The United Nations reported this week that in 2015, 65.3 million people were refugees or forcibly displaced in their own countries by war and persecution. This is the largest number ever recorded – and a testament to massive failures of both the international community and the United States in dealing with this crisis. [...]
Compounding this is the fact that most rich countries are failing to do their share to alleviate suffering. Most of those who have crossed borders are being accommodated in neighboring countries lacking substantial economic resources – such as the Somalis in Kenya and the Syrians and Iraqis in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. A few well-to-do countries, including Sweden, Germany and Canada, have acted generously. Others, among them Britain, Australia and the US, which distinguished themselves at other times by welcoming refugees, have now all but closed their doors.
My own country, the US, is the worst offender on both counts. It led the invasion of Iraq in 2003 without a legitimate casus belli. It set in motion the events that produced immense forcible displacement in the region. Also, it had the capacity to establish a protected zone in Syria, like the one it established for the Iraqi Kurds to protect them against Saddam Hussein following the Gulf war. It declined to do so, a failure that was publicly criticized by state department dissenters a few days ago.
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