Editorial of the Day: Still Failing Syria’s Refugees

Jack Venden, Period 3, link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/opinion/sunday/still-failing-syrias-refugees.html?_r=0

The author’s central claim is that the wealthier countries in the United Nations like China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the United States are turning their backs on the 9 million Syrian refugees who have been displaced by the civil war that has been raging in their home country for four years. He/she claims that countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt (Syria’s neighbors), as well as Germany and Sweden are taking in as many refugees as their economies and territories can support while, larger, more prosperous nations are taking in few, if any, Syrian refugees and leaving the burden to the less wealthy nations.

Facts:

Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt alone have accepted 3.2 million Syrian refugees

China and Russia (who have funded Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s military campaign against the rebels) and wealthy Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (who back various militant groups in the war) have refused to take a single refugee

the United States has only accepted a total of 300 Syrian refugees

4) I think the United States, Russia, China, and the European powers should accept the responsibility of being the world’s most powerful nations and provide temporary living facilities for Syrians within their own borders until the war comes to an end.