I mean, I don’t care if we take 50,000 Syrian refugees from a safety perspective. My concern is more along the lines of why is it our responsibility? I’m tired of the U.S. stepping up to the plate all the time. I don’t really care if you make the argument we’re responsible or not responsible for the Syrian civil war. Foreign relations should be about the best interests of your country, not adherence to ideals almost no other country cares about.
I’d also like to know what’s up with all European countries spending so little on defense but speaking so frequently about a war on ISIS. Or Canada for that matter. Before the Paris attacks Trudeau had already said he was going to bring Canada’s planes back and end their involvement in bombing ISIS. What’s funny is no one actually cares because it’s four planes. Four. A U.S. aircraft carrier carries 50-65 of them (we aren’t at present actually using carrier launched planes against ISIS–I’m just illustrating for comparison.)
NATO guidelines suggest spending 2.0% of GDP on defense. NATO isn’t an alliance of pacifist countries, it’s a military alliance. I question why countries are in it not willing to maintain a military, the only real answer is they are in it to get the benefits of the American military and not have to pay for one of their own. The U.S. spends 4.4% of GDP on defense, only the UK, Greece and Estonia hit or exceed the 2% recommendation threshold. Canada spends 1%.
It’s great you guys are doing your fair share with refugees, maybe we can go ahead and say since you aren’t remotely doing your fair share in the war with ISIS (which your government and all the NATO governments agree is necessary) we call it square? Or maybe you’d like to double defense spending up there and meet your NATO obligations and stop leeching off our military?
Like I said, I have no problem with America taking refugees under the current system. I think some of the refugee programs used in France and Germany and a few other countries, historically (dating back to France granting Algeria its independence) has allowed too much influx of people for which their societies have not properly adjusted. But America is larger and able to absorb people easier, and also is frankly, less bad at integrating immigrants (even with all of the Trump/stupid party rhetoric these days, look at how integrated most American immigrant populations are–including our Muslim immigrants in places like Michigan.) But I dunno, I kinda don’t like countries that don’t do their fair share under the NATO treaty bitching at us about, pretty much anything. Especially things relating to major wars.
Again, foreign policy is supposed to be about self interest. Since Canada refuses to meet its military obligations and chooses to leech off of American military spending, I think that Canada’s leaders understand foreign policy is about self interest. America’s leaders have not understood this probably since Richard Nixon was in the Oval Office. Our first move should be to push for Arab allies throughout the Middle East to take more of these refugees. Why has Turkey (a non-Arab country) taken so many of them and many rich, uber rich in fact, Arab countries have taken so few? Europe and the United States should be the “backstop” for the refugee problem, not the front line.
These Arab states sell oil that is largely guaranteed a place in the market because the United States has committed to keeping the Straits of Hormuz open in past periods of Iranian fits of rage at great cost to us. We get nothing in return (other than wealthy gulf state residents funneling millions to ISIS while their governments ignore it.)