Iraqi refugees

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled their homeland are likely to seek refugee status in the United States, humanitarian groups said, putting intense pressure on the Bush administration to reexamine a policy that authorizes only 500 Iraqis to be resettled here next year.

The official US policy has been that the refugee situation is temporary and that most of the estimated 1.5 million who have fled to Jordan, Syria, and elsewhere will eventually return to Iraq. But US and international officials now acknowledge that the instability in Iraq has made it too dangerous for many refugees, especially Iraqi Christians, to return any time soon.

Maybe it's me, but I think that one obligation that we DO have is to take in any Iraqis that need to leave the hellhole we helped create and take them in. ANY of them. And especially Iraqi Christians, who now - thanks to US - have a government that has made their religion against the law.

How much you want to bet that the right-wingers will scream bloody murder at the very idea? They are all gung-ho at the idea of somebody ELSE sacrificing an arm or a leg or an eye or a life to "liberate" the Iraqi people (well, the non-Christian Iraqi people), but watch the reaction if you suggest that THEY cough up a few dollars to help one of those "liberated" folks live in their town.