Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Editorial: You don't deport people into a war zone


Iraq? The war drags on.  War planes continue to drop bombs -- Turkish War Planes, US War Planes, etc.  Last week, the Iraqi government did finally demand that any War Planes dropping bombs first get approval for the dropping from them.  We'll see how that plays out.  In addition, ISIS is rising.  It never went away.  It never went away because the conditions that created it never went away. 

court


Shall we talk about that?  Apparently not.  In June of 2014, then-President Barack Obama talked about it.  He noted that the underlying reasons for the rise of ISIS had to be addressed -- by the government of Iraq.  That has never taken place.  The persecution continues.  There has been no serious attempt at national reconciliation (even though it was a 2007 benchmark created by the White House that year -- a conditional upon which continued funding depended).

The war continues, the persecution continues.  The government remains corrupt.  Human rights remain a problem as Human Rights Watch repeatedly notes.

And?

And the US government is deporting people to Iraq.

Did we shock you?

With the news? 

Or maybe with our usage.

If you've heard about this, you've heard that Donald Trump is doing it.

Donald Trump is the president of the United States, the duly elected president. 

But Donald Trump is not the US government.  He is a part of the US government.  He represents the executive branch.  For those who need to brush up on their government studies, the US has three branches of government -- the executive, the legislative and the judicial.

Since May, members of the US Congress have made noise about doing something but they haven't done anything.  They are part of the legislative branch.  The judicial branch is made up of the courts and they have done nothing to stop the deportations.

The US government has failed -- all three branches.

We don't support the deportation efforts currently taking place at all.  But we especially do not support deporting someone to a country at war.  Not only do we not support that move, our nation's laws and customs do not support it either.  It should not be happening.  Donald Trump bears responsibility, absolutely.  But he is not the only one responsible. 


And while we're slicing and sharing from the blame pie, let's all of us in this country grab a piece.  What's taking place is outrageous and we've gone along with it.    Have we even mounted a pathetic Change.org petition?  We're all guilty.