House Committee hearing held to smack around the Bush Administration
Posted by acorcoran on March 12, 2008
So what else is new! The House Foreign Affairs Committee titled its hearing on Iraqi refugees, “Neglected responsibilities, blah, blah, blah.” No not really, but it was all about neglect according to this account put out by Talk Radio News Service. The hearing focused on the refugee industry mantra about how Pres. Bush is not doing enough for Iraqi displaced persons. Not a word seems to have been mentioned that our aid to Iraqi refugees increased from $45 million in 2006 to $200 million proposed for 2008.
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) challenged the Chairman with this comment:
……it is not the job of the United States to subsidize refugees in Jordan or anywhere else, if they are able to go home. We should do our best, he said, in our ability to help assist them in Iraq.
Then Congressman William Delahunt (D-MA) came back with this:
They cannot go home, he said, or they’d be killed. Our response should also work to prevent further erosion of how we are viewed in the Middle East. If we are concerned about terrorism, he said, it’s in our national interest to “step up.” If the vast numbers of refugees are not treated with respect, it will be the new “breeding ground” for terrorists.
Anyone out there in Mr. Delahunt’s district who could give him some basic education on Islam and on why the terrorists are terrorists. Oh, and be sure to tell him that compassionate Sweden is sending Iraqis home.
JSBolton said
Delahunt has it backwards, and probably from dishonest and malicious intent. It is actually the extravagant ‘respect’, attention and funding for refugees, that made the terror-breeding cesspools called palestinian refugee camps. The more they’re given, the more their grievances are publicized, the more latitude they have to parasitize and migrate, the more like the palestinians they tend to become.
Infinicat said
All these conspiratorial moves on poor, innocent W. Is it April Fool’s Day already? I honestly do not think it is possible to make W. or his admin look any worse than they’ve made themselves look.
The Neocons created this smash-and-grab mess, and W. allowed it to happen.
Now they’re trying to cram another blitzkrieg on Iran before the elections, sweeping the military who are America-Firsters away.
I think both parties and the Israel-Firsters are out to lunch on this.
The one thing that neither party by itself is going to make happen is reduce the numbers of legal & illegal immigrants and refugees.
Corporatists manipulate and use unwitting tools like Ann, Judy, JSB, and many others to keep up their war on the Middle Class, and their very successful efforts to turn this country into a 2nd world power. This is not about terror, Nativism, or Muslim domination.
It’s about breaking down US Labor.
The only possible way to restrain this juggernaut is to put America First, before political parties, Israel, and anything else.
Otherwise, we’ll be having this same exact exchange a decade from now, and our children will fantasize about the life we led, and how we squandered their legacy.
— Infinicat.
Kevin said
“Not a word seems to have been mentioned that our aid to Iraqi refugees increased from $45 million in 2006 to $200 million proposed for 2008.”
That’s less than $200 per refugee for a refugee situation we created. Hardly a staggering amount.
JSBolton said
Follow the money? What the rich and powerful in a wealthy democracy are lacking at the margin is power. What is the utility at the margin for additional money in comparison to power, for those who already have great wealth? The demand for power, though, is always whetted by more power being gained. It’s win/lose, competitive, and the more you share it out the less you have yourself. W. D. Hamilton said that in terms of power, there is only one truly satisfied individual, the one at the top. With money, though, there can be a great many who have more than they can ever use themselves, and would gladly exchange some for power.
Regarding Iraqi refugees, Tancredo said last year that the state dept.is criminally disregarding the laws that require Iraq to take back their citizens, or get no visas for travel here. To expect Rice to be other than criminal or uncommonly cool for criminality, would be racism one imagines it would be said.
JSBolton said
Wait, that was infinicat who said America First. This ties in with class analysis, though, and its not about nativism. When I say America First, it means Americans first, so that the foreigner who enters in a way that increases the aggression on our citizenry, such as the net taxpayer, is considered hostile. I saw on the internet, two military officers who were expressing disdain for what they called American-first. These were American officers, and it would seem to be part of their indoctrination, that they would have that response. It’s as if they’re were an indivisible package of isolationism, nativism and American-first. The package is not known to be indivisible, though.
Infinicat said
JSB, some of what you say above is not entirely clear to me.
On this: “the foreigner who enters in a way that increases the aggression on our citizenry, such as the net taxpayer, is considered hostile.”
Using your logic, that which baits the illegal to cross the border, and buys the State Department into ever-increasing refugee numbers which “increases aggression on our citizenry”
is also hostile. Class warfare defined, and the immigrant is the enemy’s unwitting army and weapon.
Someone IS plotting against you, and he’s already a US citizen.
And: “What is the utility at the margin for additional money in comparison to power, for those who already have great wealth? ”
The answer is buying more power. You can buy your own zoning boards, councilmen, Congressmen State and National, and laws, or break the law with impunity. Think Jack Abramoff.
You can buy Presidents and Vice-Presidents (think Halliburton, KBR and no-bid contracts, $35 cans of Coke, contaminated water for GIs, etc.). No protests on behalf of our soldiers or against profiteering at our expense. $12 billion in cash taken in Iraq? No problem. No investigation. No outcry. We are a defeated people when we allow thievery like this to go on unimpeded.
Paxson communications can buy/compromise a greedy, easy mark like Juan McCain with a lobbyist-prostitute like Vicki Iseman, and I’m sure she was cheap (in both meanings of the word), too. Other lobbyists only have to pull campaign staff duty, drive the bus, man communications, press, etc. for McCain.
We accept total corruption nowadays. No one raises an eyebrow, or breathes an audible protest.
Money transforms into power and vice versa. Foreign powers can buy a Bill Clinton to say laughable lines like:
“If Iraq came across the Jordan River, I would grab a rifle and get in the trench and fight and die” -Bill Clinton at a Toronto jewish fundraiser”
One of the great howlers of the decade. How could the audience keep a straight face?
— Infinicat
JSBolton said
If the money and class explanation is best, why would the ’selfish bourgeois’ such as myself, have the particular solidarity with the citizen workers, that the blue-collar workers do not have for each other, relative to the foreigner who is an immigrant or prospective immigrant? You would not believe how many times I have blasted McCain for unseemly practices and disloyalty, even though I’m reactionary, not neutral or progressive. The progressives should be airing the dirt on McCain, not so much the bourgeois reactionary elements; but perhaps soon they will. I still say that, if it’s political, there’s a rebuttable presumption that it’s about power, more than it’s about money. Polyglot polities with democratic features get broken up as if by an inevitable natural breakdown process. The proximate cause of this is ethnic bloc voting. This is a reason not to say pro-diversity or democracy magnificat.
More on Congressional Hearing on Iraqi refugees « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] Posted by acorcoran on March 17, 2008 So where have you been Washington Post? Just today (five days after RRW) the Washington Post reports on the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Iraqi refugees. See our coverage last Wednesday here. [...]
Iraqi refugees: pow-wow of bigwig advocates this week in DC « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] the list of speakers there isn’t one from Homeland Security, nor a single speaker like Congressman Rohrabacher who would question a wholesale airlift of tens of thousands of Iraqis to America if one should be [...]