If the US ends up withdrawing from Iraq..

The door is already open to about 7,000 Iraqi's who have helped us thus far.

I don't see how we could say no to them since we helped make their environment unsafe to live.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4554964.html

If we withdraw (hopefully) and we start letting in thousands of Iraqi refugees... the same conservatives who wanted to continue the war to help them will magically transform them into blight on the sytem scumbag welfare collecting immigrants.....the big winners will be the Mexicans because the focus will be moved off them onto another ethnic group.

According to the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center almost one million Vietnamese refugees settled in the US after the US-Vietnam fiasco.

Regarding the "boat people," SEARAC says, Conditions in the southern portion of the newly reunified Vietnam worsened in the late 1970s, and there also was a drive by the new government to rid the country of its Chinese merchant class. As a result, thousands of Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese sought to escape from the country. In addition to the merchant Chinese, these included many Vietnamese farmers and fishermen and their families. No one knows exactly how many thousands of people took to boats, and some estimates are that as many as half of them perished at sea. The successful ones reached refugee camps in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. From those camps, many were admitted to he United States and other 'third countries.'"

I don't see why the US couldn't make accommodations for equal numbers of Iraqi refugees.

Iraqi refugees allowed into America and to pay more to help Iraq's Arab neighbors cope with the human tide fleeing increasing violence and economic hardship in their country.means that 7,000 current refugees (those already displaced from Iraq to neighboring nations such as Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) while there is an estimated 1.7 million current refugees and many more expected in the coming months. This has nothing to do with Iraqi's living in Iraq that will be under the gun/sword in the coming civil war?

Bookmarking.

Interesting, nimh.

It's my understanding from reading some articles that the educated class have left Iraq in droves, the very people they need for the reconstruction of their country.

What they now have is a sectarian and civil war that nobody from the outside can repair; not with 150,000 troops. Staying will only prolong the war for everybody, and everybody loses. We've already "sacrificed" enough of our military and treasure, and staying will only exacerbate more of the same. When will enough be enough?

Thanks, everyone.

InfraBlue - a million! Damn. So, yes, the precedent is there.

Agreed both with Brand X's sentiment - his second line is the exact right thing to say the way I see it - and with Dys's point (if I am parsing it right) that the 7,000 in question are only a fragment of the number of Iraqi refugees on the move already now.

Oh but I think all the coalition partners who've been involved in the Iraq venture have an obligation to take them! Absolutely.

You have admitted to being a liar,so we need more then just your word and the word of one source.

You need to provide more verification then this.

Yes quite right, I used the site brandon referenced in his post where he provided a link.

Mysteryman, any thoughts about the actual topic?

Dys, Brand X Brandon

Yeah sorry about that, anyhoo yes I think Iraqi's at risk and who want to leave should be allowed into the US and assisted with resettlement.

For once,I agree with you.

From the BBC:

Blair 'to confirm Iraq timetable'
Tony Blair is expected to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of UK troops from Iraq.
The prime minister is due to make an announcement in the House of Commons on Wednesday in which he is expected clarify the details.

Mr Blair is expected to say hundreds of troops will return from Basra within weeks with more to follow later.

Some 7,000 UK troops are currently serving in Iraq and about 1,500 are expected to return within weeks.

The situation in Iraq now differs substantially in one particular from Vietnam in 1975, and that is the sectarian divide, and the ethnic divide. I suspect the Kurds are ready to defend themselves, and they have been united on an ethnic basis despite being a sectarian mix--Muslims of both major sects, some Christians and some few who may be loosely described as animists, or otherwise as "pagans." The Kurds are united by being Kurds, and their big problem will always be that no one either wants them in their territory, nor wants them to have an independent state. The Kurds have been persecuted and murdered by not only the Sunni Ba'athists of Iraq, but by the Turks and the Persians as well. In the event of an American withdrawal and a melt-down of the American sponsored government, the greatest threat they face would be from the Turks. It is unlikely, however, that the Turks would attempt to military intervene in Iraqi territory, though, as they are currently doing their best to make nice so the Europeans will let them into the country club.

The Sunnis are, as they have been since the creation of that abortion of a nation known as Iraq, a minority. They are outnumbered both by the Kurds and the Shi'ites. Many of those who have fled Iraq to date are Sunni "Arabs" (a rather loose ethnic designation), and many very likely had links to the former Ba'athist regime. That is not a contention on my part that they deserve to suffer what refugees inevitably suffer, but it is taking note that many who have fled have done so because they had already salted away the wherewithal to get out of Dodge. The Sunnis are likely to continue to be the most likely refugee group, because the Shi'ites outnumber the Sunnis and the Kurds combined. The Kurds really have no reason to leave, as things stand now, and probably no place to go. Their future may not be bright, but it will very likely be no bleaker than it was under the Ba'athist regime, and very likely they will be better off than they were before the invasion.

That leaves the majority Shi'ites. There biggest problem would be in-fighting for power among internal factions. I doubt that they would produce a great many refugees, and the attitudes in Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia make it unlikely that they would seek refuge in any of those nations--Iran will always be the refuge of Iraqi Shi'ites, just as it was before the invasion.

By and large, the Sunnis are the ones most likely to suffer. Those who fled Vietnam did so because of political reason, but the politics were neither ethnically nor confessionally based. There is little guide to the future in the record of the past. The British imposed on the Iraqis a Hashemite monarchy which favored the Sunni minority, and the Ba'athist regime which assassinated the King, the Crown Prince and the Prime Minister, and replaced them with their "pan-Arabist" regime have sprung from the Sunni minority. Their divisions have always been tribal--Hussein was essentially a tribal leader who managed to take control of the Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party.

I would say that it is currently impossible to state with any certainty the extent to which the Shi'ites will fight among themselves. They've never controlled Iraq, and before Iraq existed, they never controlled any of the three provinces of the Turkish empire from which the British cobbled together Iraq. Whether or not the Shi'ites can put aside tribal and clan differences to unite is something which i doubt there are many people in the world who can reliably judge.

Interesting reading Setanta.

Like BiPolar said though, I can't imagine a new crop of refugees getting a friendly welcome; but I could be pleasantly surprised.

I don't know how we could really afford to give them that much help when we have trouble meeting the needs of those still suffering in New Orleans though.

Stay the course means losing an average of two American soldiers every day, and two billion dollars every week.

My only question is "how long?"

Until we elect a democrat to the white house at which time the conseratives will blame everything on the new president. Bushes whole strageity is to keep it going untill he gits out of office.

That seems fair.
Dems started the war in Vietnam,then blamed it on the repubs.
So,it seems only fair that the repubs return the favor.