Ho hum! I guess we can’t expect honesty for their big propaganda day.
Several people reported this headline to me: For First Time Since WWII There Are More Than 50 Million Refugees.
My first thought was directed at the UN—“liar, liar, pants on fire!”—but maybe I should be directing my annoyance at the AP reporters and the headline writer because I wondered how that 50 million “refugees” jives with the Pew study (using UN numbers) that says the number of refugees is down to between 10 and 12 million from a peak in the early 90s of 18 million. (see graph below right)
Here is the story, hat tip Judy, that I wasn’t going to waste my time on, but since it is everywhere, I will (waste my time) and post it:
TAZA KHORMATO, Iraq (AP) — In a battered car loaded with blankets and clothes, Hassan Abbas and his mother left a dusty town in northern Iraq, fleeing this week’s violence and joining what the United Nations says is the largest worldwide population of displaced people since World War II.
The U.N. refugee agency’s latest annual report, released Friday, found more than 50 million people worldwide were displaced at the end of last year, reflecting an ever-expanding web of international conflicts.
Last year’s increase in displaced people was the largest in at least two decades, driven mainly by the civil war in Syria, which has claimed an estimated 160,000 lives and forced 9 million people to flee their homes. Now Iraq is adding to that tide.
Notice the word “displaced”—that does not mean they are by definition all “refugees.” Twenty paragraphs into the story we learn this:
Of 51.2 million displaced people worldwide last year, 16.7 million were refugees outside their countries’ borders. More than half of the refugees under UNHCR’s care — 6.3 million — had been in exile for more than five years, the agency said.
That 16.7 million is likely inflated as well, but even so it is still LESS than the peak in the early 1990’s of 18 million.
LOL! This is what I would have picked out of the story for my headline!
On World Refugee Day: Violence in Muslim countries producing most of world’s refugees.
Just a few paragraphs from the end of the AP story:
By country, the biggest refugee populations were Afghan, Syrian and Somali, the report said. [and now Iraqis again, of course—ed]
You know stories like this one from AP are used as propaganda (often effectively with naive Americans and dumb politicians) to soften them up. But, besides the usual do-gooder verbiage about “vulnerable” people, “humanitarian” gestures, and “welcoming” communities would someone please tell me….
What good does it do America to bring a relative handful here? And, why do we want to bring any of their Islam-driven violence and squabbles to America anyway?
