Responsibility

There was an interesting piece on the NewsHour tonight highlighting Iraqi refugee's and the countries that have chosen to harbor them. The report (which you can read the transcript or listen to here) looked at specifically Sweden who has chosen to take on thousands of refugees and specifically those requesting asylum due to direct threats on their life.

The most intriguing part to me was a comment by one of the mayors in Sweden:

"MAYOR ILMAR REEPALU, City of Malmo: Sweden didn't take part in the Iraq invasion. If you look upon the second quarter this year, 4,500 of the Iraqis came to Sweden and were accepted here; 2,500 went to Greece; 400 get to Spain; and 180 to United States, 180. That's half the number that we accepted in Malmo in the same time. How come?"

Now granted there wasn't a US response given in the report nor any commentary on the significance positively or negatively of these facts, but it has made me ponder the role we should have in any country in which we choose to get involved and pursue active political change leading to displacement and death threats towards innocent civilians. A part of me has to believe that we as a country do shoulder some if not a lot of responsibility.