comment by Jerry Gordon

Our comment is that the Congress ought to prod the floundering State Department, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, funded at over $1.08 billion, to give priority to as many Iraqi Christians as possible under the current Fiscal Year quota of 12,000. We have posted on this humanitarian bollox, a national scandal that cries out for intense Congressional scrutiny and reform.
Secretary Rice should copy the initiative of French Foreign Minister Kouchner and give directions to staff on Easter Monday to open up the gates of humanitarian immigration to these allies of America and Middle eastern Christians threatened with extinction by Islamists.

France is taking nearly 500 Christian Iraqi refugees

Posted by judyw, Refugee Resettlement Watch on March 22, 2008

It’s a moving story. The Christian Post reports that Christian refugees from Iraq will be coming to France, thanks to the initiative of one government official.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner confirmed the plans in a joint television and radio interview, The Associated Press reported. He said he hoped the Iraqis, particularly from the Chaldean Catholic church, will be in France within weeks.

“No one” is taking in Iraqi Christians, Kouchner said, according to AP. The foreign minister noted that Paris has a community of Chaldeans.

Kouchner went to Iraq in 2007 and saw how badly off the Chaldeans were.

Kouchner, who was born to a Jewish father and Protestant mother, noted the drastic drop in the Iraqi Christian population – from about 1.1 million to about half a million.

“Their persecution continues, daily, and the fact that, admittedly, they aren’t the only people being persecuted – certainly not in Baghdad or elsewhere in the country – doesn’t make it acceptable,” he stated, according to the Embassy of France in the United Kingdom.

“They are especially targeted. I realized this and am going to try, at my small scale, and remedy it.”

Kouchner is an interesting man. He was a communist but got kicked out of the Party. He co-founded Doctors Without Borders. He has held a lot of government positions. From Wikipedia:

Kouchner is a long-time advocate of humanitarian intervention. In early 2003, he pronounced himself in favour of removing Saddam Hussein as President of Iraq, arguing that interference against dictatorship should be a global priority, and continued to say that now, the focus should be on the actual people themselves, and that they are the only ones who could answer yes or no to war.

It’s refreshing to read about such a straightforward and humane man in a high position in government. His attitude is: They’re Christian, they’re persecuted, they’re coming to France. The person who holds the corresponding position in our government is Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State. I can’t imagine her doing anything so bold, or so humane.