RNA - In case you missed it, here’s what Trump reportedly said this week: “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” He was referencing Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, and most of Africa. He went on to ask why more people from Norway (a nearly all white country) weren’t coming to the US. The story was first reported by the Washington Post. It’s been confirmed by Sen. Dick Durbin, who heard the words firsthand.
Trump and his defenders deliberately ignore the direct and disgraceful role America has played for decades in making life worse in the countries it has invaded, occupied, and failed – not just the ones he mentioned, but many others in the Middle East and North Africa, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Libya. Among many other things, the US has also backed a direct Saudi-led war on Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, hence triggering one of the worst humanitarian crises in the region.
True, the US is one of the world’s richest and most powerful and technologically innovative countries. But all this and more are only being harnessed to regime change sovereign nations and fail those that stand in the way of US hegemony in the world. They are never used to address the terrible situation in which millions of Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Afghans, Libyans, and Palestinians continue to live.
Trump and his defenders are pretty much in the know that one of the most important collective priorities for 2018 is a collective response to global migration and refugee crisis. The world still has an opportunity to fashion a truly global response to these crises. But this can only be the case if America first ends it regime-change adventures and fantasies in Muslim heartlands, which are the main engines of global migration and refugee crisis.
Trump could go along with the polite fiction that he is worried about criminality when he addresses immigration in the US. But he has no right to badmouth a whole range of countries when he knows it is the United States that is worsening the global refugee crisis and migration. If Trump wants less immigration from the Muslim world he could get it by ordering the Saudis to end the Yemen war and by withdrawing US troops from the Middle East, places like Syria and Afghanistan. This is much more efficient than throwing immigrants out of their homes of 20 years or banning Muslims from traveling to the United States.
If the majority of these crises are US-made, this means that their perpetuation is needless and unnecessary. Due to lack of political will, insufficient resources, and moral failure on the part of Washington and company, the fighting continues and civilians keep fleeing and dying in record numbers.
The United States occupies a paradoxical role when it comes to this crisis. On the one hand, the US is the most generous donor of humanitarian assistance in the world. On the other hand, US military actions and partnerships are directly contributing to the very crises humanitarians are trying to resolve. US policy choices bear responsibility in three ways:
-US military operations have caused immense disruption and are intensifying;
-Partner militaries are systematically violating international humanitarian law and exacerbating migration outflows;
-And consequently, international norms to protect civilians during armed conflict are diminishing worldwide.
Even before Trump took office, human rights observers were concerned about the civilian impact from US airstrikes. But under Trump’s leadership, civilian casualty rates have climbed exponentially higher, particularly in Yemen. The huge increase in civilian deaths is not limited to the campaign against Yemen. In Afghanistan, for example, the United Nations reports a 67% increase in civilian deaths from US airstrikes in the last six months of 2017. In other words, civilian casualties are up everywhere under Trump’s leadership.
As US commanders themselves admit, they rarely undertake site visits or interview victims in the course of a post-strike investigation. This has hindered the US military’s ability to verify casualty allegations, and it also reduces accountability for poor decision-making. Finally, by purposely limiting its ability to learn from past mistakes, the US military is turning a blind eye to important civilian protection lessons that ought to influence future operational decisions – hence worsening the refugee crisis.
So given the US’s role in contributing to the global refugee crisis and migration, ending the endless war on terror and regime-change campaigns seems appropriate. Here, the US bears a critical measure of responsibility for the global humanitarian crisis and Trump’s obnoxious statements are not going to refute that.
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