Another planeload of Iraqis are brought home

For the record, Middle East News reports:

Baghdad – A fourth group of Iraqi refugees arrived in Baghdad on Sunday from Cairo on the Iraqi Prime Minister’s official plane, semi-official al-Iraqia television has reported.

In the past month some 253 Iraqis have returned to Iraq courtesy of the prime minister’s aircraft.

Government spokesman Qassem Said told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency that weekly flights will be arranged shortly.

Hmm, that’s about 63 Iraqis per planeload. At that rate, it will take 34,921 weeks to bring home all 2.2 million Iraqi refugees. They’d better think of a quicker method of getting them back.

So what’s up at the Hagerstown mosque?

Update:  Authorities are saying it was an “innocent mistake” but you still gotta wonder why they jumped from box in back yard to bomb.  Actually I’m kind of insulted to think they would jump to that conclusion in the quiet community where they are located.

Can’t find any mention of it on the news, but local residents report much activity around the Islamic Society of Western Maryland on Day Rd. in Hagerstown today.  Reportedly, Police, fire and two law enforcement helicopters arrived on the scene where a local resident told us that supposedly a bomb (or at least a suspicious package) had been found behind the mosque.

After investigating it apparently was determined, according to sources, that the mystery box (or boxes) contained items belonging to the mosque.  If that proves to be the case, here is what I would like to know, whatever possessed everyone to go crazy and spend what must be a fortune of taxpayer money to investigate some boxes?  Didn’t officials at the mosque know it was their stuff?  What was this all about?  And, will we hear the details in the Hagerstown Herald Mail or will the event be buried?

The Islamic Society of Western Maryland was involved in resettling Russian Turkish Muslims in Hagerstown about a year and a half ago and we mentioned the mosque here and here.

Alaska not a big refugee resettlement state

In light of Senator John McCain’s choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as a running mate, and out of curiosity, I just checked to see how many refugees have gone to Alaska since 1983 and the number is relatively small—just under a thousand.   Go here to check the numbers in your state.    The refugees who went to Alaska came from Iran, Afghanistan, and the former Soviet Union among a smattering of other countries. 

Compared to states like California, New York and Florida all of which have resettled hundreds of thousands,  Alaska’s numbers are tiny.

But, of course, smaller still are Deleware’s!   Just a reminder that Senator Biden, Obama’s VP, is one of the primary Senators who for 28 years has pushed for more refugees to come to the US, yet his state has taken only 771 of the millions who have come (on the taxpayers’ dime) here.

Reporter raped in makeshift refugee camp in France

This story was first brought to my attention by Blulitespecial and then another reader sent me a more detailed report from The Mail of London.   A lone female reporter trying to get a story about illegal immigration went to the camp in Calais—The Camp of Saints?  French author Raspail must be feeling stunned these days to see his 1973 novel coming true (or maybe he isn’t surprised).

Up to 500 migrants – mostly claiming to be from war-torn areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq – live in the damp wood, in a disused part of The Dunes industrial zone.

She was tricked to enter a hut where she was raped:

As she took photographs of a group of Afghan refugees, she was lured into a makeshift hut in the notorious unofficial camp called The Jungle by the gang leader, who told her he wanted to show her something inside.

There he held her down, repeatedly hit her around the face and body, and subjected her to a half-hour rape, police said. Although she screamed for help, no one came to her aid.

She had been warned: 

The petite brunette had been warned by local police not to go to the camp as it was a dangerous place for lone females.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the rape victim asked for it (or maybe I am).  I blame this foolish decision on her part on this politically correct notion promoted by the Left in Europe (and here in the US) that all these impoverished refugees from war-torn countries need is a home and some love and understanding.

Many of those trying to break into Europe are ruthless criminals and shame on the French authorities for not rounding them up and deporting them to wherever they came from.   Drop them into the mountains with Bin Laden if necessary, they are more dangerous to the West in a Camp in Calais.

A send-up of Democratic speeches

I’m going to be going off-topic a lot this week, as my husband Jim and I are going to the Republican National Convention and I’m sure I won’t be able to resist writing about it. To start things off with a laugh, here is David Brooks’s op-ed piece in the New York Times today, called A Speech to the Delegates.

My fellow Americans, it is an honor to address the Democratic National Convention at this defining moment in history. We stand at a crossroads at a pivot point, near a fork in the road on the edge of a precipice in the midst of the most consequential election since last year’s “American Idol.”

One path before us leads to the past, and the extinction of the human race. The other path leads to the future, when we will all be dead. We must choose wisely.

I can’t copy the whole thing here because of copyright law, so you should click on it and read it. Just one more choice bit:

As a child, I was abandoned by my parents and lived with a colony of ants. We didn’t have much in the way of material possession, but we did have each other and the ability to carry far more than our own body weights. When I was young, I was temporarily paralyzed in a horrible anteater accident, but I never gave up my dream: the dream of speaking at a national political convention so my speech could be talked over by Wolf Blitzer and a gang of pundits.

As I said, read it all.

More on Lewiston’s Somali situation: spreading them around and accommodating

Update Jan. 17, 2009:   I notice that the Conservative Voice has merged with Townhall.com and the link for the article by Brian Ball is gone.

The Somali experiment in Lewiston, Maine continues to cause friction and some Somalis are moving on (although from the article I posted on a couple of weeks ago there are still plenty in Lewiston).  In the meantime, school officials there sweep anything distasteful under the rug to limit any culture clashes.

First, here is an article from a writer, Brian Ball, who must live there and write for a publication called Conservative Voice.   He says:

At first the Somalis were welcomed into the community. The addition of them made The town almost similar to Lagos, Nairobi or Mecca. But problems began to unfold. Lewiston’s social network was unable to handle the massive influx of refugees. The people began to complain that they would take away jobs and housing. Many people complained of being evicted from public housing to make way for the refugees. Also it had a negative impact on taxes. Maine is one of the most tax burdened states in the nation, just behind New York and New Jersey. Lewiston soon had one of the highest property taxes in the state. Many residents including the mayor began to protest and urged the Somalis to move on. Of course leftist moonbats in Maine also protested citing that those who opposed them were all racists. To make matters worse, Matt Hale’s World Church of the creator, which had chapters in Presque Isle and Portland came to roost along with members of the Aryan Nations which had it’s eastern headquarters in Hampton Beach New Hampshire, causing concerned citizens to shy away. The September 11th attacks also didn’t help. Since most were Muslim, suspicion grew on the community and in 2006 a frozen pigs head was thrown into their mosque.

One thing that didn’t come true, the Somalis did not take any jobs away. Because of Maine’s socialist economy, there were not enough and almost all of them had no education whatsoever. Nearly all of them were unemployed. Most of them receive money from the federal and state government anyway. With this the Somalis with the help of other social workers encouraged and aided them to move to other communities in Maine as well as New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Then in an article in something called The American School, educators learn how to sweep under the rug anything that might cause cultures to clash.  Don’t dare discuss the practice of female genital mutilation, that is what they are teaching their children, the community of Lewiston and school leaders everywhere.

Misunderstandings are inevitable when these two very different cultures meet.

An example: Middle school students were assigned to write their autobiographies, which would be included in a book published by the school system. Many Somali middle-schoolers, who had a firmer grip on spoken English than on written English, told their stories to an interviewer.

Word got around that the girls were being interviewed about female circumcision [note they don't use the word "mutilation"], causing an uproar. The Somalis wondered why the school district was asking about such things. Martin didn’t know how the rumor started, but she contacted two Somali women with whom she frequently works to help quell the suspicion.

So we go down the slippery slope of politically correct accommodation of a practice that is illegal and downright evil because no one will dare to make a judgement.  If it’s a religious or cultural practice of the Somalis, we have no right, according to people like educator Sue Martin, to even discuss it.

Bush calls for financial assistance for displaced Georgians

Your tax dollars:

In a memorandum to the Secretary of State, President Bush yesterday asked that internally displaced Georgians receive American aid:

I hereby determine, pursuant to section 2(c)(1) of the Act [Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962], that it is important to the national interest to furnish assistance under the Act, in an amount not to exceed $5.75 million from the United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance [ERMA] Fund, for the purpose of meeting unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs, including by contributions to international, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations and payment of administrative expenses of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State, related to the humanitarian needs of conflict victims and those displaced by recent violence in Georgia.

For you numbers folks, here is the FY2007 ERMA fund (couldn’t find 2008 in my few minutes of research), but here is a report from our friends at Refugees International (RI) about how happy they are that the FY2008 monies in this category bring the fund to its chock-full level of $100 million.  RI must be busy lobbying on the FY2009 fund about now.

Abbas embraces permanent refugee status for his people

The AP reports:

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday rejected the idea that Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon might be forced to stay there permanently, saying they should have the right to return home.

About 400,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants live in a dozen refugee camps in Lebanon, which were set up for those who fled or were pushed out during fighting around Israel’s creation in 1948.

Israel is not going to accept the so-called “right of return,” which means all the descendants of the Arabs who fled what is now Israel would get to move to Israel, where they have never lived, and become citizens. That would mean the quick destruction of Israel, so it’s not going to happen. But Abbas, the man who is considered the leader of the “moderate” faction of the Palestinians is not going to see the refugees settled anywhere. It’s more useful to his cause to continue to use them as political pawns against Israel, even if it means they continue to live miserable lives.

Why doesn’t Abbas negotiate with Syria, Iraq, and the other places Jews had to flee after 1948 to guarantee Jews a right of return, and the return of their property, as a bargaining chip? Never. In world opinion, Palestinian suffering is wholly due to the Jews, and the Jews must fix it. The Jews who were forced to leave their ancient homelands have been airbrushed out of history.

Americans line up for jobs Americans won’t do

Following up on Ann’s post of two days ago on the ICE raid in Mississippi, here’s an article from a local paper there, Applicants line up to fill jobs open after plant raid.  

Howard Industries found itself at the center of activity again Tuesday.

Hundreds of job applicants lined up, eager to take advantage of the sudden job openings at the plant located in Jones County, where the unemployment rate is 6.3 percent.

Some of the applicants blamed the illegal aliens for their inability to find a job.

Samantha Stevens, 18, of Heidelberg, was among those who pulled up to Avenue A across from the plant’s entrance throughout the day. She said she has been unable to find a job since she graduated from Heidelberg High School in the spring and blames, in part, the willingness of companies to hire illegal workers.

“We were here first. It’s not fair for them to have a job,” she explained.

Of course the article ends by quoting the wife of one of the detained illegals, who thinks it’s not fair that the government took him away. There are many passionate comments at the end of the article from people fed up with illegal immigration – it seems to have been read nationwide.

Somali accommodation, CAIR and the EEOC

Update:  See more on the EEOC and more on CAIR here at this excellent article by Jerry Gordon at New English Review.

Kind of funny how things come together.  Twice in the last couple of days the EEOC (Equal Opportunity Employment Commission) has come up in relation to Somalis in the workplace. 

Turns out coincidentally that just last month the EEOC formalized its “EEOC Compliance Manual on Religious Discrimination.”   Here is what author Kim Bobo said in an article in which Bobo is critical of  the “anti-Muslim” sentiment in the Tyson’s Labor Day fiasco in Shelbyville, TN:

On July 22, 2008, the EEOC issued an excellent new resource manual, “EEOC Compliance Manual on Religious Discrimination,” to help employers and workers learn more about the issues. The manual contains many useful examples of what is and is not religious discrimination and helps both employers and workers understand what is reasonable accommodation and what are best workplace policies for ensuring compliance with religious discrimination laws. [read the rest here]

Then note that CAIR worked with the EEOC to get the uniform changes for Somalis at Sky Harbor.

After preliminary meetings with CAIR-AZ and the EEOC, the workers were able to come up with a uniform they believe accommodates their religious needs and the legitimate needs of the company. The new uniform includes a black skirt, an apron and an Islamic head scarf, or hijab. Airport officials were shown the new uniform and approved its use. The EEOC subsequently signed off on the uniform change.

“We would like to thank all those whose hard work and cooperation helped resolve this issue in a mutually-agreeable manner,” said CAIR-AZ Office Manager Lisa Gopalan.

She said employers who have questions about how to accommodate Muslim employees may contact the Washington-based civil rights and advocacy group.

This is how accommodation of Islamic practices for the growing number of Muslim immigrants to the US is creeping into our government and our lives.    Looks to me like CAIR lobbyists were all over the EEOC.   You can bet the EEOC wasn’t thinking about fundamentalist Christians who might want to pressure Hooters into a dress code for those Christians wishing to work at that establishment. 

To new readers of Refugee Resettlement Watch, the US State Department has brought over 82,000 Somali refugees to the US in recent years.