They are building up in my list of posts I want to write, so the best thing to help me clear my queue is to post them altogether especially since they basically say the same thing. Also, since I just wrote in my previous post about the International Rescue Committee, that volag, with its tactics to get more $$$$, is on my mind.
This is the basic story line:
* Iraqis suffer from violence in their homeland and want out
* Iraqis come to the US with great expectations
* Iraqis are shocked to find they will live in substandard housing and have only menial jobs (or no job)
* Iraqis are then under great stress and some want to go home to the Middle East
* Some Iraqis actually do go back.
There are two reason I can see why we have the same story template. First, either the mainstream media reporters are just a bunch of lemmings and when a couple of reporters do a story they all follow each other over a cliff with the same story. Or, the story is planted on purpose by the likes of the IRC in order to build pressure on Congress to allocate more money for refugees generally that coincidentally flows through the coffers of the IRC. Oops, there is a third alternative, the stories are a product of the two reasons: IRC plants the story and the lemmings follow it.
See my June post about the IRC using Iraqi refugees as poster children to get more funding, here.
These are the three I have on my list today: New York Times, InFocus News, Scripps News.
Note also that the subtext in most of these stories is that America is bad—either for bringing a war to Iraq and now continuing to mistreat its people, or both. That is part of the guilt-trip rap the IRC is promoting.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Iraqi refugees you can find in our category on the subject, here, which now contains 412 posts!