As expected, the process of resettling Iraqi refugees into the US is proceeding at a painfully slow rate. Our inability to process these refugees of our creation raises severe ethical and foreign policy issues.
Consider that hundreds of thousands of the two million refugees fleeing Iraq have gone to Syria and Jordan, what is our responsibility towards these nations? We’ve swamped third party nations, who were entirely uninvolved, with refugees of our creation. Do we rely on the hospitality of these nations to accommodate these refugees, and do we have an obligation to assist them in so doing?
On a more practical level, what sort of situation have we created for ourselves? Ignored in the wake of the ‘successful surge’ is that 4 million Iraqis have left their homes, about half as refugees and the other half as internally displaces persons. Certainly some of them have returned or can return safely home with the recent stability in Iraq, but it is also likely that much of that peace has been the result of Iraqis leaving mixed neighborhoods where they aren’t welcome. Can Iraq’s tense social fabric tolerate the eventual re-entry of 2 million people who for whatever reason didn’t feel they belonged before?
And how are the thousands of refugees in Syria and Iran, nations the US has had rocky relationships with at best, going to feel about the US in the future? Children growing up in anti-American nations while hiding from American-caused chaos will not likely grow up with positive feelings towards Uncle Sam. More immediately, how wide is the Iraqi government’s margin of support, and to what extent has it been bolstered by the exit of over a million voters (perhaps many refugees would support the current government, but that seems unlikely).
Why bring this up now? Well, for one we should take better care of these people, either by letting them come to the US or helping closer countries take care of them. Secondly, Iran has twice as many people as Iraq, and if we produced several million refugees there, they would have close to nowhere to go given that we would surely seal off Iraq and Afghanistan, two of its largest borders. If the goal of the war in Iraq is stability in the Muslim world, creating any more refugees in the area would probably overwhelm what stable countries are left so thoroughly as to make the entire project impossible for years to come.
Andrew Klavan, you are the champion:
Oh, wait a minute. That’s not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."
There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.
And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society — in which people sometimes make the wrong choices — and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.
Amazingly, the rest of the article is, largely, just as bad.
Recently, there have been several letters to the editor warning Americans not to dare tax corporations, because any extra expense incurred by corporations will be passed cent-for-cent on to consumers. These are the same people, I assume, who claim to believe in capitalism and the free market. And yet they don’t see where these two positions collide.
Suppose Exxon made, I don’t know, 11.7 billion dollars in one quarter. Hypothetically. Now imagine they were taxed at the normal rate for the first five billion dollars of profit, but at a higher rate for the last 6.7 billion dollars. Granted, they could sink that last 6.7 billion into renewable energy, pay no extra taxes and ensure their future even as oil becomes more expensive to drill. Or, they could eat the extra taxes, make one billion dollars less than they would otherwise, and still make more money than any other company in the world, and tie their own record for most profitable quarter ever.
However, if you ask the brain trust that is the IR opinion page, they will instead increase their prices in an effort to recover the revenue lost from the increased taxes. In this scenario, every other oil company would also do this, not one of them settling for slightly less profit in order to increase their market share. (Also, every other oil company will somehow be affected by the windfall tax, because all oil companies have the same financial situation and therefore would be equally taxed.) If this is really the case, corporations are more terrifying that even most liberals assumed, effectively blackmailing voters into voting against any corporate taxes.
I think everyone agrees that we live in the most beautiful place in the world, but I’ve noticed a no-so-subtle bias from Western Montanans, who seem to think that their mountains and forests are what makes the state such an amazing place. After a trip home last week to Toole County, I’ve got to make the case for the plains and hills of Montana.
Don’t let the quality of the photos mislead you; Northern Montana is one beautiful place.
Yes, that is a 12 year old riding a bull. 
Have a great weekend.
It’s a strange day in politics when a candidate attacks his opponent for generating a $400 million dollar state surplus.One has to wonder what Roy Brown was thinking when he decided to attack Governor Schweitzer for, uh, doing a great job with the state’s finances. Tomorrow, I imagine he will make an attack because the state put out some forest fires and educated children well.
I’m not sure that it’s exactly wise politics to both sound like a petulant child and remind the voters how sensibly Governor Schweitzer has overseen the budget. I know I’d certainly rather have a Governor with common sense running the state’s finances that return to the boom and bust mentality of Republican governors. As Schweitzer told the press:
“My experience in Montana, going all the way back to my grandfather’s days, is there’s about three bad years for every good year in Montana,” he said, adding that the state has seen three or four good years. “So it never hurts to have a little extra grain in the bin.
“It’s the same kind of philosophy,” he added. “There will be some tough years in the future, and I don’t know if it’s happening sooner or later.
Sounds like pretty sensible leadership to me. If this is all Roy Brown has in the well, it’s going to be a long three months for him.
