Pissing on the fear monkeys' BS

No one is so confident in their opinion as an ignorant person.

The screams coming out of the right-wing about the horrors of resettling 25,000 refugees from the bloody Syrian-Iraqi corridor controlled by Daesh, (you may know the group as ISIS or ISIL), is an illuminating example.

They even have their own petition to stop the rescue of refugees. (No, I'm not linking to it).

Their greatest fear, (and they are certainly demonstrating huge amounts of that), is that in a single intake of 25, 000 refugees, terrorists will come in with them. And then they demonstrate their profound ignorance by pointing at the Paris attacks while they wet their pants.

1. To date, none of the Paris attackers, so far identified, were refugees. They were native-born French or Belgian. Whatever their ethnicity, religious beliefs (if they actually had any), or training, they were home-grown radicalized thugs, many of whom had criminal records in Europe.

2. The refugees being brought to Canada are currently already identified. Most are living hand-to-mouth existences in refugee camps where conditions are the closest thing to a living hell anyone can imagine. Your typical terrorist isn't drawn to that type of lifestyle. Some of the Paris attackers were described by their own families and acquaintances as hard drinkers, smokers and party animals. The refugees being brought to Canada are unique in that on this occasion we actually get to pick them. These are not people showing up on a sinking boat or putting their lives in the hands of human smugglers.

3. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Tell me WHY any idiot inclined to come to Canada to blow up the doorstep of some semi-informed redneck westerner would be so stupid as to come in via the refugee system?!
Go on ... tell me.
There are too many security, criminal and health checks and WAY too much control and supervision. It is considerably easier to show up in Canada as a TOURIST. Much less hassle and nowhere near the detailed examination of one's past to which every refugee must submit.

So, the right-wing fear monkeys cannot present the refugee-terrorist-infiltrator as an argument. They'll have to come up with something else. And with every uninformed position that gets cut away from their argument, we come closer to the real reason. And it's ugly.

Just in case you didn't grasp the obvious ...

Stephen Harper thinks his own supporters are too stupid to see past his monotonously unaltered talking points regarding his intransigent and shameful approach to a global refugee and displacement crisis. (You can find the oft repeated talking points right here).

First, he tells us that a majority of these refugees come from a "Terrorist War Zone", as though that is somehow unique.

The truth of the point he won't acknowledge, (and none of the media have jumped on him for it), is that over the centuries virtually all refugees are attempting to escape terrorism and war. There is nothing unique in the nature of this crisis. But Harper keeps pounding that one point in an effort to keep his real reason for not acting, (whatever that is), from surfacing.

Then, he hits his second scripted talking point. He tells us he has a great concern about security and that all refugees must be thoroughly screened and vetted, (so, there will be no acceleration of a very slow process). Because ... they come from a terrorist war zone.

Really. A conservative screening process is the last thing any of us should trust. These guys cannot properly vet candidates that get caught peeing in cups on public TV programs or have public You Tube channels where they engage in lewd and arguably illegal behaviour.

All of this could tell us many things, but without Harper coming out and telling us what's going on in his head, we can safely assume two things: Harper has no idea what a refugee is, and; Harper cold-bloodedness comes from not having the intelligence to grasp the magnitude of the problem. 

Iraq safer? Not according to the people who live there.

The much touted return of the refugees from bordering countries back their homes in Iraq appears to have been little more than spun BS.

Most Iraqi refugees returning home to Iraq from Syria are going back not because they feel their homeland is safer, but because they can no longer afford to live abroad, a U.N report has found.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report for February 2008 also said the flow of refugees back to Iraq from Syria had slowed after a sharp upsurge late last year and that more were leaving Iraq than coming home.

The Iraqi Red Crescent said last month some 46,000 refugees had returned to Iraq from Syria between September 15 and December 27, a much lower figure than that given by Iraq's government.

It doesn't help that a good number of refugees returning to Iraq, particularly some areas of Baghdad, arrive to find their homes gone or occupied.

Canadian US refugee treaty dead. Because of torture.

I can hear the Harperites screaming "Activist Judges!" now. A Canadian Federal Court judge has just identified the United States as a dangerous place to be sent back to and both the Canadian and US governments can give Maher Arar credit for bringing it to everyone's attention.

Canada's treaty with the U.S. on the treatment of refugees is illegal because the U.S. doesn't comply with conventions protecting asylum seekers and sometimes sends people to countries where they may be tortured, a Canadian judge said.

Canada entered into an agreement on the treatment of refugees with the U.S. in 2004, as part of the two countries' ``Smart Borders Declaration.'' The accord bars Canada from considering refugee applications from people who arrive in the country from the U.S. by land. Canada is required to send those asylum seekers back to the U.S.

Canada's Parliament approved the law, subject to some conditions, including that the U.S. comply with international conventions designed to prevent asylum seekers from being sent back to countries where they may be persecuted, or to countries that engage in torture.

Which, as we all know, creates something of a problem. The US sends Canadian citizens to 3rd countries for "special treatment".

"The United States' policies do not meet the conditions,'' Judge Michael Phelan said in a 126-page ruling released today in Ottawa by the Federal Court of Canada. The judge cited the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who in 2002 was mistakenly identified as a terror suspect during a stop in New York. U.S. officials sent him to his native Syria where he was jailed and tortured, according to a Canadian inquiry that found Arar was not linked to terrorism.

Can hear them at the PMO? They're running around with their hair on fire. A federal judge in Canada has just labeled the United States a country which does not observe the rule of law. Chile under Pinochet. There will be heads exploding in the government benches.

This is where Bush's War On Terra™ has taken the United States.

The Canada-U.S. asylum treaty also is unconstitutional, Phelan said, because it treats people in identical refugee situations differently by applying only to land crossings.

"One transiting the U.S. from their home country makes the last part of the journey by land to Canada, is immediately returned to the U.S.,'' Phelan said. "The other transits the U.S. and makes the last part of the journey on a non-stop flight originating in the U.S. and receives the full panoply of Canadian protection.''

Finally! Someone actually recognized that argument.

I do believe there will be a segment of the blogosphere out there which will erupt in such a way that it will make the shit-flinging of the Orangutans at the San Diego Zoo look like a kindergarten finger-painting session.

More at POGGE and Moderate Man

And I almost missed Alison's post on it.

So, if the Surge is working....

And that point is clearly debatable as you will see, what happens when the troops from that operation are pulled out?

As Iraqi refugees begin to stream back to Baghdad, American military officials say the Iraqi government has yet to develop a plan to absorb the influx and prevent it from setting off a new round of sectarian violence.

Well, there is always the Baghdad neighbourhood watch program that was set up by General Petraeus' command. Two weeks ago it was reported to have 77,000 members.

The military also lowered its tally of how many Iraqis had joined neighborhood watch groups. The new figure for Concerned Local Citizens, as the military calls the volunteers, is 60,321. The previous estimate of 77,000 erroneously combined the number of volunteers who are currently serving with those who had expressed a willingness to join.

An over-estimate of 17,000 people? Think nothing of it. It happens all the time.

No. The thing that will set the pot to boiling over is this:

“All these guys coming back are probably going to find somebody else living in their house,” said Col. William Rapp.

I wonder what the good colonel believes that will lead to?

And who does the US have dealing directly with the flood of Iraqi returning refugees? Brace yourself.

Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite politician and former Iraqi exile who made common cause with the Americans against Saddam Hussein, has been charged with developing a plan to provide services.

Oh yeah! That'll work.

Colonel Rapp voiced the hope that confrontations might be avoided by building new homes for returning Iraqis instead of forcing all of the squatters to leave. “It is probably going to be resolved with new housing construction as opposed to wholesale evictions and resettlement,” he said.

Construction?! Yeah... no one's tried that yet.