Losing Hope, Iraqi Youth become Illegal Immigrants to ‘Save Themselves’

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2015/08/illegal-immigrants-themselves.html



A displaced family from Hawija in Kirkuk recieve news of another death: Many young Iraqis don’t have any hope that things will get better here.

Losing Hope, Iraqi Youth become Illegal Immigrants to ‘Save Themselves’
By contributors | Aug. 7, 2015
Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | (Niqash.org)

Iraq has long suffered from a youthful “brain drain” – that is, where young, educated Iraqis leave the country as soon as they are able. But now, many locals believe, the biggest wave of immigration is just beginning, with many more Iraqis desperate to leave their country amid sectarian and ethnic unrest, the security crisis caused by the extremist group known as the Islamic State and the economic problems that have followed.

~snip~

In the 1990s Iraqis left the country to escape the dictatorial regime led by Saddam Hussein, and then the crippling sanctions imposed upon his government. Around 2006 there were further waves of migration, when, after the demise of Saddam Hussein’s regime, a kind of sectarian civil war broke out.

In a 2009 “National Youth Survey, almost 17 percent of young Iraqis surveyed said that they would like to emigrate” and further surveys suggested a high unemployment rate among youth in the following years was pushing that number even higher.

And in 2013, a study by the International Organization for Migration appeared to indicate that a huge 99 percent of young people in southern Iraq and 79 percent of young people in the northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan wanted to leave the country.

[Raster]

1. Thank you bush*/chenelzebub*!

Let Freedom Reign!
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/elections/freedomessay/

[CanonRay]

2. And the GOP debate was trying to say Obama screwed up US foreign policy?

W completely f'd up the Middle East, probably for the next several generations at least.