Refugee crisis

[daft]

Sorry, typed on my phone in the car on a rainy Swedish parking lot as I apparently am not welcome back home currently. 

[Dr_Pangloss]

This will be an enormous security risk as far as I'm concerned.

 

Edited September 5, 2015 by Dr_Pangloss

[Awol]

This will be an enormous security risk as far as I'm concerned.

 

militants will certainly be infiltrating amongst the genuine refugees (IS announced they were doing this via Libya long ago), but regardless the problem is already here in significant numbers and carrying European passports. It can't be avoided unless the security services are superhuman - which they ain't.

That said the fact Europe has collectively decided to abandon any attempt to enforce registration of refugees as per EU law (the Hunfarians got slated for trying to follow those laws) really doesn't help security wise.

If I was an IS propagandist I'd have a small team making a documentary about infiltrators and their journey to Europe, culminating in an attack. Nothing fancy just a few beheadings in a prominent European city. It would cause social and political  mayhem.

[Nabby]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32337725

Chrisitians killed by Muslims on a boat .I think its a very head in the sand attitude to belive everyone trying to cross is going to be peace loving.There is no way IS will not try and exploit this situation.

The knee jerk reactions this week will lead to long term issues..surely at the least your going to have even more people squashing onto boats knowing Europe are not going to follow the processing previously agreed.

The UK completly has right idea in taking people from the camps outside Syria.

[Dr_Pangloss]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32337725

 

Chrisitians killed by Muslims on a boat .I think its a very head in the sand attitude to belive everyone trying to cross is going to be peace loving.There is no way IS will not try and exploit this situation.

 

The knee jerk reactions this week will lead to long term issues..surely at the least your going to have even more people squashing onto boats knowing Europe are not going to follow the processing previously agreed.

 

The UK completly has right idea in taking people from the camps outside Syria.

 

 

 

 

 

That's pretty sad. Obviously not representative of all of the refugees, but these are precisely the sort of people we don't want crossing into Europe. If you want to come over to Europe fine, but check your bag of intolerance toward other religions (and people for that matter) at the boarder. 

Edited September 5, 2015 by Dr_Pangloss

[Nabby]

Exactly but it only takes a small number to cause trouble and tarnish everyone with same brush.

But its bound to happen we are not talkig about just people from Syria there is a number of nationalities trying to get into europe not all tolerent of each other.

[Awol]

Exactly but it only takes a small number to cause trouble and tarnish everyone with same brush.

 

But its bound to happen we are not talkig about just people from Syria there is a number of nationalities trying to get into europe not all tolerent of each other.

 

 

Fair to say not all Syrians are tolerant of each other either, hence the civil war!  If you look around the internet at the 100's of photos of refugees moving through Europe, there is a far higher proportion of fighting age males than you might appreciate from watching main stream media reports - which focus the cameras on any families present.

Not saying they've got an agenda or anything.

[Awol]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32337725

Aside from the obvious lethality of the religious hatred involved (which Europe can do without more of) the interesting part of the story was the countries of origin. The victims from Nigeria, the murderers from Senegal, Guinea, Mali and Ivory Coast. 

None of the above qualify as refugees from conflict and all are illegal economic migrants of the type now menacing their way around Calais - plenty of videos on YouTube back up that observation of their behaviour.

All could have applied for visas to Europe in their countries of origin but opted to try and force their way through the door. That many have died taking the route is tragic and regrettable, but they do not have a right to simply decide "I'm off to live in X country because I feel like it". Allowing this approach to succeed is a recipe for anarchy and once fished out of the Med' the EU should be sending them straight home again.

Conflating the circumstances of Syrians seeking asylum in a safe country with economic migrants like those in the article is something the media at large are seemingly attempting to do. It's extremely disingenuous and obvious, potentially reducing sympathy for those with a valid claim to be fleeing persecution or war.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Awol
Formatting...

[MakemineVanilla]

 

 

The media have ruthlessly exploited the images of the drowned boy but have failed to actually follow through with the logical implications of their outrage.

Which would be that if they demand that it is our moral responsibility, and we should do our best to ensure no man, woman, or child drowns, then we should be commandeering cruise ships and sending them to North Africa, to rescue them from their plight.

The failure of the media to suggest solutions and only preach, can't help but remind you of Stanley Baldwin's accusation that the press have the age-old prerogative of the harlot - power without responsibility. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2015 by MakemineVanilla

[villaglint]

/>Only if they can apply a simplistic solution, flaunt their superior morality on social media, not have to confront the deep complexity of an issue and rapidly move on. 

 

I get the point you are making and to be fair you could say the same of any Twitter/media "outrage" of the last few years.

However in my view I think you've missed the crux of the issue. I think people have been paralysed by the complexity of the issue for some time now. Which is why the growing crisis has received little attention up to now as people shrugged their shoulders and thought "what is to be done?".

I think this photo made people realised that this crisis was now beyond complexity. In that complexity no longer mattered and whatever we do in the long term there is an immediate need to address the plight of these people now.

Of course we need to look at the route causes but that doesn't preclude doing something humanitarian as well.

[MakemineVanilla]

/>Only if they can apply a simplistic solution, flaunt their superior morality on social media, not have to confront the deep complexity of an issue and rapidly move on. 

 

 

 

I get the point you are making and to be fair you could say the same of any Twitter/media "outrage" of the last few years.

 

However in my view I think you've missed the crux of the issue. I think people have been paralysed by the complexity of the issue for some time now. Which is why the growing crisis has received little attention up to now as people shrugged their shoulders and thought "what is to be done?".

 

I think this photo made people realised that this crisis was now beyond complexity. In that complexity no longer mattered and whatever we do in the long term there is an immediate need to address the plight of these people now.

 

Of course we need to look at the route causes but that doesn't preclude doing something humanitarian as well.

It definitely looks impossible to make any attempt at solving it without looking bad.

No matter what solution is implemented the media will just move the goalposts.

It does have to be remembered that this time last year the media were exploiting the human tragedy in Palestine but once parliament returned, they decided it didn't matter so much, and neither did we.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

[Awol]

/>Only if they can apply a simplistic solution, flaunt their superior morality on social media, not have to confront the deep complexity of an issue and rapidly move on. 

 

 

 

I get the point you are making and to be fair you could say the same of any Twitter/media "outrage" of the last few years.

 

However in my view I think you've missed the crux of the issue. I think people have been paralysed by the complexity of the issue for some time now. Which is why the growing crisis has received little attention up to now as people shrugged their shoulders and thought "what is to be done?".

 

I think this photo made people realised that this crisis was now beyond complexity. In that complexity no longer mattered and whatever we do in the long term there is an immediate need to address the plight of these people now.

 

Of course we need to look at the route causes but that doesn't preclude doing something humanitarian as well.

Fair comment that large sections of the public are only just waking up to the scale of this, but UK Government have been leading the way on the problem for some time.

Our contributions to funding the refugee camps around Syria are greater than the rest of Europe combined and second in the world only to the United States. It's quite galling to hear various plastic EU suits berating the UK for not taking part in their ill thought out schemes, that amount more to virtue signaling than a planned solution. We were helping Syrians before it was cool.

Granted a growing number of these people have decided to get on their toes to Europe - risking life and limb in the process - but they are not fleeing danger any more. For once I think we've got the emergency response balance correct in both the camps and offering resettlement to some of the most vulnerable in those camps.  Moving millions of refugees to Europe seems like a bonkers idea to me and I think Merkel will pay for it. 

The tricky part is a long term solution which will have to involve Russia, Iran and Assad if it is to succeed. Western politicos have spent so long digging themselves a hole over these actors that I'm not sure they can climb out again, but handled badly this could lead to a much broader and more dangerous confrontation. Everyone should be treading very carefully right now, but ultimately IS has to be destroyed in its current form. 

[villaglint]

AWOL - it sounds like you are a lot more knowledgable on this issue than me. So let me ask you what are these people fleeing if not danger?

[chrisp65]

I think there are probably a very high proportion of people just wanting a better life. But don't let that trivial sounding excuse trip you up. We are talking about countries where poor doesn't mean having a Morrisons £20 dvd player. It potentially means not having access to clean drinking water, lack of sanitation, sleeping on an earth floor. It might not, some people will just be chancing their arm. But they usually arrive on aircraft visiting relatives, having a holiday, being a student and then disappearing into the kitchens of your local High Street takeaways. 

Somebody mentioned previously that migrants were coming from countries like Mali. Not in the news at the moment, but cast your mind back. The overspill from the adventures in Libya was that armed groups suddenly had access to those A Team pick up trucks with guns bolted into the back of them. Many piled into the north of Mali. Already a mix of dust bowl and shit hole, arming the local bullies can't have helped that country much. If I lived in Mali, no health care, no prospects, I'd give getting to Munich a punt.

Not saying its right, not saying we have to welcome everyone. I'm saying that if the UK was like some Nigerian shit hole with the risk of my daughters being taken from the local school by nutter rebels and the government too corrupt to do anything about it - I'd like to think I'd be man enough to try and move my family to somewhere better.

[Marka Ragnos]

Hope we get a lot of them here in the US. If they're being chased out by ISIS and the Taliban, I can only think that many of them must be sane, talented, thoughtful, and ambitious. I don't mean to sound trite, but I hope the US opens its arms to them all. They are likely rich human capital (and a lot more, too, obviously).

Edited September 6, 2015 by Plastic Man

[HanoiVillan]

I have to admit that my priors are that these people won't be poor, in Syrian terms. They'll have had to pay a lot of money to secure their crossings etc. Certainly, a lot of those who have been interviewed have been teachers and doctors. Haven't heard from so many builders and cleaners, but maybe I'm wrong about this. 

Obviously, being in the Syrian middle-class doesn't mean you're wealthy from a western perspective. Nor does it mean that you don't face real dangers in your day-to-day life in the midst of a civil war. 

Edited September 6, 2015 by HanoiVillan

[chrisp65]

Going back to the media reporting and whether these people are 'dirt poor'.

Some will be. Others will be teachers and middle ranking public service workers, finding it difficult to justify staying in whatever country when your house has been shot to bits and the buses you are supposed to service don't run because the depot was burnt out and the pay stopped arriving around about February - not that there is a bank anymore anyway. But yes, by some measures, they are the middle classes.

Certainly, the ones our media concentrated yesterday had to have two attributes to get on the tv. They had to be able to speak comprehensible english and they had to be marching with a GPS enabled smart phone held out in front of them. The dirt poor villagers of Afghanistan don't tend to speak great english. The dirt poor of Pakistan would find it difficult to keep charging a smart phone for 3 months whilst walking.

So yes, some of them, the ones that make good tv pictures, tend to be english speaking with a smart phone, or face down on the beach. No time to show you the others. We've only got 20 minutes to do the news and there's been a grand prix.

[PompeyVillan]

Of course there needs to an immediate humanitarian response. But it needs to be well thought out alongside an effect long term strategy.

Long term, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan (indeed every nation) need to be safe enough that people don't need to run away.

Personally, I think we should help but also it's about time that the UK accepted their limitations, we are not a super power. We need to stop wading into foreign wars because we're not capable of solving these crises. I think we are obligated to help though because we're a part of this mess. I'm not sure opening our borders and saying 'welcome' is the right message though.

[NorthernGordon]

I keep hearing the comment "we're full".  I don't know if we are or not, BUT:

An idea that came to my mind is to temporarily suspend all non-essential immigration for a while in order to accept more people from war-torn countries who NEED to come over. 

Where I live there are a lot of people from Eastern Europe.  Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles and Romanians.  Now, they're welcome of course they are, but maybe put a block on them coming over for while as last time I checked Poland, Latvia et al weren't a living hell on Earth.  I hope people can see where I'm coming from on this, I'm not against ANYONE coming over per se but if there is a lack of space then we need to put those people from Syria, Somalia etc first.

[foreveryoung]

Too many people are believing what is being reported in the media. We need to remember most of it is now controlled, an they have to be very careful what and how it is reported. As someone has already said, we have only seen the interviews from the economic migrants, they who speak a little English. Where are the interviews of the criminals, the poor and the runners, because believe me, they are all there, in the "swarms".

Do the people welcoming them into our country realise why our Schools struggling, our NHS are close to collapse and contraversially why there are extrimemists in every town. An do they also wonder why the goverment are cancelling free access to cancer drugs, closing down charities reducing funding to important projects. We haven't the money to allow these migrants into the country. We are still in recovery and people are asking why the goverment are refusing access to more migrants, refugess whatever you want to call them. For once David Cameron was bang on when he said, "inviting more into our country is not the answer", its certainly not. He knows more will come and it will set off a huge number of migrants coming into Europe.

We need to stop acting like this huge partner in Europe. In reality we are a tiny country busting at the seems. Why is it so bad how Australia treat migrants, im all for inviting them in if they have a job lined up, or they are going to bring something to our country. We cannot continue to bow down to media bullshit and EU bureaucratic nonsence, i,e the Human Rights Law, where we struggle to get a convicted extremist deported without it costing us millions. This is a EU made problem, though its blatently obvious the guys at the top earning their 7 figure salaries have no idea what to do about it!