Demand for Iraqi refugees to the U.S. completes the picture of total disaster
Jonathan L. writes:
More clamoring for a mass influx of Iraqi refugees into the United States, this time openly admitting the total could be in the six figures.
(However, notice Robert Spencer’s traditionalist-flavored opposition to the proposal.)
The fact that the annual cap on Iraqi refugees is currently set at 500 is only deceptively heartening. Bush opposes enlarging it not because he understands the mortal threat to the United States posed by mass Muslim immigration, but because the flight of such large numbers of people from “democratic, liberated Iraq” would be a humiliating admission of failure. And when the extent of that failure becomes undeniable even by him, he will be the first clamoring for the United States to open its doors to the refugees (all the while denouncing opponents as anti-Muslim bigots), so as to reaffirm what a humanitarian and good man he is.
The full consequences of the Iraq war, as we finally approach the beginning of the end, are truly horrifying to contemplate:
1. Iran will be greatly strengthened, with enhanced influence over and perhaps outright domination of the territory, people, and resources of southern Iraq.
2. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Muslims will infiltrate the West, either through the United States or else through Western Europe, whose elites will not pass up such a golden opportunity to flaunt their countries’ total moral superiority to the United States by selflessly cleaning up after a war they so “wisely” (rather than spitefully) opposed.
3. America’s foreign policy cachet in Eastern Europe (the fruit of fifty years of staunch anti-Communism and Reagan’s victorious denouement of the Cold War) will be utterly depleted.
4. Pro-American sentiment in Britain will be severely depleted, as both left and right attack the special relationship (the former on anti-American, anti-Western, ”anti-imperialist” grounds, the latter on nationalist and prudential grounds).
5. Over 150,000 Iraqis will have died, thousands of them horribly.
And all this at the cost of nearly $500 billion spent and 3,000 American soldiers killed, with another 20,000 maimed or severely wounded.
- end of initial entry -
Howard Sutherland writes:
This entry made me think of past VFR exchanges, in the halcyon days of the comments feature. I thought I predicted something like this back when we were discussing the merits of invading Iraq. I used your search feature, and found my comments below, from this thread:
…The purpose of the Armed Forces is to defend the United States. It is past time to take that mission seriously. We should bring our ground forces home from Germany, Japan and Korea and deploy Army divisions to the Mexican border until it is under control. What the Mexicans think of that should be of no consequence. Our Armed Forces should be mostly home-based and organized as expeditionary forces capable of rapid deployment.
I do not propose entangling the Armed Forces in interior immigration enforcement, with possible Posse Comitatus Act problems, but border defense is the most basic of military missions. The Mexican government’s activities on our border (and through Mexican consulates within the United States) are organized and hostile. They should be dealt with as such. I am no peacenik (former Marine infantry officer and Air Force Reserve fighter pilot); I am simply saying that we need to deploy against the real threat. The demographic dissolution of the United States through unlimited immigration, exacerbated by being so heavily weighted toward Latin Americans, in particular Mexicans, is a far greater threat to this country than Saddam Hussein.
David makes a point worth noting when he says “the first thing Bush will do is bring as much of the Iraqi population as he can over here,” even if he is being tongue-in-cheek. Our overseas adventures have always opened our doors to millions of people who otherwise probably would have stayed home. Without going into whether our country is better or happier for their presence, it is hardly coincidental that the United States has become home to millions of Puerto Ricans, Filipinos, Cubans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Hmong, Haitians, Somalis… HRS
Posted by: Howard Sutherland on September 23, 2002 03:55 PM
…I agree that “see no evil” is a stupid attitude. Peripatetic interventionism doesn’t have much to recommend it either. While the United States can defeat Iraq, even with our feminized forces, I don’t want to see Americans take on the burden of garrisoning, policing and governing Iraq. Nor do I think the hatred we will incur among Arabs and Moslems generally is worth it (not that they love us now). Still less do I want to see the United States flooded with Arab, Kurdish, Turkic “refugees” from Iraq, as inevitably will happen.
For someone as bellicose as he seems to be, President Bush is surprisingly soft-headed. He has perpetuated the no-questions-asked acceptance of any Cuban who can get here and amnestied Central American illegal aliens because of a hurricane at home. Are you willing to bet that more Middle Easterners, not all friendly, won’t become the next protected class of immigrants? It would indeed be ironic if the Arab terrorist attack that killed over 3,000 people in the United States were to become the root cause of an explosion of Moslem immigration to the United States, but in the upside-down world of George W. Bush it would not surprise me. Religion of peace, don’t you know. HRS
Posted by: Howard Sutherland on September 23, 2002 05:02 PM
David B. writes:
I hope you like Iraqi food. We are going to have a lot of Iraqi restaurants sprouting up in the next few years. New York City should have plenty of them.
Stephen T. writes:
Jonathan L. says, “[Bush] will be the first clamoring for the United States to open its doors to the refugees (all the while denouncing opponents as anti-Muslim bigots), so as to reaffirm what a humanitarian and good man he is.”
It’s stunning how no opportunity to bring more third world immigrants to these shores goes unexploited. Recall that, after weeks of stumbling and stammering in the wake of Katrina, one of the first well-defined, emphatic policies finally enunciated by the Bush administration was a strong declaration in favor of allowing thousands of Mexicans to come to New Orleans, and a suspension of the wage rules which would have made employers pay them the same as Americans. Even with parts of the city still underwater and bodies still floating in streets, the administration gave priority to formulating a means to attract the influx of more Mexicans.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 12, 2006 01:35 AM | Send