Thursday, March 15, 2007

Helping to clean up the mess they had no part in making:

...In what may be the biggest refugee crisis since 1948, more than 2 million people have fled the violence in Iraq....

Where do Iraqis seek sanctuary? Not in the United States, it seems. Last year, only 202 Iraqis were granted asylum in America.

But tiny Sweden took in more than 9,000 Iraqi asylum-seekers last year.

President Bush recently offered to expand the U.S. pool to 7,000 this year. Sweden expects to take in three times that many.

Keep in mind, Sweden was never part of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing." This country deeply opposed the Iraq War.

...During the Gulf War, the country took in thousands of refugees from Saddam. Now the Iraqi community, already large, is overflowing.

..."The Americans went to war and in large part created the situation that people are fleeing," said immigration reform advocate Merit Wagner.

"But," she said, "they seem to be dumping this problem on Sweden."

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