Instead of boosting American interests at the United Nations General Assembly this week as any commander-in-chief would be expected to do, President Obama chose to play the blame game and apologize for his country’s aggressive nationalism.
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“I accept there are political constraints and UNHCR in particular is in a very hard position in the current political climate, but what I think is really missing and urgently needed is a vision for what a global refugee system should look like that’s not reactive but is proactive – and that has to come from the United Nations system”. Obama’s aides have focused on how the US has a fraction of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than it had when Obama took office and how nations are finally poised to act in concert to reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
“We must seek to increase worldwide funding and humanitarian assistance, offer opportunities to resettle refugees and alternative legal routes for the admission, facilitate the access of the refugees to education and regular jobs”, they also said, noting the importance of increasing the number of countries providing significant levels of humanitarian assistance and resettlement”.
Respite from the invective came from Colombia, which appeared at the annual United Nations gathering as a country in peace for the first time in five decades.
President Barack Obama made an impassioned plea Tuesday for countries to fulfill a moral obligation to alleviate a global refugee crisis “of epic proportions”, despite a political backlash in the U.S. against absorbing those fleeing Middle East violence. She says national reconciliation in the country also known as Burma – an ethnically diverse country riven by long-running civil conflict – is her government’s highest priority.
The president spoke of a growing contest between authoritarian rule and liberalism, and of people losing faith in the face of terrorism and the refugee crises.
Obama also warned that “the embers of extremism will continue to burn” in the world, but that “the world is too small for us to simply be able to build a wall” and prevent it from affecting society.
“We cannot unwind integration any more than we can stuff technology back into a box, nor can we look to failed models of the past”.
Vice President Sarwar Danesh said “merciless attacks from terrorist groups” against its civilians are being planned and organized on Pakistani territory.
“This crisis is a test of our common humanity”.
Together with the United States, the summit was organized by Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, Jordan, Mexico and Sweden. Several of those countries have been struggling under the burden of hosting refugees.
They pledged to help increase school enrollment for refugees, ease restrictions on employment and housing, and provide refugees legalized status.
“The humanitarians delivering lifesaving aid were heroes”, he added. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud also told the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday that the desert kingdom sees “a good relation with Iran”, amid heightened tensions between the two neighbors.
Another innovation of Obama’s summit is that it involved the private sector and sought to highlight companies’ commitments to working with refugees. The White House said more than four dozen USA businesses had pledged US$650 million, including Facebook, Twitter, MasterCard, Johnson & Johnson and yogurt maker Chobani.
The US is a major contributor of humanitarian aid for countries that host large numbers of refugees – particularly Syria’s neighbors – and plans to increase the number of refugees it will take in to America from 85,000 in 2016 to 110,000 next year.
But, he said, Obama’s commitment to doing more for the world’s record number of displaced people does not meet with the approval of “a lot of people in Congress, including … a lot of people in the Republican majority”.
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“Each of us as leaders – each nation – can choose to reject those who appeal to our worst impulses and embrace who appeal to our best”. “There are some credibility issues”. “Why do we need such a circuitous route to get there?”
