AMERICAN AND ALLIES AIR STRIKES IN SYRIA WOULD DO NOTHING TO FURTHER JUSTICE FOR THE VICTIMS OF ATTACK ON DOUMA.THE SYRIAN REFUGEES HAS FLED WAR TO EUROPE (ESPECIALLY GERMANY) BECAUSE POLITICAL INSTABILITY IN SYRIA'S FIVE-YEAR CIVIL WAR ALONE DRIVEN 4,8 MILLION FROM THE COUNTRY.

How the Trump administration has sabotaged America’s welcome,Trump signed three executive orders  on January 23  last year which offend the dignity and threaten the rights of immigrants and refugees both in the United States and globally. On January 25 at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Trump signed executive orders on border security and interior enforcement. On January 27, he signed an executive order at the Pentagon on refugees and visa holders from designated nations.

Trump’s campaign-era neo-isolationism is long over. He seems to want a war now, and if he can’t have one with North Korea because the pesky possibility of a diplomatic solution got in the way, Syria will do, and the recent alleged chemical-weapons attack by Bashar al-Assad’s army on the city of Douma, near Damascus, seems to have provided the pretext. But war with Syria means the potential for war with Iran, and even with nuclear-armed Russia so this is serious. And it’s not just talk. Trump has been assembling a war cabinet and recruiting security advisers John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Gina Haspel known for choosing war over diplomacy and torture over international law. In many cases, Trump  has an anti-immigrant rhetoric as well, as they accuse migrants of threatening the national identity of the country that receives them, abusing welfare benefits, and stealing jobs from locals.Trump has decided to allow the resettlement of no more than 45,000 refugees in the United States next year, according to a former and a current U.S. official, ending months of contentious debate inside the administration. That will bring the number of refugees allowed into the United States to the lowest level since establishment of the resettlement program in 1980.The  Trump administration has so far declined to name the countries officially and publicly but two officials one from the administration and the other from an advocacy group separately confirmed that the countries were Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. All of those countries except North Korea and South Sudan are predominantly Muslim.They were also on the latest version of the administration's travel ban that was announced last month and is currently blocked by the courts. But that travel ban also included the citizens of Chad and Venezuela. Tuesday’s refugee list, on the other hand, included the citizens of Iraq, Mali, Sudan, South Sudan, and Egypt. The restrictions imposed last month were an outright ban on travelers but not refugees from those countries.In Syria, headlines tell us, America and its allies have all but terminated ISIS’ misbegotten “caliphate.” Thus does triumph conceal tragedy  and shame.Recently, Donald Trump informed the United Nations that – despite an unprecedented flood of refugees from disaster – the United States would admit but few. Far better, he asserted, to help them “in their home region.” This from a president who would slash our budget for humanitarian assistance. But nothing better dramatizes his comprehensive callousness than the people of Syria. The country is a charnel house. Half the population needs humanitarian aid simply to survive. Three million children are not attending school. Life expectancy has cratered by 15 years. Nearly a half-million Syrians have died; at least 1.5 million have been injured or disabled. Half of all Syrians are displaced; over 5 million are refugees from horror.The long-awaited decision comes less than a week after Trump told the United Nations General Assembly that the United States prefers to prevent refugees from leaving their region and resettling in the United States. It comes at a time when the ranks of the world’s refugees have  swelled to more than 22 million, placing an enormous burden on countries from Bangladesh to Turkey.

That this is not a matter of capacity or system but rather a crisis of politics and conscience is made clear by the fact that Europe is the largest economic unit in the world and has a population of about 500 million people and yet fails to manage the refugee crisis. It has many institutions and mechanisms to absorb any large number of refugees.Some European leaders and anti-immigration groups claim that EU countries should not accept refugees because the influx of refugees from Muslim countries will undermine Europe's Christian values. This is wrong both politically and morally.

The flood of refugees entering Europe is endless. Nobody knows exactly how many there are and where they go and went. In 2015, estimates vary from the low of 750,000 to a high of 2 million. Most of them went to Germany, or want to go to Germany. Up to a million, perhaps more may end up in Germany by the end of this year. For 2016 predictions are for up to 2 million. They are the direct results of the Washington-NATO driven wars and conflicts in the Middle East which keep raging on; creating chaos. Complete deliberate and manmade chaos.One of the major international stories of the past several weeks has been the flood of refugees heading towards Europe to escape the civil war in Syria. On a daily basis, thousands of men, women, and children have made their way across the Meditteranean and to the shores of Europe, with vast numbers of them arriving in nations like Serbia and then trying to make their way to one of the nations that is part of the European Union. Many have not made it all, with overloaded boats capsizing while at sea, and other migrants reaching the shore only to die in the effort to get to land. For those who have made onshore, the reception has not always been welcoming. Many of the nations in which they have initially arrived have essentially transported to their border and sent them on their way. Hungary, which has received a large amount of the refugees trying to make their way to Germany and elsewhere, has begun imposing restrictions on migrants including erecting a border fence, which has proved futile in stemming the tide of migrants, and using tear gas and water cannons on refugees and government officials have demeaned the refugees by tossing food at them. Additionally, right-wing political leaders in the country have protested against the migrants and provided scenes such as the one the world saw earlier this month showing a Hungarian journalist linked to a right-wing outlet physically stomping on migrants as they tried to made their way through a border crossing. Hungary’s Prime Minister has said that the policies are designed to discourage the refugees from crossing into Hungary, and their seems to be little sympathy for them in the country. The migrant crisis has also led to calls for other nations to accept these war refugees, including the United States.The German Government has made a commitment to accept a comparatively extra-large contingent of refugees, to give them shelter, to feed them. But where and with what? This flood of refugees, ordered  by Turkey at the tune of 2.5 million  or more  in camps with full infrastructure that have cost some 6 billion dollars to build  not counting their maintenance  and then let lose in huge hordes at the appropriate times, like now, in stormy fall weather, followed by harsh European winters, also by orders of the Dictator. He, in turn, is comfortably protected between two oceans, oblivious to the pain of far-away others – creating purposely more confusion, destabilization and havoc within the EU  which has never really been a union, with or without refugees. The refugees are used as a weapon of destabilization.One by one of these un-solidary union members are pushing and shoving the stream of forced migrants, desperate hungry and sick people – on to the next country. Some build walls, or lock their borders with barbed wire fences, patrolled by armed police, military and vicious dogs. Sea-water or rain-soaked refugees are beaten, families pulled and pushed apart, dragged in the dirt. Police and military hatred and brutality in Serbia, Hungary the Czech Republic and others know no limits. Blood is flowing, small children in the arms of their hopeless and hapless parents   crying, not understanding the cruel world they have been born into – and will have to endure. Misery for millions in a world where injustice is ever more becoming the order of the day. And we are blinded to it. Cohabitation with misery and injustice by millions has become the new normal.Refugees are becoming the new slaves. Many are highly educated, but poor, hungry and without shelter. Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland have opposed an EU plan adopted in 2015 to take in 160,000 Syrian, Eritrean and Iraq asylum seekers from Greece and Italy.Poland's interior minister played down fresh warnings of European Union sanctions over Warsaw's refusal to accept migrants, saying accepting them would have been "worse" than the EU rebuke.

Europe is faced with its largest refugee crisis since World War II. Thousands of men, women and children from Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya and other places are risking their lives to find safety outside war zones. Close to 3,000 refugees have already died in the Mediterranean , trying to go to Europe. In contrast to the claims to the contrary, this is not a problem of capacity or system in the EU countries; this is a crisis of political leadership and consciousness.After much precious time lost, European leaders are finally stepping up to the table. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is leading the way to deal with the crisis. This move seems to be the least that the United States can do in response to this crisis. As it is, the fact that we have only taken in 1,500 Syrian refugees since the start of the civil war is atrociously absurd on a humanitarian level. Between them, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey have taken in some four million refugees in that same period. Germany has said it is prepared to accept as any as 800,000 refugees in the coming months and years on top of the roughly 3.5 million already in the country. When the government of Iceland announced that the island nation would take in 50 refugees, some 10,000 citizens signed a petition urging the government to do more, with many of the offering to put up refugees in their own home. It hasn’t been easy for many of these nations to accept refugees. Syria’s neighbors in particular have been overwhelmed with the rush of refugees and the United Nations has been brought in to help the situation. In some parts of Europe, such as Britain and France, there has been some resistance to taking in even small numbers of refugees. For the most part, though, many nations in Europe have stepped up to the plate to help these people, most of whom left Syria to avoid war and because the homes they lived have been destroyed by one side or another.All of these nations that have taken in refugees are smaller than the United States, some of them much smaller, and they have limited resources to house and help care for these people, but they have done it anyway. Given that, it seems clear that the United States can and should do much more to abide by its international obligations to help these war refugees. In some cases, that help can come in the form of material aid and personnel to assist nations in Europe with the processing and treatment of the refugees that have arrived in their borders. Beyond that, though, it seems clear that the United States needs to do its part to give these people a home, even if it just a temporary home until the war ends in their home country.

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