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A Refugee Crisis Made In America
Submitted by Philip Giraldi via TheAmericanConservative.com,
On April 29th, 2008 I had a Saul on the Road to Damascus moment. I had flipped open the Washington Post and there, on the front page, was a color photo of a two year old Iraqi boy named Ali Hussein being pulled from the rubble of a house that had been destroyed by American missiles. The little boy was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and had on his feet flip-flops. His head was hanging back at an angle that told the viewer immediately that he was dead.
Four days later on May 3rd a letter by a Dunn Loring Virginia woman named Valerie Murphy was printed by the Post. Murphy complained that the Iraqi child victim photo should not have been run in the paper because it would “stir up opposition to the war and feed anti-US sentiment.” I suppose the newspaper thought it was being impartial in printing the woman’s letter, though I couldn’t help but remember that the neocon-dominated Post had generally been unwilling to cover anything antiwar, even ignoring a gathering of 300,000 protesters in Washington in 2005. Rereading the woman’s complaint and also a comment on a website suggesting that the photo of the dead little boy had been staged, I thought to myself, “What kind of monsters have we become.” And in truth we had become monsters. Bipartisan monsters wrapped in the American flag. Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once said that killing 500,000 Iraqi children through sanctions was “worth it.” She is now a respected elder statesman close to the Hillary Clinton campaign.
I had another epiphany last week when I saw the photo of the little Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach like a bit of flotsam. He was wearing a red t-shirt and black sneakers. I thought to myself that many Americans will shake their heads when looking at the photo before moving on, more concerned about Stephen Colbert’s debut on the Late Show and the start of the NFL season.
The little boy is one of hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to get to Europe. The world media is following the crisis by focusing primarily on the inability of unprepared local governments to deal with the numbers of migrants, asking why someone somewhere can’t just “do something.” This means that somehow, as a result, the vast human tragedy has been reduced to a statistic and, inevitably, a political football.
Overwhelmed by thousands of would-be travelers, Hungary suspended train service heading towards Western Europe while countries like Serbia and Macedonia deployed their military and police along their borders in a failed attempt to completely block refugees. Italy and Greece have been overwhelmed by migrants arriving by sea. Germany, to its credit, is intending to process up to 800,000 refugee and asylum applications, mostly from Syria, while Austria and Sweden have also indicated their willingness to accept many more. Immediate neighbors of the zone of conflict, notably Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are hosting more than three million of those who are displaced, but the wealthy Arab Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia have done little or nothing to help.
Demands for a European unified strategy to deal with the problem are growing, to include sealing borders and declaring the seas off of preferred departure points in North Africa and Asia to be military zones where undocumented ships and travelers will be intercepted and turned back. One also has to suspect that the refugee crisis might be exploited by some European politicians to justify NATO “humanitarian” intervention of some sort in Syria, a move that would have to be supported by Washington. But while the bickering and maneuvering goes on, the death toll mounts. The recent discovery of 71 dead would-be migrants who suffocated in the back of a locked truck found in Austria, to include five children and a toddler, horrified the world. And that was before the dead three year old on the Turkish beach.
Many of the would-be migrants are young men looking for work in Europe, a traditional enterprise, but most of the new arrivals are families escaping the horrors of war in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Their plight has been described in the media in graphic terms, families arriving with nothing and expecting nothing, fleeing even worse conditions back at home.
The United States has taken in only a small number of the refugees and a usually voluble White House has been uncharacteristically quiet about the problem, possibly realizing that allowing in a lot of displaced foreigners at a time when there is an increasingly heated debate over immigration policy in general just might not be a good move, politically speaking. But it should perhaps be paying some attention to what caused the problem in the first place, a bit of introspection that is largely lacking both from the mainstream media and from politicians.
Indeed, I would assign to Washington most of the blame for what is happening right now. Since folks inside the beltway are particularly given to making judgements based on numerical data they might be interested in the toll exacted through America’s global war on terror. By one not unreasonable estimate, as many as four million Muslims have died or been killed as a result of the ongoing conflicts that Washington has either initiated or been party to since 2001.
There are, in addition, millions of displaced persons who have lost their homes and livelihoods, many of whom are among the human wave currently engulfing Europe. There are currently an estimated 2,590,000 refugees who have fled their homes from Afghanistan, 370,000 from Iraq, 3,880,000 million from Syria, and 1,100,000 from Somalia. The United Nations Refugee Agency is expecting at least 130,000 refugees from Yemen as fighting in that country accelerates. Between 600,000 and one million Libyans are living precariously in neighboring Tunisia.
The number of internally displaced within each country is roughly double the number of those who have actually fled and are seeking to resettle outside their homelands. Many of the latter have wound up in temporary camps run by the United Nations while others are paying criminals to transport them into Europe.
Significantly, the countries that have generated most of the refugees are all places where the United States has invaded, overthrown governments, supported insurgencies, or intervened in a civil war. The invasion of Iraq created a power vacuum that has empowered terrorism in the Arab heartland. Supporting rebels in Syria has piled Pelion on Ossa. Afghanistan continues to bleed 14 years after the United States arrived and decided to create a democracy. Libya, which was relatively stable when the U.S. and its allies intervened, is now in chaos, with its disorder spilling over into sub-Saharan Africa.
Everywhere people are fleeing the violence, which, among other benefits, has virtually obliterated the ancient Christian presence in the Middle East. Though I recognize that the refugee problem cannot be completely blamed on only one party, many of those millions would be alive and the refugees would for the most part be in their homes if it had not been for the catastrophic interventionist policies pursued by both Democratic and Republican administrations in the United States.
It is perhaps past time for Washington to begin to become accountable for what it does. The millions of people living rough or in tents, if they are lucky, need help and it is not satisfactory for the White House to continue with its silence, a posture that suggests that the refugees are somehow somebody else’s problem. They are, in fact, our problem. A modicum of honesty from President Barack Obama would be appreciated, perhaps an admission that things have not exactly worked out as planned by his administration and that of his predecessor. And money is needed. Washington throws billions of dollars to fight wars it doesn’t have to fight and to prop up feckless allies worldwide. For a change it might be refreshing to see tax money doing some good, working with the most affected states in the Middle East and Europe to resettle the homeless and making an honest effort to come to negotiated settlements to end the fighting in Syria and Yemen, both of which can only have unspeakably bad outcomes if they continue on their current trajectories.
Ironically, American hawks are exploiting the photo of the dead Syrian boy to blame the Europeans for the humanitarian crisis while also demanding an all-out effort to depose Bashar al-Assad. Last Friday’s Washington Post had a lead editorial headlined “Europe’s Abdication,” and also featured a Michael Gerson op-ed urging immediate regime change in Syria, blaming the crisis solely on Damascus. The editorial railed against European “racists” regarding the refugee plight. And it is not clear how Gerson, an evangelical neoconservative former speech writer for George W. Bush, can possibly believe that permitting Syria to fall to ISIS would benefit anyone.
We Americans are in something approaching complete denial about how truly horrible our nation’s recent impact on the rest of the world has been. We are universally hated, even by those who have their hands out to receive their Danegeld, and the world is undoubtedly shaking its head as it listens to the bile coming out of the mouths of our presidential candidates. Shakespeare observed that the “evil that men do lives after them,” but he had no experience of the United States. We choose to dissimulate regarding the bad choices we make followed up with lies to justify and mitigate our crimes. And still later the evil we do disappears down the memory hole. Literally.
In writing this piece I looked up Ali Hussein, the little Iraqi boy who was killed by the American bomb. He has been “disappeared” from Google, as well has the photo, presumably because his death did not meet community standards. He has likewise been eliminated from the Washington Post archive. The experience of Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984 immediately came to mind.
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"it was only in June of 2014 that UNHCR started submitting large numbers of referrals, between 500 and 1,000 per month," US-Officials said.
Funny, Munich/Germany got 50.000 new "refugees" (nearly 100% muslims) this weekend alone. Without any control - brougth into the country by ICE (High-Speed-Trains). Approved Refugees from Syria (nearly 100% are approved), Eritrea (99% approved), Irak (86% approved)....and so on... are entitled to get the whole social wellfare. Cost for one counterfeit passport in turkey: 1500 US-Dollars (As ZH wrote yesterday 10.000 passports are on the way to Germany)
The total number of refugees to Germany in 2015 is revised every week. Last euphemistically update by Sigmar Gabriel (Vice-Cancellor): "More than 1 Millionen in 2015" (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/sigmar-gabriel-geht-von-einer-...)
The same entitlement for the whole social welfare program got EU-people from Bulgaria, Romania....the already established way for illiterate Gipsy-families to get rich in their native countries, where the get up to 20 more money like academics (...depends on number of real or fake-children). Nearly the whole Balkan is entering Germany to try to get the same (Mazedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo etc...etc..). Ukraine refugees are also "knocking on the door" (...in Germany free entrance).
From costs for Greece I don't want to talk....
You US-citizens don't know the feeling to be a taxpayer in Germany...
Our government is just sick.
So if the whole world hates the US why are there so many immigrants?
Until such time as the US starts bombing itself it is the only place on the planet that's generally safe. Once the US starts flying killer drones over the US like they do in the ME all bets are off.
We probably have 2 or 3 years before that reall gets going.
Most ''immigrants'' are South American and mexican criminals. I don't know of one European here that wants to live in the Useless Snakes which is an archaic shithole of debt slaves and FAT ASS imbeciles.
Even with all the refugees here I still wouldn't want to move back to the USA for a million bucks. Lived there 35 years and don't miss ONE goddam thing about the USA
Don't worry. Soon your European country will be muslim.
https://video-mia1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvideo-xpf1/v/t42.1790-2/11893234_8569...
Horseshit, lots of those refugees are Syrian Christian.
You are another brainwashed fucktard.
And obviously you didn't even watch the video which actually makes you the brainwashed one.
You've been drinking too much Trump koolaid.
Right back atcha, Dickweed
"The invasion of Iraq created a power vacuum that has empowered terrorism in the Arab heartland"
Actually no. It was dear leaders decision to pull the American troops out that did that.
Keep drinking that kool aid. If troops had been left there the crap would still have happened with more American boys and girls getting maimed and killed. It was the US hand picked clown Bremmer who screwed up the occupation and it was the US hand picked nobody puppet Malaki who refused to be controlled and went his own way that messed up all the hard work the troops did. You must have been asleep when Obama destroyed secular peaceful prosperous Libya to benefit Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood while sending "liberated" jihadists and weapons from Libya to Syria to start another war for regime change. ISIS was formed in Syria and eventually moved into Iraq. One of the first things the US did during the occupation was throw all the Bathists, police, and military out on their ass. The same people who could have held the country together after weeding out the bad guys. Nope, throw them all out and now they work for ISIS.
If we only stayed in Nam longer we would have won.
won what? made it a shithole like the USA?
Vietnam is doing well now that the Fucking Americunts are GONE.
You obviously(and others) can't spot sarcasm.
More bullshit, the goddam USA started it with their illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 , thousands of Iraqi Christians fled to Syria for freedom while the USA overthrew a Secular leader and installed a Muslim puppet.
The USA has no fucking business being in the middle east.
Fuck you slimy bastards
More bullshit, the goddam USA started it with their illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 , thousands of Iraqi Christians fled to Syria for freedom while the USA overthrew a Secular leader and installed a Muslim puppet.
The USA has no fucking business being in the middle east.
Fuck you slimy bastards
You spend a lot of time bashing the US.Here are some facts: In 1902,Scottish engineer George Reynolds was the first to seek oil in Persia.Funded by the London financier William Knox Dossie. Scottish oil company,Burmah,began drilling for oil.After that,it was all down hill for the middle eastern people.WWII gave the US what the British empire had started. So bash us all you want. You just keep proving to me how ignorant you are.Bash me.(I know you will) But Your ability to troll me will never excede my ability to see you as the pityful troll that you are.
How boring, another "It's America's fault" story. What a big yawn.
It IS America's fault. ONly fucktards like you can't figure it out.
All your wars of aggression are ILLEGAL
You cocksuckers don't own the world.
BTW, before you go spewing bullshit that I am a Muslim. I wipe my ass with the Buybull, the Koran, the Torah and Talmud
4000 dead Americunts wasnt near enough should have been 400,000. all coming home in a box via Fedex.
You sound so happy in you illusion. That's wonderful.
I salute your pain, but not your choice of paper.
alfred, did your dad not give you enough love? we agree with your idea of america being a war mongering country, so enough, like any of us here could have changed that.
Americans are not hated around the world. Anyone who travels knows that.
What is hated around the world is the American government and its heavy handed conflict inciting and corruption based policies.
That being said, it is most likely not even most of the people in the government or most of the people in the military (who are typically brainwashed and taking the option they have for self-sufficiency) but it is the few who control the actions of the government. And, for that you most likely need to point the fickled finger of fate at those who own and control they banks and those who benefit most from the control of the banks... elitist parasites.
The dumb USG hasnt done shit since ending WWII
Ah, the ubiquitous "We (Americans)" are at last identified as those responsible for the refugee-infiltrator invasion and by inflection all the evils and woes afflicting the world.
Thank you's, many kudo's to the author for the munificient pollination of his knowledge he has deemed to bestow on us huddled masses.
I feel so contrite I'll rush right out and re-register as a GOPe supplicant or dim minion.Oh, theres really only one re-registration to do. So simple I might have figured it out myself but for my liv proclivities.
Not.
Perhaps the author would share his illuminations with the refugee-infiltrators so thay would redirect their journeys to somewhere other than the country of the great evil-doers.
Another self-anoited mo ron.
Good Morning PutinPutzes! How's your dying spermatozoa and dying demographic doooin!? Left-Handers? Cowardly septic lions unite.
The US war criminals will never admit they initiated the wars and chaos in the middle east.
What we need is a fucking Nuremberg type trial.
Excellent article. Hit the nail on the head.
>> It's not just the US, there's plenty of blame to go around on this one.
I resepectfully disagree.
The US has agressively manipulated the governments of middle eastern countries in the decades since WWII. That manipulation and destabilization is directly responsible for the situation in the Middle East today.
Would Iran be funneling money to terrorist organizations if the US hadn't spent 5 decades alternately supporting them and Iraq in wars against each other?
Would Afghanistan be the go-to place to learn insurgency tactics if the US hadn't trained the Mujahideen to fight a proxy war against the Russians? Would the Mujahideen have put down their AK's if the US had kept its promises to build/rebuild there?
Would ISIS be more than a twitter feed if the US hadn't tried to topple the Assad regime for years up-to-and-including arming "Moderate anti-Assad forces"?
At some point we'll realize that we have an active destabilizing influence on the region and need to leave it the hell alone. At this point nothing, literally no amount of gold, dollars, or blood, can bring back the trust and goodwill we've spoiled there.
So when we went to Iraq and bombed and sanctioned, that was our fault (true enough), and when we decided not to go into Syria, the resulting crisis from that war that we decided not to participate in (after getting monkey hammered over Iraq) was also our fault too.
Got it.
Perhaps we can just pre-emptively say that the next crisis, whatever it may be will also be our fault, so we can just save time.
You may want to read up more on what has actually transpired in Syria over the last 8 years. You will see US fingerprints all over it.
To the author of this article, Tyler Durden, I say the following: There should be no surprise that the U.S. has not taken responsibility for the millions of deaths, as well as millions of refugees, that it has created, particularly in its support of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra Front.
The United States has never had the moral integrety to clean up its mess. Today, its black citizens have been systematically pushed back to 1968 levels socially. And what does the U.S. say? Go to ANY article about race, racism, or anything relating to black folks, and read the comments. They are filled to the brim with the most hate-filled words.
Rather than ADMIT the NON-STOP oppression of black people, from the day they arrived at U.S. shores (forced here), to this very day, the U.S. society blames THEM--tells them they're "lazy," or "irresonsible"; points out the success stories of some immigrants, yet CONTINUES to block the ability of blacks to participate fully in the society.
Look at the building trades, which is a perfect example. Building trade unions are STILL the most racist. Virtually no blacks are in the building trades. Rather than ADMIT that this is due to systematic, conscious discrimination and exclusion that has taken place for GENERATIONS, U.S. society PRETENDS, scratching its collective head, that blacks are simply inferior; are simply dysfunctional.
In 1970, I scored third from the top on the electrician's apprentiship test, in the particular county I lived in. I received my "Welcome aboard letter," and also the date that I would start my apprentiship. One week later I get another letter, telling me that the "quota," for that year, had been reached. I called and told them I'd wait another year, and why couldn't they simply keep my scores on file until then, ESPECIALLY since I'd had scored third from the top.
"Uh, well, we just don't do it that way." CLICK.
This SAME THING had happened to my DAD, when he was a young man and passed a test to be a machinist, with FLYING COLORS. He arrived at Continental Can to start work. He was waiting in the waiting room, with other apprentices. Then his name was called: "Mr. Brown."
He walked up to the window. They lady was not looking. At one point, she finally looked up, and did a double-take.
"Uh...uh...Just a minute, Mr. Brown, I have to check something."
When she came back, she said, "I'm SO sorry. We've actually reached our quota for this year."
Now, this is the GENERATIONAL stuff that U.S. society tolerated. So, when your great grandpa, your grandpa, your father, and then yourself are discriminated against, and then you're working whatever nickel-dime job you can find, why did it happen? Oh, U.S. society WILL NOT tell the truth, because it doesn't have the moral integrity to tell the truth--IT NEVER DID. Instead, it prefers to express deep HATRED of the very people it has systematically kept down.
Now, one last note: Years after I got TRICKED out of my apprenticeship, I was on the bus, in Chicago. Sat next to this guy, and we got into a general conversation. Since he was black, we started talking about black issues. I told him what had happened to me, years before. He said,
"Oh, why didn't you come to me?"
I said, "Who are you?"
He said, "Yes, they were DOING that crap!! A lot of Hispanic and black people were denied their apprentischip due to that quota crap. I fought it in court and WON. You should have come to me."
I'm now 65. My father was a carpenter. I wanted to be an electrician, so he'd be proud of me. But, the SAME THING that happened to him, happened to me. You see, this is how it works.
But U.S. citizens; the U.S. government; and U.S. society IN GENERAL, will NEVER face up to how EVIL it is in keeping people down FOR GENERATIONS.
I ride around. And i see immigrants coming here--Eastern Europeans who can't even speak English. Yet, guess who's getting all the roofing jobs? Guess who's getting the tuck-pointing jobs?" You don't see a black or brown face ANYWHERE.
This is a SYSTEM that is HIGHLY ORGANIZED, and it's amazing that it can be SO organized for hundreds of years.
But it is. Perhaps through the Masonic orders, I have NO idea. I wish I knew. But, it continues.
Most black men worked in factories, making fairly good money. Then the factories SHUT DOWN. Drugs and guns were SOMEHOW pumped into the black community, and now its a mess. Oh, but that's just because blacks are LAZY--right?
Republicans talk about "personal reponsibility," but the U.S. has NEVER taken responsibility for its crimes. So, I hope the author is not surprised about this.