The Chaldean Federation of America has a pretty good idea. According to a recent newsletter, (hat tip: Chris) they aren’t simply demanding that we bring Iraqi refugees here by the tens of thousands, they are taking action by collecting funds and making sure the funds reach the Chaldean families in Syria, Lebanon, or Jordon. We know that the money needed to resettle one refugee here is enough to care for dozens or more in their present country.
The Chaldean Federation of America has made it easy for most anyone to help a refugee family. Bakal says the goal of the “Adopt-A-Refugee-Family” program is to help stabilize at least 600 of the direst families. Donors are able to contact the Chaldean Federation of America directly and begin the process of healing. The effort will go far in demonstrating the American people’s generosity and genuine concern for the victims of the Iraqi war.
Read about the Christian Chaldean plan. Wonder why we don’t see wealthy Muslims in Europe or the US doing the same for their people in Syria?
I almost didn’t read the whole article because an annoying statement by Lavinia Limon of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants early in the article almost kept me from reading further. She continues to promote this lie that our involvement in Iraq is entirely responsible for the Iraq refugee problem. We reported yesterday that these NGO’s had been complaining for several years in advance of our arrival in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was creating a refugee crisis. Here is what she said in the Chaldean newsletter:
Many feel the United States have a responsibility to address the refugee crisis caused by the Iraq war and occupation. Current American policy denies any special American responsibility for Iraqi refugees although the entire world believes that the two million refugees are a bi-product of American actions in Iraq says Lavinia Limon. Limon is the former Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Service under the Clinton administration and current President and CEO of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).
Limon would have more credibility if she first admitted that the refugee situation in Iraq was a decades long problem created by Saddam Hussein and yes, exacerbated by the war which began in 2003 and the subsequent mishandling by the Iraqi government.
She goes on to lament that since the refugees are living in apartments in Syria and not in United Nations camps it is hard to help them. Well, maybe they don’t need so much help because many haven’t even bothered to register with the UN as refugees.
Readers, we are not getting an accurate story on the Iraqi refugees, because I don’t think the NGO’s want us to have one. It suits their purpose to keep the “crisis” going because it is how they stay alive. No crisis=no money.
If you have time and energy, go back to this report from the Brookings Institution which at least makes some effort to find out what is going on in Syria with the Iraqis and does mention, by the way, that many of the “refugees” have been in Syria since Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror.
Here is something else I’ve been wondering about and Judy has written about—the lack of initiative by the primarily Shia government of Iraq to repatriate and resettle refugees. Go to the end of the Brookings report and see who the refugees are.
Albeit the sample is small, only 22% are Shia and the remainder are Sunni, Christians, Kurds and others. It occurs to me, but I’m just guessing, that the elected Muslim Shite majority government of Iraq might not want any of these minorities back. The 22% Shia represented in the Brookings report might be the extremists who dashed out of Iraq when the surge began which might further explain why the government of Iraq is dragging its feet on bringing home its displaced people or even sending them money to survive in neighboring countries.
Perhaps it really doesn’t want any of them—the minorities (including their own former persecutors, the Sunnis) or the extremists.
P.S. I wonder how many families the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants is planning to sponsor with their own funds (not taxpayers money)?