Andrew Crighton
Life Editor
Tony Taguba is a retired Major General of the U.S. Army.
He was a delegate at the recent 45th Annual Frank Church Symposium, where he presented on war, political power and displacement based on his experience during his deployment during Operation Iraqi Freedom and leading the investigation into the human rights violations at Abu Ghraib prison.
During one of his presentations, General Taguba discussed displaced people during war time. He agreed to a one-on-one interview where he further discussed his opinions on displaced people, the Syrian refugee crisis, their immigration into the United States and the resettlement of some into Idaho communities.
“War is a tragedy, people get killed, a country becomes devastated, but how do you get it back to its previous state or it’s improved state?”
This is a sentiment that General Taguba expressed throughout his discussions. During the panel discussion another delegate, Professor Zackery Heern of Idaho State University, argued if the United States is going to be involved with the Syrian war, even by proxy, then we should be prepared to help with the aftermath, including taking in refugees.
General Taguba agreed with this statement, adding during his interview that almost every major conflict, particularly those when the U.S. is involved, we have readily added to those who were harmed due to violence.
Taguba tells of his time at ISU. In Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, he could not wear his uniform at lower campus because the anti-war sentiment was so strong. However, the disdain for the war was not directed at the immigrants fleeing the country once the U.S. withdrew.
“We accepted them, because what did we do? We destroyed their country…It’s not any different as far as I’m concerned from what we’re doing in Syria, what we’re doing in Iraq or what we’re doing in Afghanistan,” Taguba said.
He notes every major conflict he has known of, especially if the United States is involved, that there is a major effort to rebuild and aid those who are fleeing the conflict area.
From the Marshall Plan providing aid to East Berlin, resettling the people fleeing from Vietnam to aiding those who sailed to Florida from Cuba. However, this key component is often an afterthought.
The White House has announced that by the end of the 2016 fiscal year, the U.S. is dedicated to accepting 10,000 refugees at minimum. This has sparked a lot of protest, particularly from traditionally conservative states, around 26 of which have made public statements refusing to accept Syrian refugees, including Idaho.
This program is federal, so states have no authority to reject refugees.
“This hype of xenophobia that we need to purify our communities, whatever have you, but you also wonder if some of those folks who are immigrating are a lot more educated than the average American. There’s doctors there, there’s engineers there,” said Taguba.
He believes many against resettlement simply have not been educated as to the facts of the situation, as well as the situation of the refugees.
“This is part of our uneducation, or unawareness for the public to understand that we are a country of color, no matter where you go” Taguba said.
The reason these people are fleeing is because they have been persecuted by the militant groups within their countries.Many of their homes have been destroyed by the fighting because as Taguba described, violence is a non-discriminant.
One argument as to why we should not be accepting refugees is that we should be spending that money on other things, and a common alternative is veteran care.
In 2006, in the midst of war, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs budget was around $65 billion. Last year the budget was raised to nearly $169 billion, second only to the budget for the Department of Defense.
“The argument of let’s spend this money more on other means is disingenuous,” Taguba said. “Highly disingenuous as opposed to saying, ‘what happened to our sense of compassion, our sense of generosity, our sense of opening the doors to those who are more destitute, more desperate and fearful for their lives?’ Isn’t that part of the American value?”
Taguba explained we don’t understand what these people have gone through. He had been to war and could not understand what many of these people have lived through. He added that in recent times we have moved away from our history of helping those we have placed in harm’s way.
“A lot of people have thought to criticize our country, let alone the President of the United States, who they blame, because it’s a convenient thing to point fingers,” Taguba said. “Everybody is supposed to look into that mirror and say, ‘I’m part of that problem, as opposed to being part of that solution.’”
