Riverbend is back posting after leaving Iraq. The title of this post is from her latest dispatch in which she describes the emotional toll of living as a refugee and what the word "refugee" even means. The story of Iraqi refugees isn't covered to any meaningful degree in the United States. It's all so unpleasant. So please read what Riverbend has to say. Then you can go listen to a show Bill Moyers did on the subject of Iraqi refugees last month with George Packer and NPR's Deb Amos. (audio, transcript) A lot of it echoes what Riverbend writes but there are also (day-late considering the source) observations like this:
BILL MOYERS: George, why didn't the administration anticipate this?
GEORGE PACKER: I think it's a piece-- with everything that's gone wrong with the war, for political reasons. To acknowledge that there was a huge refugee crisis in the region, to acknowledge that Iraqis who work with Americans are a uniquely endangered population in Iraq-- I mean, they are as hounded and helpless as European Jews in the 1940's -- would have been to acknowledge that the war was going badly. That it was creating more pain than it was alleviating, that the picture of steady, slow progress was false. And so the administration simply chose to ignore this crisis. I mean, for the first year or two of the refugee crisis our policy was, "It's not happening." More recently our policy has been we're committing some funds, rather small compared to the need. But-- our real objective is to create a safe and stable Iraq to which these refugees can then return. In other words, it's temporary. Well, it's not temporary. When you talk to Iraqis now compared to at the beginning of the war they no longer say in six months things will get better as they used to or in a year things will get better. They now say in two decades. In other words, for an Iraqi, not really in my lifetime. It will be my children that see a better Iraq. That means they're making decisions now about what they have to do with their families in order to ride out a 20 year horror. And that means they're not going back to Iraq.
We own it all.
Comments