Europe does not have a migrant crisis. It has a REFUGEE crisis.

[dixiegrrrrl]

Excerpts from "Where is morality in the ‘migrant crisis’?"

The UN Convention defines the term “migrant” as “where the decision to migrate is taken freely (…) and without intervention of an external compelling factor". This is a definition which clearly distinguishes migrants from refugees or others compelled to leave their homes. This is no “flood of migrants”. It is a refugee crisis brought on by a state of profound global economic and social imbalance.

In the international response to the so-called “migrant crisis” that is finally obvious from European suites, there is no global discussion over the roots of the problem, no unified solutions envisaged, and no willingness to recognise the true causes and devise a long term strategy to reverse them.

Instead, short term visions have dominated with discussions focused on the Faustian question of whether to send rescue boats to aid drowning people, debates over how many “African” migrants European societies can absorb and the construction of ever higher walls.

So far, solutions to the crisis have been framed by discussions of marauding “hordes” at the doors of fortress Europe, threatening our “standard of living”.
And yet, the truth is the majority of migrants who have reached the EU so far this year have come from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia and Syria, countries profoundly affected by conflict and human rights abuses. They are not so much criminals as victims, who according to Judith Sunderland, a researcher for HRW, make the crossing “because they have to, not because they want”.

Despite Europe’s grandstanding on the issue of absorbing migrants, it is actually the world’s poorest nations which have so far shouldered the burden of dealing with millions of refugees, while Europe has offered to resettle a mere 20,000.
Meanwhile, thousands have died at sea thanks to what French-Senegalese author Fatou Diome has denounced as a “dissuasion tactic,”
Europe’s unofficial “let them drown” policy, as even limited rescue efforts have been hampered by cooperation issues between different countries.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/where-morality-migrant-crisis-520227141

[yeoman6987]

1. I wonder how the countries are going to take care of them

Italy Portugal and other places are pretty stretched financially. It will be interesting how it works out.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. One interesting aspect is what happens when enough refugees and citizens decide to confront

the Gov't of countries that are causing the refugee problem in the first place.
Sooner than later, I hope.

[Blue_Tires]

8. God help anyone wanting to 'confront'

the governments of Somalia, Syria, etc...

[bemildred]

3. Correct. nt

[leveymg]

4. France and the UK brought this upon themselves by their regime change operations in Libya and Syria

Next time, don't destabilize states that will surely erupt into civil and religious wars generating huge numbers of refugees. Same thing happened in Central America during the Reagan-Bush Administrations.

This one is, of course, our refugee crisis, again, as we have also been right in there coordinating regime change across MENA.

[Blue_Tires]

6. Silly me, I thought it was Assad slaughtering 300,000

that brought about the exodus...

[eissa]

9. And terrorist opposition groups that have done an equal amount of butchering eom

[leveymg]

10. Half of those killed in Syria are allied with Assad. It's not a one-sided slaughter. ISIS is our

monster, along with the Saudis, Qataris, French, UK and some others. Those who created and have sustained this war should at least pay to care for the refugees generated.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Verily.

[leveymg]

17. Thanks

[Blue_Tires]

21. So things were just peachy in Syria before the civil war started?

[leveymg]

22. The country wasn't in ruins.

Whatever you may think of the regime, Syria was a far better place to live for the vast majority before the CIA and Foggy Bottom decided to change things. Same with Libya. Both are examples of catastrophically failed "humanitarian regime change" initiatives.

The Saudis and Israel are pleased by the outcome, so what the heck. Let's do it to Iran, next.

[Blue_Tires]

24. Why does Russia escape blame

since they've been throwing *heavy* support behind Assad's repressive autocratic regime from the start?? Most of the weapons Assad's people are using to kill civilians come from only one place... And for all the hysteria over the Snowden leaks, Assad is still the only national leader documented (indisputably) to have used hackers/spyware to hunt down and assassinate underground leaders of the dissident network...

And please don't start with that "Libya was better under Gaddafi" - silliness, because that only indicates you weren't paying close attention to what was going on before, like most anti-intervention hardliners...I'll agree it was regrettable that nobody was really prepared to step up in the power vacuum and create a more egalitarian society so the nuts are running things now; but the bottom line is in the long run, Libya will be better for it and stabilize eventually... FWIW, Uganda had 7-year civil war after Idi Amin, so there is plenty of precedent...Although I do hope it doesn't last as long as the Somali Civil War...

[leveymg]

25. Russia provides weapons, but has never fed and raised a Jihad. That's something we've done to them

since the Brzezinski Doctrine took hold, and it's turned out to be a disaster for the United States, particularly since we've partnered with the Saudis to do it. I can't think of a group who have more contempt for western norms of human rights and political freedoms (and contempt for us) than the Saudi Royals and their Sunni warlord tribal vassals.

The Saudis, Qataris, and Emirs are truly not our friends, and do not act as such, except when we have something they want to buy, such as the services of our armed forces. From the Taliban to al-Qaeda to ISIS, their own militias have been the worst human rights abusers and terrorists in the world. Bar none, aside from ourselves, they have killed and destroyed the most during the last 30 years, because they are so well armed and funded. We called them "freedom fighters" when Saudi special forces and their terrorist cells fought the Russians and their allies, but our "friends" have been playing a double game against us, and 9/11 was their doing.

After the US and NATO destroyed the central government in Tripoli, Eastern Libya was awash with heavily-armed holy warriors for hire. Ambassador Steven's team went into Benghazi in March 2011 for that very reason. Once the regime fell, the US commenced immediately to coordinate with Qatar and Turkey the organization and transport to Syria of the most fanatical Libyan Jihadis, knowing that would spread into a regional war between the Sunnis and Shi'ia. We knew full well which holy warriors were the most fanatical and the dangers they posed.

This outcome followed the model of the Taliban in Afghanistan after the departure of the Soviets. It is the United States that has again engineered a power vacuum. In the Levant, as in Afghanistan, the deadliest elements have again thrived within it, spreading across Sunni areas of the region, establishing the long-awaited Caliphate. With military and covert activities of the west, and all the oil in Arabia, radical Islam now has been realized in Syria, Libya and central Iraq, and the rest of the region will not "stabilize" for a long, long time. Like the Taliban, ISIS is our doing.

[pampango]

23. Dictators usually do bring "law-and-order", if not much in the way of personal freedoms, to their

kingdoms. Dictators rely on police power to stay in power so there is the basis for plenty of 'order' as long as you don't publicly disagree with Herr Dictator.

When people protest the lack of freedom and the use of police power to stay in office, they are almost always portrayed by the local oligarchy as 'agents of a foreign power'. It wouldn't do to have your own people (who love you so much that your picture is plastered all over the country) to be acting on their own. Why would Syrians be unhappy living under a dictator and his father before him? Americans would not take to the streets in such circumstances, would we?

[eissa]

5. As someone who has family that will be making this frightening journey

thank you for clarifying that they are indeed refugees. They did not CHOOSE to leave, they are being FORCED out. There is literally no safe place left in Syria, particularly for minorities. The neighboring countries are either overwhelmed or outright refuse to accept them in. They're desperate and ignored with no other alternatives left.

[malaise]

7. Maybe most of Europe should have thought about this outcome when they

went along with Bushco's madness re destabilizing the Middle East, supporting sides in Syria and killing Gadaffi and mashing up Libya.

[leveymg]

12. This is a bipartisan, international mash-up.

Sadly, CIA Director Petraeus and the Clinton State Department had major roles in spreading the carnage into Libya and Syria, and from there coordinating the movement of Sunni fighters and looted arms from Libya into Syria, knowing the risk that the religious war would go regional. But, that's what the Saudis and Israel wanted, so David and Hillary gave it to them.

Destabilization may have started with Bush's invasion of Iraq, but it has since been vastly expanded. That's right in Hillary's lap along with the rest of the neocons in Washington.

[malaise]

13. Sadly you are correct

All he neo-cons are responsible for this mess - and their puppets in Europe.

[leveymg]

14. What buffers Obama from this is that he fired Hillary and Petraeus (terminated with prejudice)

and then took some action against ISIS.

Of course, there has been practically nothing done to go after the source of ISIS's continuing donor base high-up in the Saudi, Qatari and Emirate elites.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Because............

The truth is, our illusion of perpetual growth as a societal and economic ideal rests on the increasingly violent and ruthless exploitation of the people and natural resources of the global south, and eventually - chickens come home to roost.

[malaise]

20. And that is the absolute truth

but remember the chickens don't get to roost.

[pampango]

11. Great job, dixiegrrrl. We can fight over who's to blame but not over helping the refugees.

It is certainly not their fault. The EU has agreed to accept many refugees and liberal countries like Sweden have stepped up repeatedly to do so. More power to them.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. NOt all countries in the EU

"Europe’s unofficial “let them drown” policy, as even limited rescue efforts have been hampered by cooperation issues between different countries."

[Shandris]

19. There were no other countries closer than [i]an entirely different continent[/i]?!

That's like me wanting to leave Indiana and doing so by way of Gibraltar. I'd need a Flat Earth map for that to make any sense.