Rarely do I agree with our policies in the Middle East. However, I do agree with the recent announcement by the White House that U.S. will take only 10,000 Syrian refugees. This offer by the U.S. quite naturally was met with criticism from European countries as well as our own liberal news media. Everyone is pointing to the fact that European countries (actually only some!) are taking twice that number of refugees. Quite naturally, those heart wrenching news footages of refugees being herded like animals in Hungary has brought out some deep emotions from viewers. Some have gone on record (on TV) making an offer to take in a refugee family. The feeling, no doubt is that if individual families are willing to do this, why can't our government be more generous in its offer to take in refugees.
Let's set aside our emotions and look at the entire picture, beginning with how this whole mess started. In the spring of 2011, some Arab countries primarily in North Africa, rose up against oppressive regimes. In the Middle East, it was in Syria. This phenomena is referred to as the "Arab Spring," a name that was coined by the news media. Governments toppled and changed in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. Mubarak, the long time Egyptian dictator was gone and Tunisian government had to change. In Libya, our long time foe and one of the terrorist supporters in the region, Colonel Gaddafi, was overthrown and killed along with his two sons. However, in Syria, the attempt to oust Bashar Al-Assad failed. It failed mainly because the rebels did not get outside support. In Libya, both U.S. and UK as well as France provided air support for the rebels and established a no-fly zone, but in Syria, no one helped the rebels. That was one of our foreign policy failings, since now we have to deal with ISIS that is operating in Syria as well as Iraq.
The problem in Syria was a European problem. We urged Europe, i.e., NATO countries to help the rebels. Had the European countries thrown their support for rebels, we would have also, as part of NATO, been involved. However, with our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, we could ill afford to go into Syria on our own, as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan initially, or so our government thought. However, the Europeans haggled and argued, but refused to intervene on behalf of the rebels. We warned them that this would become a major problem for them unless they stepped-in, but they refused. At that point, since the Europeans were just talking and sitting on their hands, we should have done something, especially since Al-Assad crossed the "thin red line" on a number of occasions. We should have at least done more than what we did, which was nothing. Result? ISIS grew stronger and Putin became bolder and sent arms to Syria. But that is all water under the bridge now. The problem is global, yes, but it is still primarily European! We cannot be policemen everywhere, Europe has to do its share!
The liberal press that is accusing the U.S. for not doing enough apparently hasn't done its homework. If you look at the figures of amount a aide that has been provided for the Syrian refugees, the U.S. leads head and shoulders above everyone. We have so far spent almost 3 billion dollars in helping the Syrian refugees. UK is the next closest donor with around 800 million dollars and Germany at around 600 million dollars. Yes folks, all that money that we gave so far all came from American tax payers, you and me! So now the Europeans are accusing us of not doing enough?
Have any of those European countries offered to take our illegal aliens? Not hardly!
It is said that there are over 4 million displaced Syrian refugees scattered about, the largest numbers are in neighboring countries like Turkey and Lebanon. Europe is facing close to 800,000 Syrian refugees who wish to settle primarily in UK, Germany and France. So, UK offers to take 20,000 and France and Germany 24,000 each. Hungary, which is a transit country for the refugees will not take any, and one other neighboring country announced that it would take a few thousand, but only those that are Christian! Ironically, this harkens back to some 40 years earlier and the Vietnamese refugee (boat people) problem. At that time, having been involved for a period with the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees, I am very much aware of the kind of response we got from European countries when we asked for help. Only France was willing to take Vietnamese refugees. Other European countries said that it was our problem, that we were the ones who created the situation with our war! Some who said that they would take Vietnamese only if they spoke their language and were professionals! Yes, they were very helpful, and now they are crying foul because we offered to take only 10,000 instead of the whole lot! Our press, of course, doesn't care and will criticize whatever we do, and apparently does not do research and homework.
What Europe is facing is a drop in the bucket compared to the problem we have with illegal aliens. Yet, has any European country stepped up and offered to take our illegal aliens. I would have thought Spain would have been the logical candidate to take illegal Hispanics, but Spain has been quite mum about the whole thing. In the 1980s we were facing an onslaught of about 130,000 illegals annually. That number increased to 450,000 a year in the 1990s. Since the new century, we have been getting between 700,000 to 850,000 illegals per year! Our "official" number of illegals residing within our borders is somewhere around 10 million. In reality, it is more like 12 to 20 million! All you have to do is do simple math and add up the numbers! With those kind of numbers, many scholars predict that by mid 2000s, the majority of our population will be Hispanic because of the illegal alien influx. Already there are states that have a majority population that is Hispanic. I believe that at this rate it will take less time than mid century to turn this country into Hispanic majority. Europe, on the other hand, will probably become majority Muslim!
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