Iraqi refugees returning to Iraq - to escape poverty in Utah

5 posts / 0 new

Sun, 2009-03-01 21:53

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

The irony is just too much!

[url=http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11808992][color=mediumblue][u]Iraqi refugees returning to danger zone to escape poverty in Utah[/u][/color][/url]

Quote:
Six months ago, Tarek Darwish and his family arrived in Utah as refugees craving a new and better life. Last week, his family wept and kissed his hand in farewell as the former lawyer, disillusioned, left to return to Iraq.

Life in Utah has been a list of disappointments. His family of seven lives in a two-bedroom apartment. None of the adults have jobs. His wife needs glasses and dental work but has been told Utah's Medicaid won't cover them.

He feels betrayed by the United Nations' promises and the scant help offered by the American resettlement system. He hopes his family will follow when school is out.

"If you have a drop of brain, don't leave Iraq," he said through an interpreter.

After the truck taking him to the airport drove away, his wife of 38 years released a small cry.

As human rights organizations call for aid and resettlement for millions of Iraqi refugees, some who are exasperated by America's refugee system are going home or attempting to return to other countries in the Middle East. They feel abandoned by federal policies that offer limited and brief financial support and leave many refugees living in poverty.

[b]Refugees planning to leave acknowledge they may be less safe in Iraq, but believe they will be better able to afford food, pay rent and receive medical care.[/b]

Wed, 2009-04-22 12:25

Vav

I am an Iraqi refugee here in Utah. Many of the problems we face are because of the incompetency of the Catholic Community Services (CCS), International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Asian Association. These three NGOs are consuming funds provided by tax payers and deliver very poor services in return to their Iraqi refugee clients in the aspects of integration and employment. Actually, I am shocked how did they hired this unqualified staff here in Utah, the case workers are almost with zero experience and so unmotivated to assist and help. Iraq is not safe for us to go back to, and most of us have been through too much to come here, we really like to become good citizens of USA/Utah. We do not ask for special treatment, and we do not want to add more burdens on the tax payer’s shoulders. We only ask the community, to assist us on putting more pressure on NGOs funded by the federal government to resettle us here.

Thu, 2009-04-23 07:56

Catchfire

Thanks for your perspective, Vav. I'm very sorry for the difficulties you've found in Utah. Have you seen any progress or are the NGOs content to sit on their funding at the expense of the refugees they're supposed to help? Do you have any other options like moving states or applying for refugee status to Canada?

Mon, 2009-05-18 04:33

CalmCalm

The American Taliban

I'm unable to post a "New Topic" .... so I end up crusin' the forum looking for a topic which I can just add a "Reply".

You will notice that the biblical quotations are all from the Old Testament. This would suggest that a Jewish person in the Department Of Defense inserted these quotations.

Paul Wolfowitz (U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz

Douglas Feith (Under Secretary of Defense)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_J._Feith

George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'
President told Palestinians God also talked to him about Middle East peace
By Ewen MacAskill
October 07, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1586978,00.html

Biblical Quotes Said to Adorn Pentagon Reports
By David E. Sanger
May 18, 2009

A series of cover sheets for intelligence reports written for Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials during the early days of the war in Iraq in 2003 were adorned with biblical quotations, and appeared Sunday, six years later, on the Web site of GQ magazine.
http://men.style.com/gq/features/topsecret

The daily briefings were called the "Worldwide Intelligence Update," one of several intelligence reports compiled overnight and presented in a folder for Mr. Rumsfeld and other officials as they came to work.

In the selection of the cover sheets that GQ placed on its Web site, photographs of soldiers praying or in action on the sands of Iraq were overlaid with quotations like this one from Isaiah: "Their arrows are sharp, all their bows are strung; their horses' hoofs seem like flint, their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind."

Another, showing a tank at sunset, had this quotation from Ephesians: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."

The accompanying article, written by Robert Draper, the author of a book about George W. Bush that was published in the last year of his presidency, suggested that Mr. Rumsfeld often delivered the briefings "by hand, to the White House." But several former officials said Sunday that they doubted that Mr. Bush regularly saw the Pentagon briefing, which was considered both less complete and less sensitive than the president's daily brief, the compilation of overnight and long-term intelligence assessments prepared for the president, and delivered every morning.

Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman during Mr. Rumsfeld's time as secretary of defense, said that he had no recollection of the biblical briefs, but that he doubted the famously acerbic and sometimes cranky secretary would have tolerated them for long, much less shared them with Mr. Bush.

"The suggestion that Rumsfeld would have used these reports to somehow curry favor over at the White House is pretty laughable," Mr. Di Rita said. "He bristled anytime people put quotes or something extraneous on the reports he wanted to read."

Mr. Rumsfeld's reputation at the Pentagon was as a strong ideologue, but not as someone motivated by religious convictions.

The GQ article reports that the cover sheets were thought up by a general who worked on the Joint Staff, and that they replaced humorous covers that had been created in the prelude to the war.

The magazine reported that some Pentagon officials were concerned that, if the cover sheets - which were marked "Top Secret" - were ever leaked, they could be interpreted as a suggestion that the war was religiously driven, a battle against Islam. But those officials were not named in the article, and a number of former Pentagon officials interviewed Sunday said they had no memory of seeing the illustrations or quotations.

Still, the publication of the cover sheets may raise more questions about the proper role of religion in the military, and whether a Christian-influenced culture, rather than a neutral one, permeated some corners of the military.

The issue flared at the Air Force Academy four years ago, when the football coach posted a locker room banner for "Team Jesus," and there have been lawsuits against the Pentagon concerning military retreats at off-base churches, or the displays of crucifixes at military chapels in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2005, the Pentagon's inspector general recommended "corrective action" against Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, the deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence, who, in appearances before evangelical groups, likened the war against Islamic militants to a battle against Satan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/us/18rumsfeld.html

Other Sources:

Mon, 2009-05-18 08:15

Skinny Dipper

Wow! That was lengthy.

I don't know which is worse: Iraq or Utah?

Utah. I can picture myself driving through the set of The Twilight Zone with nice lookin' creepy people devouring the sins out of me as I make a pit stop at an Exxon gas station.