Somewhere recently I said I wanted to see an independent study of the Iraqi displaced people issue. I wanted to see something written by some group that had no dog in this hunt. So someone sent me this report entitled, “Failed Responsibility: Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon” published just last month.
First thing I noticed was that it used the word “crisis” about a million times. Actually I am exagerating but I searched the word “crisis” and gave up after about 10 pages of the 47 page report. The word was used on every page at least once in the text and another whole bunch of times in the footnotes because virtually all footnotes were from information gathered by themselves—the International Crisis Group.
But, it’s on page 47 that I found the most telling information about the “independent” report. I don’t know all the names on the International Crisis Group Board of Trustees, but here are a few I know: George Soros, Wesley Clark, Kofi Anan, Richard Armitage, Zibigniev Brzezinski and the best of all HRH Prince Turki-al-Faisal. LOL, such a bunch of independent members of the anti-war crowd. As security improves in Iraq, this refugee “crisis” is the last thing they have to wrap around the neck of the Bush Administration.
Besides looking at who wrote the report, here is one of the ways I can tell if an Iraqi refugee report is legit. If the report mentions the FACT that prior to 2003 and our arrival in Iraq, the Saddam Hussein government had displaced about a million people (many Shiites in particular went to Syria) and the volags were squawking about the refugee “crisis” then. I could find zero mention of this fact—it’s all about the bad US. Most of those pre-2003 displaced people are now counted in the group we are expected to bring to a city near you.
As for His Royal Highness Turki, I searched the report for any mention of Saudi Arabia and the fact that it had done nothing to help Iraqi refugees—-zip, zero, nothing! Except check out Appendix A (map) on Page 37. If you are not up on your geography of the region you might not know that the southwestern part of Iraq shares a very long border with Saudi Arabia. Note how all countries joining Iraq have at least some Iraqi refugees—EXCEPT Saudi Arabia. In fact, refugees have skipped over the Kingdom and gone to Egypt. So, maybe old Turki had some role in that ommision? Saudi Arabia is scared to death that a democracy could evolve in the Middle East, so they don’t want a bunch of people with democracy ideas settling in their midst (especially Shiites!).
Funny thing, I don’t think the Saudis ever resettled any Palestinian refugees either. As a matter of fact, I will venture to guess that the ‘International Crisis Group’ kind of likes the Palestinian model and just maybe some of these folks want to recreate the model with Iraqi refugees. It has been so successful beating the Israelis over the head with the so-called Palestinian “refugees” that they may see the same opportunity to beat the US over the head with the Iraqi refugee “crisis”. And, lazy lap dog reporters in the mainstream media will suck this report right up and never mention who was behind it!
See more on the International Crisis Group here (this report says some Obama advisor is part of this “crisis” group too). If any of our readers can point to anyone on this Board of Directors who might be a pro-America conservative, let me know!