Donkeys led by litigants

David Aaronovitch notes in The Guardian:

Ann Thomas, the Respect Euro-candidate for the southwest, claims that Labour has scapegoated asylum seekers and refugees, "despite the fact that Blair's wars in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq have caused people to desert their homes and seek refuge." Sierra Leone, Ann? Do you think that people stayed put during the good ol' hand-chopping days, and then deserted the country in droves once British troops arrived to protect them? Does Ann even know where Sierra Leone is? In every case cited, people have returned home because of "Blair's wars"; the truth being the exact opposite of what Ann Thomas says it is. Honestly, you'd be better off voting for a donkey.

I've remarked before that the great under-reported news story about the Iraq war is that the predictions by anti-war activists of a refugee crisis were proved exactly wrong. Amnesty International, the Liberal Democrats and the rest were not only factually wrong on this point: they also completely misunderstood the character of the conflict. The people of Iraq understood perfectly well that Coalition forces were targeting the Baathist regime and were at great pains to avoid civilian casualties.

Conversely, in Afghanistan an established refugee crisis was reversed by the overthrow of a brutal theocracy. Last week, a UNHCR spokesman in Kabul was able to report:

The resumption of the facilitated repatriation operation this year in March started with high figures that continued to raise [sic] by week – from March to 26 May this year 242,303 Afghan refugees returned home from Pakistan and Iran with or without assistance, bringing the total number of returnees from these two countries to 3, 157, 178 from March 2002.

Taking into account 443,897 internally displaced who also returned to their previous homes, the total figure of those who returned to their places in Afghanistan is 3,601,075.

In the past few weeks, an average of 5,000 Afghans daily crossed over from Pakistan and Iran. The returning figures this year seem to be already higher than last year in the same period. However, the peak of returns is expected when the school year ends in Pakistan and Iran, in mid June.

If you regret the overthrow of theocratic tyranny and the chance for a new life for millions of displaced Afghans, you at least have a clear choice of whom to vote for. But I'll stick with Eeyore.

Comments

[Social Democrat]

So, all Trotskyists are idiots and most are liars, what else is new?

Seriously, what really needs to be exposed is the deep undercurrent of racism in so much of the ultra leftist commentary on Iraq. The middle class Guardian readers of Muswell Hill really do think these are inferior people and are incapable of living in anything other than a state of repression. If the repressor gives them excellent medical facilities too (pace Castro) they are good, if he murders them for being trade unionists (pace Pinochet) then he is evil. Saddam did a bit of both so they just aren't sure.

[john b]

Just a quick fact-check - does "with assistance" above include "in handcuffs against their will"?

[Matty]

What I find most distressing about the idiot opinions of the Respect candidates and the other ultra-left neo-isolationists is that they don't seem to give a damn for third-world people any more. As far as they're concerned, their deaths only matter if they are killed by Western forces (accidentally or not) or tyrants backed by the West (but not anti-Western tyrants, see the notable silence when Castro had a group of Cubans shot dead for the terrible crime of hijacking a ferry). I'm astouded that anyone who claims Blair's moral and internationalist intervention in Sierra Leonne (which was condemned by many on the idiot-right in this country, including a leader in the odious Sun), which protected a civil government and ordinary people from murdering gangsters, could be in any way something to condemn.

I think there's probably a Respect candidate up for election in my constituency tommorrow. It's doubtless my duty to vote against them.

[Adrian]

I'd be interested to know what the comparable figures for Iraq might be. Can anyone guide me to them?

[Anthony]

Well, just looking at Iran is interesting.

By February 2004 fifty thousand of the refugees (200,000 in total) in Iran had returned, and the Red Cross had to close its biggest camp. By the end of March 100,000 had left Iran, with help from the programme run by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Before the war the UN was not quite expecting this: "The UN warns that as many as 900,000 refugees could surge across Iraq's borders--equal to the number of Albanian Kosovars who fled to neighboring countries in 1999--while an additional 500,000 Iraqis could be displaced within Iraq. Without adequate food, shelter and medicine, the refugees would face malnutrition and disease, according to a UN draft report."

There are no reports of what the Kuwaitis have done with the large amount of tents they purchased to deal with the expected 200,000 refugees they expected. Presumbly, they can be kept for when Saudi Arabia implodes.

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

It does strike me as interesting that RESPECT and their ilk don't seem to be bleating much about Sudan. Might that possibly be because in Sudan Muslims are killing fellow Muslims and Christians?

[Matty]

Dare I suggest RESPECT won't give two figs for the Sudanese until their situation becomes a stick they can beat the United States with.

[WJ Phillips]

Dare I suggest that all of you should spend less time and energy swatting flyspecks?

[J Farren]

No.

[Ryan]

Dare I suggest that one factor behind the non-refugee-crisis being so under-reported was because the anti-war activists *other* major predictions - that the war would increase terrorism and that WMD would not be found - proved to be absolutely right?

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

Actually the war on terrorism has reduced or prevented terrorism in the UK and the US. So how is that not a good thing? The war on terror was to prevent further attacks on the US and the UK its major backers and supporters. If it wasn't working why would Al Queda need to attack targets that are less secure like Spain and Turkey?

Sarin was, up until it was found in Iraq, considered a WMD. If that Sarin ladened shell that was detonated in Baghdad been used in a confined space the casualties would have been higher as demonstrated in Tokyo.

[James M]

I would dearly love to see the assertion that the "war on terrorism" has somehow "reduced or prevented" terrorism in the US and UK justified in some way... except, of course, I can't, as it is precisely such completely unfalsifiable assertions that the war on terror depends on. Just as long as we believe everything the wildly successful security services of those respective countries tell us, I'm sure we'll all be ok. Oh yes.