The Washington Post, coming down heavily on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s views on accepting Syrian refugees, says in its editorial: “[US] president wants to take in 250,000 from Syria,” says Donald Trump, falsely. It is a lie. It is a lie that Trump repeats, even as fact-checkers and reporters point out that it is wrong. Not just repeats, but embellishes.”
The Post goes on to say: “We have grown accustomed to politicians exaggerating, sometimes stretching the truth... But it is disturbing on a different scale to see a US politician repeating a big lie again and again, in a way that is calculated to inflame bigotry and fan fears. Here are the facts: President [Barack] Obama wants to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country next year. The number may increase a bit the year after that, but it will be nowhere close to 200,000 or 250,000.”
The Denver Post says: “If Germany can absorb an estimated 800,000 refugees this year from the war-ravaged Middle East ... then surely the US can accept more than the mere 2,000 Syrian refugees who will settle in this country in 2015,” says its editorial. “The US has four times the population and many times the land mass of Germany.”
The refugee crisis, says the paper, has provoked a number of diatribes in recent days by commentators who blame Obama. “Given the record of this nation’s recent interventions, however, such assertions are a marvel of arrogant confidence. The US isn’t always at fault when something goes badly wrong in the world ...”
The Los Angeles Times talks of the founding history of America and how that should hold a lesson or two for politicians spewing bile on the issue of Syrian refugees. Its editorial says, “[This week], Americans will sit around overflowing dinner tables and stuff themselves in celebration of how Native Americans greeted the Pilgrims, who came here as religious refugees from England. Think about that within the context of the current demonisation of Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq. The UN estimates that about 10 per cent of the 3.2 million displaced Syrians need resettling and the Obama administration has offered to take a small fraction — up to 10,000 — in the next year. Those are pretty long odds to successfully plant a terrorist.”
Times of crisis, says the Los Angeles Times, require level heads and cool reasoning. “Now would be a good time for elected leaders to begin showing some,” the newspaper said.
Across the US border, Canada’s Globe and Mail’s editorial upholds the tolerant values of western governments. Its editorial says: “This week, many American politicians decided to see what electoral benefit they could get out of overreacting. The governors of more than half the states of the United States said they did not want any Syrian refugees. They don’t have the legal authority to make that stick.”
The paper further says: “In Canada, in contrast, immigration has long happened quietly, steadily and Canadian-ly. It works without controversy, because most of us don’t even notice it’s working. Happy is the country where immigration’s as boring as running water.
“The refugees fleeing terror in Syria deserve to be welcomed to Canada. They deserve to have a chance to live in freedom, in our society of peace, order and good government.”
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