Not 202 per week, not per month, but in a whole freakin year! That's it. 202.
Just heard the following quote on the radio from Secretary of State Rice.
I think it is an issue we must really get on top of.
Really? How very forward thinking of you Ms. Rice.
To the jump!
Hmm, when I think of getting "on top" of something, I think about getting on something BEFORE it's an issue. I think of being PRO-active.
According to Reuters,
WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had created a task force to make sure the United States is doing "its share" to take in Iraqi refugees following criticism in Congress that it accepted only 202 last year.
Our share?? Isn't that like Ted Bundy accepting his "share" of responsibility for all the women he murdered?
Let's see, since this war got started?
The United States has accepted 466 Iraqi refugees since 2003, the year the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.
This is something that I just can't quite wrap my head around. Why the hell haven't we done more to help these people whose lives we turned upside down?
Of course one must be careful not to apply normal logic and notions of moral obligation to ANYTHING that Bush Administration does. If you try to do that, you risk having your head explode, just like in that "Scanners" movie.
The only thing I can think of is that it's because if we accepted a massive influx of refugees, we'd have two problems.
- We'd be admitting that there is a problem in Iraq, which we only started admitting, what three months ago?
- We'd be bringing in a virtual army of witnesses, ready and willing to testify to our utterly inept prosecution of this war.
Personally, I think #2 is the biggest issue. Imagine having representatives of Iraq's middle class (the majority of the refugees by most accounts) spread far and wide in the United States, regaling us with tales of what it was like before and after Saddam fell.
Imagine countless witnesses to our failure to maintain even a semblance of order. Think of the first person accounts of our failure to provide even basic services.
And now, almost four years after this disaster got underway, now, finally, we're going to "get on top of" the refugee crisis?
202