On Sun, 25 Sep 2011, Mike Mitchell <m.mitch@exemail.com.au> wrote:
To me, a refugee is best explained by the scenes in films taken during World War Two. The destitute people walking from one town or city to the next without purpose or hope or knowing what was waiting for them needed refuge. I strongly suspect the real refugees
This is a rhetorical technique that's often used by unsympathetic members of the majority group to deny decent treatment to members of a minority group. Just say "oh I'm all for treating the real victims well, but the ones we see aren't real victims so we should do nothing for them". The situation for people in East Germany and Poland was by most measures a lot better than that for people in Afghanistan now. Why do you have so much more sympathy for Poles and Germans? Is it because they are white?
can not get themselves out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the photos and films taken show those people whose eyes have lost all direct focus. My heart bleeds for them but they aren't the ones getting here.
We have adequate resources in Afghanistan to get people out. Are you suggesting that our military should air-lift the "real victims" to Australia? Another possibility is to just stop creating victims. If the Kurds and Shia in Iraq were given referendum on having their provinces become separate countries then things would calm down a lot there. Then instead of investing so much blood and money in trying to achieve the impossible (make Iraq a united country without having a despot like Saddam holding it together) attention could be focussed on improving things in Afghanistan. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/