UNHCR Holds the West Hostage to Islamist Terror

The Ramstein military base in Germany has become a makeshift camp for thousands of Afghans  Getty Images

"They [Afghan civilians] really feel like the international community has not stood sufficiently with them."

"There can be all kinds of reasons for people to need to leave [Afghanistan]. But we're trying to assist them where they are."

"We're present in every province and two-thirds of the districts and have a number of partners with which we're working."

"So, we would obviously call on the neighbours to allow those people to be able to seek safety within their countries as well."

Kelly Clements, deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees 

A woman and child walk between the makeshift tents in Nawabad Farabi-ha camp for internally displaced people in Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan.   UNHCR/Edris Lufti

 

The international community is being chided once again by a representative of the United Nations from an arm concerning itself with the plight of the world's burgeoning refugee populations fleeing conflict, repression, discrimination and outright violent hostility from the executive bodies that govern various corrupt, autocratic, crime-ridden countries. Including the latest to join a long string of persecuted people anxious to escape what fate has ordained for them, Afghanistan.

Iran and Pakistan require the sympathy of the world for their hard luck in bordering Afghanistan. Destinations of desperation for Afghan citizens anxious to escape the notorious and dangerous maladministration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. For many, the loss of their fledgling democratic status, despite endemic corruption, was far preferable to the hardline Islamists who have restored their previous rule through unrelentingly lethal attacks on government, its agents and agencies.

In its previous iteration the Taliban gave haven to al-Qaeda, allowing it the freedom of operation to plot a spectacularly atrocious series of surprise attacks on the United States of America. A hideous attack that spurred the invasion of Afghanistan and the hunting down of al-Qaeda and its Taliban supporters. Even then, the sponsors, trainers, enablers and funders of the Taliban gained the trust of the United States accepting Pakistan's claims that it was a committed partner in combating terrorism.

Sheltering both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, Pakistan's Interagency Intelligence group conspired to destroy Afghanistan, even while Washington was generously handing over millions to support the very military that housed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in spitting distance from an elite Pakistan military academy. Both Iran and Pakistan celebrated the return of the Taliban to govern Afghanistan. A return which added fire to the smouldering embers of impoverishment in a country where Islamic State, al-Qaeda and the Taliban hunt down their opponents in constant orgies of slaughter.

 

 

Little wonder Afghan civilians are desperate to escape the clutches of the Taliban; tribal/sectarian minorities are targeted by all three terrorist groups. As are former government elites, government workers, and Afghans who found employment as drivers, interpreters, kitchen staff and other positions with the foreign troops stationed with the NATO-U.S.-led mission to fend off the Taliban and help to incubate democracy in yet another Muslim country.

That great global conciliator, the United Nations, extends yet another humanitarian mission to persuade the West of their obligations to those less fortunate who in absolute fact either admire or venomously detest Western values, among whom are those committed to the jihad of destruction and death visited on the unIslamic world of vice and corruption. That obligation first and foremost, is to help fund Iran and Pakistan, to house and feed the new refugees seeking haven there. Which of course, does not diminish the West's obligation to take in more refugees themselves.

The oil-rich countries of the Middle East; Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Iraq for starters have limitless treasuries. Time for Qatar in particular, Saudi Arabia as well, to step forward and fund their brethren in religious devotion. For is it not so under Islam that there is such a responsibility among Muslims to give aid and succor to suffering co-religionists? All the more so that the bulk of the world's refugees -- from the Middle East to Africa -- flee the violent threat of Islamist terrorist groups pledging allegiance to jihad through membership in Islamic State and al-Qaeda and their offshoots...

 

As for the last dangerously chaotic airlifting efforts by Western nations to bring desperate Afghans to safety in the West, tens of thousands managed to escape during a harrowing week of hopes and expectations both realized and dashed. Many managed to reach haven and security in Europe and North America. Many more were left behind, with no time nor space on aircraft to accommodate their hopes and aspirations to separate from their country of birth for promising new lives. Take more, urges the UNHCR. 

 

The failure through militant Islamism to secure futures for Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, in Africa where countries as diverse as Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Somalia and others see ongoing deadly attacks by al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates, creates more bedlam, more refugees, and countries suffering the ravages of war and the inability to feed their populations. Islam has become a tired and sick theology, no longer what the faithful proudly claim it to be, a religion of peace.