Iraq war created world's largest refugee exodus in over fifty years.

Just one day's interest on the U.S. debt for this war would relieve the refugees' suffering.

One of the consequences of the Iraq War that has been under reported in the United States is the plight of refugees from the violence that has been raging for nearly four years since our invasion. One in eight Iraqis have now left their homes, with up to 50,000 people leaving each month. The United Nations' refugee agency, known as the UNHCR, recently announced that this is the largest long-term refugee movement in the world since the displacement of the Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948.

If you haven’t seen the brilliant David O. Russell film, Three Kings, starring George Clooney, or your haven’t seen it in while, now would be a good time. This action/adventure builds to a moral dilemma for the protagonists. Should they spend a fortune they’ve worked very hard to acquire to rescue a group of refugees?

This is the moral imperative we now face in Iraq, except that, relatively speaking, it won’t take a fortune to rescue the refugees. Just one day’s interest on the U.S.’s borrowing to finance the Iraq War would relieve much of the immediate suffering of the refugees created by that war.

I’ll explain the math in a minute, but first, some more about the refugees. The UNHCR has issued an urgent appeal for 60 million dollars in emergency aid for those fleeing the violence in Iraq. Many of these refugees, often including entire families and children, live in deplorable conditions. Two million Iraqi refugees live outside the country, while nearly that same number remain inside Iraq, politely referred to "displaced people." The total number refugees may grow to almost five million by the end of the year. Human rights and women’s organizations are alarmed over growing evidence that desperation is forcing some young women to turn to prostitution so that they and their families can survive.

Now for the details on the interest on the debt: U.S. expenditures for the Iraq War so far are estimated to be more than $356 billion. The entire national debt actually has increased six times that much during the war, so every penny spent on the war is being borrowed. The interest on the debt is just under five percent per year. That means we are paying interest on the war debt of nearly 18 billion dollars a year, or more precisely 50 million dollars in war debt interest each and every day.

50 million dollars, or one day’s worth of interest on what we’ve spent so far on the war, is nearly the amount the UNHCR says is needed to relieve the suffering of the millions of souls displaced by that war. A donation of that amount in America’s national interest.

Whether you think it is a just or unjust war, millions of people have been forced to flee their homes because of our invasion. If we truly want to show the world that we are worthy of the leadership role we claim in trying to make the world a better place, shouldn’t we make this small gesture to relieve some of the suffering this war has caused?

Please let your elected officials know how you feel about the plight of Iraqi refugees, and make a donation to any one of a number of international refugee organizations that are working to help Iraq’s refugees. Whether you favor surge or withdrawal, this should be a cause that transcends political divisiveness over the war. The amount that’s needed is equivalent to every person in the U.S. donating 17 cents each.

Click to donate. Click to send a message to Speaker Pelosi.