For a while now, the United States has been admitting refugees from Iraq. However, until now the numbers of those admitted have been horrendously low. But this year the US stepped up and is now close to having admitted 12,000 refugees this year. The government plans to admit a minimum of 17,000 people in 2009, along with many others through the use of a special visa they can acquire if they have worked for the United States. While the US is beginning to improve it's admittance policies, it still lags far behind other countries like Sweden, which has brought in 40,000 Iraqis so far. Full article here.
I think that, while the US is improving, it still needs to grow a lot in the charity department. However, there are worse thing we could be doing. Britain, for example, is diverting over 100 million Euros worth of aid that it promised to more than 20 South American countries to Iraq instead, leaving South America far short of what it expected to receive. That's not a very cool move.
It's one thing to be a little short on helping out, its entirely different to promise money to someone, then yank it away and give it to someone else. While the US isn't giving as much as other countries, at least we are being reliable with our charity. So far, we have handed out exactly what we promised to hand out.
5 comments:
It's not the government's job to give charity, especially to other countries. It's bad enough when they use taxpayers dollars for charity in our own country (welfare etc)
If the government would realize that it is time to pull out of Iraq, the country might stabilize and therefore reduce the necessity of leaving the war-torn nation. However, as that will not happen for at least a few months (come on, Barack!) it seems as though the United States should be taking responsibility for its actions. The government especially our dear President went into this war without international support, so why should we expect other countries to clean up our mess? Good job to Sweden for hosting people who want to escape the chaos and danger of their home country, but whether we're improving or not, we as the United States need to pick up the slack.
Doria: It would send a message to the Arab community that the United States has lost its power if we were to pull out now. We should get the troops home (or as many as Patreus wants to lave) but The United States will not leave until the mission is accomplished. (please not Bush jokes)
The governments responsibility is to its people, not those of other countries, and if the Iraqi people cannot leave their country than it is the responsibility of the Iraqi government to facilitate their exodus. Not the US government's.
The United States giving money to Iraq is neat but I think the best solution to the problem in Iraq is to create more jobs for the Iraqi people. You know, if you really want to help someone, you teach him how to fish, you don't give him fish.
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