Extreme Makeover

Introducing Lourdes Garcia-Navarro's piece on some Iraqi families returning to the divided neighborhood of Ghazaliyah in Baghdad, Melissa Block chirps:

"Millions of Iraqis fled their homes over the past few years; now with violence receding, some families are coming back - especially in Baghdad...but while many neighborhoods are relatively calm, sectarian tensions remain."

Yep, violence has really receded and things are relatively calm in Iraq. After the Extreme Makeover of their country - compliments of Uncle Sam - joyful Iraqis are streaming home.

Arf!

OK, so maybe it's only a bone, but I'll take it. I've complained several times (very recently, Dec. 25, 2007, and Dec. 17, 2007) about the lack of any serious coverage of the Iraqi refugee crisis, but this morning NPR had a decent report on the issue. Deborah Amos interviewed Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group, which has released a report on the state of Iraq's nearly 5 million displaced persons. This NPR report was significant for finally mentioning the responsibility of the United States for the crisis, and its negligence in providing assistance.

The next logical step would be for NPR to seek out some of the high level war criminals officials in the White House and State Department and demand to know why they have done virtually nothing to address this humanitarian disaster of their own making.

The Art of Distraction

(graphic is from NPR's web site)

This morning, as I listened to Jennifer Ludden's moving story of an Iraqi refugee finding work, support and kindess in Billings, Montana - I had the odd experience of finding myself seething. How dare NPR run this kind of folksy, feel-good story about one Iraqi refugee while it does virtually nothing to report on, investigate and expose the criminally negligent US response to the Iraqi refugee crisis that its invasion and occupation created.

I'm happy that there are people of goodwill who will help out an Iraqi refugee in the US, but good God, where is the attention to the 4.7 million Iraqi refugees displaced by this war of choice? Where is the focus on the heartless and inadequate assistance and resettlement that the US has provided for this humanitarian mess of its own making? It's not as if the problem has gotten better since the UN statistics were released in September of 2007; Amnesty International issued a scathing report on the Iraqi refugee crisis just this past June.

I was angry because I was being had. Like a good pickpocket, NPR is trying to strip us of informed outrage. It wants to distract us with a story that is notable for how little it represents the experience of most Iraqi refugees and how little information it contains about the scale of the problem and who is responsible for creating it. It takes advantage of the humanity and decency of listeners, trying to leave us feeling moved and reassured about a case that is the exception, while - of course - leaving us less informed than ever.

Cynical

On Christmas Eve's ATC, NPR once again airs a piece on refugees from Iraq without focusing at the main story - that the US is doing NOTHING to solve a humanitarian crisis of its own making. Instead, in some twisted homage to the Christmas season, we get a feel-good piece about one poor Iraqi woman and her three children who are living in Atlanta after years of trying to get in to the US. This single mom has finally landed a job as a domestic at a hotel. Seriously, I'm happy that this one Iraqi and her children found a way out of the hell that the US has turned Iraq into, but the piece is manipulative, and reminds me of CNN's and sicko-Gupta's self-promoting "Rescuing Youssif" story.

The report by Kathy Lohr had the gall to point out how little Jordan does for the refugees that have flooded that country. The part of the report that had to make any self-respecting person want to throw up was Lohr playing the woman saying "Thank you America" about five times. Here's the write up of it off NPR's website:

"I am very happy America, going here. My children [are] going [to] school. I am very happy. I am [able to] sleep. Thank you, America. I am going [to work in the] morning. Thank you, America. I am [able to] eat. Thank you, America. Every time, thank you, thank you, America."

I don't blame this poor woman for saying this at all; what's she going to say, "Thanks for f---ing up my country you bunch of ignorant, violent imbeciles. I always wanted to flee my country and commute two hours to and from work each day to clean hotels in Atlanta - Thank you!"?

NPR should be calling, knocking, emailing, calling, and calling all their precious contacts in the State Department and the Pentagon and asking, "So what have you done and are you doing to address the 4 million plus refugee problem that you created?" When they've done that about fifty times, and pointed out that the US hasn't done jack, then they can work on some "Welcome to Bailey Park" b.s. like this pathetic report...ugh...

Playing with Zero

I was listening to Andrea Seabrook on ATC this weekend talk with Earl Blumenauer, a Democratic Representative from Oregon who wants the US to get moving on giving asylum to Iraqis who have worked with the US forces in Iraq. They talked a bit, and I have to say the usual NPR discourse on Iraqi refugees is worth commenting on.

In her discussion Seabrook talks about the US government promise to resettle 12,000 Iraqi refugees. Seabrook tells Blumenauer,

"you've been very critical of the Bush Administration's work with refugees so far, saying that the government has not done nearly enough. The Bush Administration itself has in some ways stepped up their action here; the Department of Homeland Security now says they will resettle at least 12,000 Iraqi refugees in the United States next year."

I suggest Seabrook pull out a calculator and punch in a few numbers. Take that "stepped up" number of 12,000 ("incredibly generous" as US spokesperson Rosenzweig told NPR back in October) and divide it by the number of exiled refugees (2,000,000). And what do you get? 0.006. In news-talk that's 0.6%; that's right 6 tenths of one percent! Or perhaps one should include the 2 millions internally displaced refugees in that number and you get 0.3%! Wow! Incredibly generous! Hey I realize that 6 tenths of a percent is more than zero, but not by much.

Let's say you buy the government's case that accepting a flood of Iraqi refugees into the US is a huge security risk (should've thought about that before March of 2003, eh?) then at the least the US ought to be FULLY funding the care of refugees in Jordan and Syria. Let's look at Uncle Sam's own numbers. According to the State Department, in 2006 the US provided $43 million in humanitarian assistance to internal and external refugees. Let's see, that's $43 million split between 4 million recipients: golly, that's $10.75 per refugee for 2006 -like winning the Lotto. But wait, the State Department "stepped it up" in 2007 to "almost $200 million." Now we're talking some real money - $50.00 per refugee - time to paaaarty! What more could our generous government do?

Sarcasm aside, you'd expect these paltry efforts to be described for what they are: almost nothing, scandalous, disgraceful, etc. Instead NPR uses the large sounding numbers, saying things like "accepting thousands of refugees" or "millions of dollars." Back in August of this year Amos said "the US government is the largest donor, $30 million, in a UN program to get the children of Iraqi refugees back to school" [in Jordan]. Of course that's for 50,000 students, $600 per child, for an overwhelmed Jordanian system trying to cope with kids who've missed two years of school already. It's pathetic.

You might expect a reporter to simply put it bluntly to US officials when talking about the refugee crisis: the US invaded Iraq, destroyed the society, botched any reconstruction and so it's our government's obligation to pay for it one way or another. Instead you get pieces like today's or the one in the October 2007 with Paul Rosenzweig of Homeland Security claiming that the US is so incredibly generous and that the US has no special obligation to Iraqi refugees. All Amos can say is "but we do have 130,000 troops there," as if that is why the US owes them so much.