For Iraqis: No Room At The Inn

Dick Kazan Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 4:54 pm

By the thousands each day, Iraqis are fleeing for their lives. Willing to leave everything they've owned behind, they take only what they can carry as they cross into Jordan, Syria or any other country they can reach.

According to the United Nations, 4 million Iraqis, half of whom are children, have fled their homes and are either refugees in a foreign land or struggling to exist elsewhere in Iraq. This in a nation of 25 million people when President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

This exodus increased sharply since President Bush escalated the war in February. Widespread killings, kidnappings, explosions and intense and continuous fear make life for many Iraqis a living Hell. To protect themselves and their families they are desperately seeking a better life, or even just a safer one elsewhere.

No-one knows the number of Iraqis killed during this war but the number is commonly believed to be in the hundreds of thousands. And that number grows daily, sometimes by 2 or 3 times the 33 people who were killed at Virginia Tech recently, in what we as a nation viewed as a horrific tragedy.

All of this from a U.S. led invasion they never asked for.

Many of the most endangered Iraqis are those who have worked for the U.S. as police officers, truckers, drivers, translators, office staff and in other jobs, for they are seen as traitors. But when these people try to speak with U.S. embassy officials about coming to America, they are turned away.

Why? Because for the Bush Administration it would be an admission of the war's massive failure. And most embarrassing, if a large number of Iraqis are allowed to settle in the U.S., potentially vast numbers possibly into the millions will plead to come.

How many Iraqis have been allowed to relocate to the U.S. recently? According to The Wall Street Journal, "Iraqi Refugees Create Quandary," [5/24/07] "... only a dozen or so this year." A dozen! They are among 69 Iraqis allowed to enter since October with the remainder having "...waited to come to the U.S. since before the war began, officials say."

By comparison, for humanitarian reasons the small nation of Sweden plans to welcome 25,000 Iraqi refugees this year.

The American response reminds me of the Vietnam war. When that war ended in 1975, most of the Vietnamese who had supported the Americans were left behind to face the consequences.

If you ever see the films of the Americans fleeing Saigon as fast as they can, like rats fleeing a sinking ship, and racing past large numbers of Vietnamese pleading with them, you will have a sense for what a disgrace it was. And this result came after over 58,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in Vietnam and over a million Vietnamese were killed as well.

Many Vietnamese became boat people, and over the years, by the millions they fled with only what they could carry, with many eventually getting to America or to other destinations that would have them.

But tens of thousands either died at sea or were jailed for years on end in "detention centers," with thousands of these "detainees" shipped back to the Vietnamese authorities.

The Vietnamese government used "re-education centers," to deal with American supporters. When the Iraq war ends, one can only guess how that nation will treat its U.S. supporters if they are left behind.

I believe America will eventually allow Iraqis to come in large numbers, just as they finally did the Vietnamese. And as the Vietnamese have prospered in America to everyone's benefit, hopefully the Iraqis will too.

The largest Vietnamese community in the world outside of Vietnam is "Little Saigon" which thrives in Orange County, California. One day, the U.S. may have a "Little Baghdad," and if so it would be wonderful if it thrived as well.

Although our government doesn't seem to have learned many lessons from its experience in Vietnam, you and I can. And one of those lessons will be to follow Sweden's lead and offer a humanitarian sanctuary into the United States. And then welcome the Iraqi immigrants as our brethren and do for them as we did for the Vietnamese immigrants, help them build new lives.

Dick