Are Michael Ware and the rest of our media unable to find and report on 4.2 million Iraqi refugees?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22471759-2702,00.html

Iraqi refugees top 4.2m: Amnesty

Mark Dodd | September 24, 2007

COUNTRIES that took part in the Iraq war should do more to help the millions displaced by chronic violence, Amnesty International says.

Iraq's refugee problem has become the world's fastest growing displacement crisis, with 2.2 million people uprooted from within the country and another 2 million forced to flee as refugees.

In a report released today, Amnesty describes the “Iraqi refugee crisis” as the largest population movement in the Middle East since Palestinians were displaced following the 1948 creation of the State of Israel.

The vast majority of those fleeing Iraq are being hosted by neighbours Jordan and Syria but the presence of such large refugee numbers mans both countries are now struggling to cope.

“Amnesty International is deeply concerned that without increased and long-term commitments from the international community, the lives of displaced Iraqi population will become increasingly desperate,” it warned.

Among its recommendations - AI called for countries that took part in the 2003 Iraq invasion to share the refugee burden by helping resettle Iraqis from Jordan and Syria.

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[terisan]

2. We see satellite photos of conditions and events in Burma but not Iraq ? nt

[babylonsister]

3. I certainly wouldn't be picking on Michael Ware. He's one of the few

who's been trying to tell us how awful the situation in Iraq is. Come to think of it, where's he been? Have they silenced him, too?

[NNN0LHI]

4. Who is picking on Michael Ware?

I just want him to do his job. Would it be too much trouble for him to visit some of these refugee camps and let the American people see what they have caused? If he isn't allowed to do that he should report that he was not allowed to visit the camps. That is what a real reporter does.

Aren't these millions of people living in refugee camps more important than being worried about hurting a well paid reporters feelings by us asking some hard questions?

Don

[babylonsister]

5. FWIW, he has talked about the refugees:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/16/the-scary-prescience-of-m_n_60616.html

COOPER: In terms of talking about big al Qaeda-style attacks and this number reduction, in terms of the success story, what about sectarian violence? Has this escalation of troops had an impact on that?

WARE: No, not really. It's forced it to displace. It's forced morph and to adapt as we always expected it will.

Now the number of bodies tortured, mutilated, victims of sectarian death squads that are showing up on the streets of Baghdad continue to rise and fall. Right now, there's less than there used to be, but by less that's still 20 tortured people showing up every morning.

Now the numbers are down for a number of reasons. One is two million people have fled the country. Another two million are displaced internally in refugee camps, so there's simply fewer targets. And of those who remain in the capital and in the villages surrounding, they now must live in segregated communities, heavily defended by their own militias, be they American-backed Sunni militias or Iranian-backed Shia militias. No one lives together anymore, very, very few people. This place has been ethnically cleansed and segregated.

So deaths are down because it's much harder to kill each other until the Americans withdraw and the real battle begins.

COOPER: Complicated picture. Michael Ware, we appreciate it. Thanks, Michael.

[NNN0LHI]

6. I have never seen any video of him reporting from any refugee camps

Maybe he can't find them? 4.2 million Iraqi refugees and he can't find any of them to show us whats really going on?

Don

[babylonsister]

7. Hate to belabor the point, but I think he has:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/20/acd.01.html

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Despite appearances, this man considers himself lucky.

His name is Uday, and he's one of the less than 1,000 Iraqis welcomed into the United States since the beginning of the war. Just after the fall of Baghdad, he was thrilled to help the Americans as an Army translator. But, just 35 days into the job, his car was stopped in the street by three men.

(on camera): They shot you in the face, and they shot you in the arm.

UDAY, IRAQI REFUGEE: Yes. Yes. No, they want to shoot my head, you know? But I put my arm like this.

WARE (voice-over): In Iraq, working for the Americans can mean signing your own death warrant. Retribution from Sunni insurgents and Shia militia is severe. But the State Department's official advice, even for those shot, threatened or with family members kidnapped, is simply to get out of Iraq.

(on camera): The military didn't help you?

UDAY: No.

WARE: The American government didn't help you?

UDAY: Nobody.

WARE (voice-over): Uday wasn't rescued by the Army, but by a chance encounter with this woman, running a tiny charity to get surgery for wounded Iraqi children.

ELISSA MONTANTI, FOUNDER, GLOBAL MEDICAL RELIEF FUND: There wasn't any -- any support coming from the government, coming from anywhere. Uday was on his own.

WARE: Kirk Johnson is on a one-man crusade to save hundreds of others. Now a civilian, after working for a year in Iraq with the State Department's aid agency, USAID, he's culled a list of more than 400 Iraqi translators, like Uday, now at risk who need rescue.

KIRK JOHNSON, FORMER USAID WORKER: I don't know why it's taking so long, because we're usually the leaders in the world at resettling refugees. Yet, for whatever reason, with these particular refugees, we seem to have forgotten how to do what we do best.

WARE: Since the war began, according to the State Department, only 701 Iraqis have made it to U.S. shores. And, of those, but a few are victims of the war, the rest, refugees from a regime that fell four years ago, Saddam Hussein's.

JOHNSON: These people have been raped. They have been kidnapped. They have had family members killed, all because they were identified as working for the United States government.

WARE: So far, he says, not one of his 400-plus list has made it out.

JOHNSON: I have never been more ashamed of -- of my government now. Those Iraqis that worked for us, when I see them fleeing, without even anything other than a sort of good luck from us, it turns my stomach.

WARE: While pumping billions of dollars a week into the fight, the U.S. has offered a comparatively meager $150 million this year to boost ailing support services in the countries like Syria and Jordan awash with these desperate Iraqis.

And, of the four million displaced Iraqis around the world, America has so far only brought in a relative handful into the country, while other Western countries, like Sweden and Australia, have taken in tens of thousands.

Why does the country that started the war lag so far behind? The answers are in Washington. Ellen Sauerbrey is the assistant secretary of state responsible for assisting these refugees.

(on camera): Has America met its profound obligation to these Iraqis?

ELLEN SAUERBREY, U.S. ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR POPULATION, REFUGEES, AND MIGRATION: Americans do care. And we do feel that moral commitment. Are we moving as quickly as we need to? Are we finding the people that need our assistance as quickly as I wish we were? No. But we are -- we are moving forward now.

WARE (voice-over): Sauerbrey says it's a delicate balance. America recognizes the humanitarian need, but, she says, there are added security concerns for bringing in refugees from a country the U.S. is still fighting.

The process just now put in place of granting an Iraqi refugee status in the United States takes four to six months, and those who work directly with the U.S. government in Iraq are fast-tracked. But Sauerbrey says it's difficult to find them, a claim disputed by Kirk Johnson.

And, while the U.S. recently said it expects to take in some 2,500 Iraqis into the country this year, Sauerbrey suggested the government could take even more.

SAUERBREY: There is no cap on the numbers.

WARE (on camera): So you will bring as many as is needed?

SAUERBREY: We will be bringing people in as quickly as we can get them through security clearance.

[NNN0LHI]

9. You are not belaboring the point

But everyone knows if another country had caused 4.2 million refugees and a million deaths because of an illegal invasion and occupation we would have American journalists reporting from those refugee camps daily. Not once a day. It would be all day. There would be specials about the Iraqi refugees with special background music and everything.

Every day we would get reports of the situations in different refugee camps. There wouldn't even be any missing blond women or shark attacks. It would be refugees all the time. If it wasn't us or one of our friends who had caused such a human tragedy.

Everyone knows this. We aren't kidding nobody.

Don

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

8. Pssssst

Out of sight, out of mind. Why do you expect anything else? MSM will do exactly as it has been told to do. We see it time and again and again and again. If they were really doing their jobs, John Kerry would be our President.
:grr: