cause a nationwide panic, or just copy the DC sniper (same effect). But this obviously hasn’t happened.

    Easier targets yet would be the thousands of Americans in foreign countries, who would be easy targets for any Jihadist worth their salt. But they’re not being killed either. Obviously the jihadists do not want to kill Americans, other than the ones that occupy their country. They want us to leave them alone so they can kill the “moderate” dictators we’ve been propping up since oil was found there.

    Bin Laden attacked us so we would punch the tarbaby in Afghanistan, and he got the bonus of us punching TWO of them, and enraging the muslim world.

    Allowing Iraqi refugees to come here might help to win some hearts and minds, probably not many, but it would be the right thing to do.

  • I feel so sorry for all the people driven from their homes. America has created a big problem. The Iraqi diaspora is likely to contain a certain number of pissed off people. They may not be as zen as the Vietnamese folks who came to America after our conflict in their country.

    We should get serious about addressing this refugee crisis we created. Let’s help those folks over there, so we don’t have to help them over here.

  • Iraq is a war of sensory deprivation for Americans. We don’t mind sending soldiers over there to die, so long as they are not us or from our families. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars, so long as we don’t feel the financial pain or acknowledge the problem. We don’t want to see the dead returning and criticize the press for showing too much reality. And when we debate the impacts of this war, we talk about it in terms of how it helps or hurts only George W Bush’s image.

    Now people are fleeing the carnage we ignited and we say fine, they can live anywhere they like as long as it’s not here. Iraq is really showing the true stripes of this country, and we are not the myth we believe of ourselves. … At least in the actions of our government.

  • the administration did not appear to understand the gravity of the problem.

    Is there anything that has happened since January 20, 2001 – anything? – about which that cannot be said????

    Most. Incompetent. White. House. Ever.

  • “Lance, I hear what you’re saying, but if the bad guys wanted to come here, all they would have to do is walk over the Canadian or Mexican border.” – RacerX

    Considering that the 9/11/01 highjackers just took a plane in, why should they bother walking from Canada?

    “Don’t worry Lance, (you do sound a bit of a Goode-y Two Shoes)” – TAIO

    I think you missed the joke.

    I suggest a special tax on the Carlisle Group and Haliberton to fund the relocation of all these unhappy refugees.

  • “Humor aside, Cheney’s a little too late to avoid this tarbaby.” – Former Dan – 2/13/2006 @ 12:44 pm

    “tarbaby of temptation” – Dale – 8/21/2006 @ 12:17 pm

    “Iraq is his tarbaby.” – Tom Cleaver – 8/16/2006 @ 12:38 pm

    “get B’rer Bush and B’rer Cheney out of the tarbaby” – Tom Cleaver – 10/14/2006 @ 12:27 pm

    “The Tarbaby is this mummies first cousin.” – burro – 11/19/2005 @ 1:44 pm

    “Picking a fight with a tarbaby is a choice.” – Alibubba – 12/8/2006 @ 7:26 pm

    “punch the tarbaby in Afghanistan” – Racerx — 1/2/2007 @ 3:14 pm (see above #6)

    ===============

    “Snow’s poor choice of words”, Posted May 17, 2006 @ 9:10 am – CarpetBagger

    as the New York Times noted today, the “tar baby” phrase “carries vague racist connotations,” and has been used as derogatory term for African Americans. The NYT added, “most politicians and TV commentators prefer to avoid tar baby references.”

    As a rule, that seems like a good idea. Think Progress summarized the issue nicely in “memo” to Snow.

    Based on the context of the term, we believe you meant tar baby to mean: “a situation almost impossible to get out of; a problem virtually unsolvable.”

    But in “American lore,” the expression tar baby is also a racial slur “used occasionally as a derogatory term for black people.” Use of the term has resulted in people being fired.

    As Random House notes, “some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context. . . .

    . . . .it was certainly a poor choice of words.

    ===============

    Are we supposed to be avoiding this term or not?

  • This story was the headline in today’s Oregonian, and I’m glad to see it. Usually it is we bloggers who get the scoop while the MSM keeps it under wraps.

  • Sorry Lance, I thought you were at least semi-serious. I could easily see a BushBot turning away refugees who really need help (possibly because they refuse to convert to Xtianity) while rolling out the welcome mat to a bunch of creeps with murder on their minds. “Oh, you’re a friend of a Saudi prince? Formerly a prince? Gosh, I really love his music, come on in!”
    Gah.

    But I guess that sums up the effect ShrubCo has had on America. When discussing possible fuck ups it is impossible to tell if the speaker is joking or not.

    I suggest a special tax on the Carlisle Group and Haliberton to fund the relocation of all these unhappy refugees.

    Which they will earn back when they build Camp Welcome to America for the refugees.

    [File under things that seem funny now…]

  • Are we supposed to be avoiding this term or not?

    apparently so. However, I think this is entirely regrettable as the term has great meaning given its genesis in American folklore. To lose that metaphor just because racists coopted the term is our culture’s loss.

  • Good point Danny #11, and nicely documented, too. I’ve been mulling the same question, but just haven’t cared enough to ask it.

    I think what it comes down to is this- What Tony Snow says is a target because he’s the WH Press Secretary, while nobody really cares too much how us blogger-nobodys use language.

    There you go. A to B.

  • “To lose that metaphor just because racists coopted the term is our culture’s loss.” – Edo

    I agree, unfortunately much of what racists choose to do and say affects culture in so many ways. The nazi cross is only offensive because racists chose to use it. It was in use in many cultures long before the nazi’s decided to use it and wasn’t considered offensive.

    Many see the confederate flag as a symbol of states rights or of southern culture in general, and yet it also carries strong racist connotations.

    The fact that someone doesn’t intend racist meanings in something they say or display doesn’t mean that it isn’t taken that way. The question is, do we cover our eyes, ears, and mouths and avoid using any words or symbols that racists have chosen to use in a deragotory way, thereby donating the word or symbol to the racists? Or do we strive to use the term or symbol in non racist ways as much as possible to overcome the racist connotations and remove from the racists their ability to force alternate meanings on us?

    I’m never sure what “ought” to be done, but it’s always been pretty clear what is “usually” done.

  • Quoted from the WaPo story:

    ***Sauerbrey responded that she has significant management, budgetary and humanitarian experience, noting her role in managing the U.S. Census in three Maryland counties.***

    A humanitarian crisis of epic proportions is equal to conducting a census in three counties? Probably high-end, commercial/retail counties—with a healthy smattering of million-dollar condominiums added….

  • I guess that’s what has Goode’s knickers in a twist — the possibily of Iraqi refugees pouring in. I never could figure out how he was tying Ellison to immigration reform; it didn’t make any sense. But, if he’s afraid of the refugees pouring in, then, trying to block it even before it’s debated would make sense from his point of view.

  • “Many see the confederate flag as a symbol of states rights or of southern culture in general, and yet it also carries strong racist connotations.” – Danny

    That might just be because the flag and the Confederacy itself didn’t exist until the South decided that the Republican policy of stopping the spread of slavery to new territories was an attack on their “charished institution”. The flag represents nothing but rebellion based on fear of change.

  • I have no confidence that Bush, Rice, Sauerbray and whomever else may be involved (or is supposed to be involved) can do anything competent with regards to a refugee crisis. Bush and his crew don’t do policy and they don’t seem to be inclined to hire competent individuals or even individals who may have a passing knowledge of the area they are being hired to “manage.” If this government can’t or won’t take care of its own citizens then it can’t or won/t take care of anyone elses.

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