This is a quick update to my earlier post about the situation of Iraqis at Jordan’s entry point. According to the Associated Press, Jordan and Syria are calling on the international community for help.
AMMAN, Jordan –Jordan and Syria complained Thursday they have been abandoned by the West to deal with the massive burden of more than 2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled the violence in their homeland. Both countries issued urgent calls for help at a conference on Iraqi refugees, specifically expanded resettlement opportunities in the West and financial assistance.
Milad Atiya, the Syrian ambassador to Jordan and head of his country’s delegation to the conference, said the international community "must be involved, especially the United States because its policy led to the plight the Iraqis are currently in and it bears responsibility." Jordanian Interior Ministry Secretary-General Mukheimar Abu-Jamous argued that Western nations "relinquished their responsibility in shouldering the Iraqi refugee burden, and we urge them to rise to their obligation and resettle the largest number possible of those Iraqis." Source: [AP]
This is a good step towards improving the dire status. International intervention is what is needed at this moment and it is precisely what I suggested in the previous post.
Mohanned, I don’t disagree with your comment. But what is to be done? I think the only realistic solution is for the UN to get serious about providing humanitarian aid, in place. And yes, I mean primarily with American money. The UN is actually pretty good at providing humanitarian relief. It’s about the only thing the UN can do well. I don’t know what the long term solution is, but obviously one must be found.
Craig,
Yes militias caused this, but who armed those militias, america says it’s iran, and I also say it’s iran.Now the Us is arming sunnies but the shiete leadership are not liking it, no? So who is responsible, jordan? Me, my family, the average jordanian who now can’t afford to buy an appartment? Is it the jordanian kids who now has to sit is classrooms with 50 other kids? Is it jordanians who now has the water delivered once a week?
The government says we have 750,000 iraqi refugees, but unofficial numbers(which in our countries are usually more accurate) say we have 1-1.5 million added to a country of 5 million in the span of 2 years! If we do some math, it is like the US accepting 60 million “immigrants” in tow years! Maybe the US can handle that, but what about jordan?
When we debated about Nas’s profiling at the US I simply gave the US a piece of advice, but I know that my advice won’t make a difference, but I feel that this my duty to care for the people of a country who gave me a chance to educate myself and earn a degree, but the case in jordan is different we live in a region that is boiling and our security agenices can’t cope with that amount of unidentified people; maybe the majority of them are just escaping the killing but we in jordan are targeted more than you in the US and you know the reasons so we can’t afford it anymore, I say that’s it! If nobody steps up and do what has to be done, no one has the right to complain about jordan!
And regarding the US presence in Iraq, let me tell you this and I think people in washington know that because I heard them say it: Iraq needs a STRONG man Period.
Hareega,
that’s why you didn’t see two million Iraqis fleeing their country in three years.
Have you forgotten the massive humanitarian crisis for Iraqi Kurds in the 1990s!?
Have you forgotten Saddam’s slaughter of the Shia after the Gulf War!?
Have you forgotten the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who STARVED TO DEATH in the 1990s because Saddam wouldn’t LET THEM LEAVE?
It would almost seem that Saddam was a saint, and Iraq was a paradise during the 1990s, to hear some people tell the story now, wouldn’t it? What happened to the mantra that UN sanctions on Iraq during the 1990s were responsible for the deaths of possibly millions of Iraqis, Hareega? Was that all just imaginary horror?
Hareega,
Craig… I hope that you admit that if Saddam (who I truly hate) was in power nothing of that would have happened. Yes the US ,with other countries, are responsible for what’s happening.
Word games. I thought I said I wasn’t interested? The invasion and occupation didn’t cause the refugee crisis. The slaughter of innocent Iraqis but “insurgents” and “militias”, the sectarian violence, the driving people out of their homes by both shia and sunni militant groups, so on and so forth, the persecution of Christians, the murder of students at schools for being the wrong sect, the slaughter of Iraqi academics and intellectuals, the targeting of journalists and politicians, the targeting of Iraqi police, and revenge killings, the sabotage of power plants and power lines, the sabotage of oil pipelines, the bombings of marketplaces, the forced closure of “un-Islamic” businesses, so on and so forth…
That is what is causing the mass exodus.
There were not many refugees in 2003 and 2004 because people waited, it’s very difficult for someone to leave his country (that’s why there are still 20 million Iraqis in Iraq), but as people saw nothing is getting better they started leaving.
No, the reason there wasn’t a mass exodus in 2003 and 2004 is that things weren’t very bad in Iraq, then. Not because people “waited”. A refugee crisis happens suddenly, and for very specific reasons. There have been dozens of mass exoduses during my lifetime, and I can’t recall a single one that wasn’t an immediate reaction to horrific living conditions.
When people flee their country to a neighboring country that they don’t necessarily like because of an unncecssary war that was started that’s not called an immigration
No, it’s not. It is immigration, though, whatever it’s called. There are literally millions of US citizens here in the Los Angeles area who came to America as refugees, from such places as Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cambodia, Iran, Lebanon, Somalia… the list is endless.
We have a lot of Palestinian refugees (or their descendants) in the US as well, by the way, most of whom are now citizens.
Wait a minute — are you saying that the U.S. is to blame for the insurgents actions? You’re not going to put ANY of the responsibility on the insurgents’ warped minds? It’s all the U.S.’s fault that grown men and women are blowing themselves up, killing countless people. PLEASE tell me you aren’t saying that. Since when are adults not accountable for their own actions?
As for it not happening before the war — these insurgents are part of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has been killing innocent people since LONG before the U.S. invaded Baghdad. They’ve been killing innocent people for years. Maybe not as many Iraqis, but don’t try to tell me that no one was ever killed in Baghdad before 2003 by these monsters.
Is that the U.S.’s fault too? Is Osama Bin Laden just an innocent victim, or can we hold him responsible for his heinous acts against humanity? Yes I know he is a Saudi, but he has ties with the insurgents in Iraq.
Craig… I hope that you admit that if Saddam (who I truly hate) was in power nothing of that would have happened. Yes the US ,with other countries, are responsible for what’s happening.
There were not many refugees in 2003 and 2004 because people waited, it’s very difficult for someone to leave his country (that’s why there are still 20 million Iraqis in Iraq), but as people saw nothing is getting better they started leaving.
When people flee their country to a neighboring country that they don’t necessarily like because of an unncecssary war that was started that’s not called an immigration.
dm… tell me about one single terrorist attack by insurgents or someone blowing homself up in a Baghdad street before the war. Yes there were countless human rights violations during Saddam’s regime but there was nobody blowing himself up in a street that’s why you didn’t see two million Iraqis fleeing their country in three years.
If the instability that took place in Iraq occured in any other country in the region yiou’ll find lots of people blowing themselves up in different srteets and killing civilians, but you need a good regime or system that knows that and controls it one way or another. It looks like Bush had no idea about that.
Tjose who created this tragic situation should try to fix it.
1st of all, the U.S. has COUNTLESS refugees from everywhere — don’t even go there.
Notice how everyone blames the U.S. but there is absolutely no mention of the countless insurgents blowing themselves up along with countless innocent Iraqis. There’s also no mention of the good things that the U.S. has done. The insurgents kidnap hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Americans, Europeans, etc. They have a vile thirst for killing, and their mission is to kill EVERYONE in the world who isn’t just like them. All of you who solely blame the U.S. — the insurgents want you dead too. THEY are the ones causing majority of the misery over there, not the U.S.
Just for the record, I want the U.S. troops out of Iraq as much as you do, although some of my reasons I’m sure are different from yours. I hate that the innocent is suffering.
PS:
their populations are already voting for drastically restricted immigration, despite the politicians claiming that Europe needs immigrants
That applies to the US as well. The doesn’t *need* immigrants. That’s a lie, told by business interests (Republicans) who want cheap labor, and politicians who want new voters for their political party (Democrats).
80% of Americans want immigration curtailed dramatically. And so, it will be. Come hell or high water, and no amount of bitching, complaining and lying by Federal officials will change that. Same in Europe. The populations do not want unrestricted immigration. And so, that is what will happen – immigration will be restricted.
And did you ever notice it is only western Europe that supposedly wants immigrants? Not Eastern Europe? Ever wonder why that is? I’m thinking, Eastern Europe already has plenty of cheap labor, and doesn’t need nor want any more. Actually, Western Europe could probably get all the cheap labor it needs from Russia and Eastern Europe. No need to import people from anywhere else. Isn’t that what the European Union is supposed to be all about? Putting Europe first?
Hareega,
I don’t think many countries would respond to that and I don’t blame them.
I don’t think many will, either. The US has taken in millions of refugees in the past, and it’s usually worked out OK, but this is different. As to other countries (specifically the west) – their populations are already voting for drastically restricted immigration, despite the politicians claiming that Europe needs immigrants. A European government would have to be suicidally stupid to authorize hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees entering their country as immigrants. And say what you will, refugees that move to western countries *are* immigrants. They never go home again, and they do become citizens.
If there is any action to be taken, it will have to be done in place.
They didn’t create the mess and they’re not responsible for fixing it. Tjose who created this tragic situation should try to fix it.
Who would that be? Saudi Arabia and Iran?
I already know that you will claim the US caused the mess, but there weren’t large numbers of Iraqi refugees in 2003 and 2004. So, did the US really cause the problem? Only if you want to play word games. Which I do not. It isn’t teh US that is making life unbearable for Iraqis.
I don’t think many countries would respond to that and I don’t blame them. They didn’t create the mess and they’re not responsible for fixing it. Tjose who created this tragic situation should try to fix it.