Refugee Crisis

[Northernmonkey]

Baxus

 

I think most of the criticism levelled at the West over Syria is that the West didn't intervene, rather than that they did.

 

In the case of Libya, it was a choice between intervening, or letting Gadaffi massacre his enemies,  Either way, a humanitarian crisis was the outcome.

 

I'm not sure about that. In the UK most people are thankful that we didn't intervene in Syria because as it turns out lots of the rebels we were backing went on to form/join ISIS. It would have been an absolute disaster.

 

With Libya the criticism seems to be because of the complete lack of strategy and the mess we left the place in afterwards (which incidentally lead to it being a major leaving point for African migrants heading to Europe).

[Hayyoth]

What does that have to do with Malmo?

Yeah?

 

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/12/20/world/europe/ap-eu-sweden-car-bombs.html

 

 

 

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Swedish police say two car bombs have shattered dozens of windows in a multiethnic district of Malmo, Sweden's third largest city.

Police spokeswoman Linda Pleym says no one was injured by Saturday's pre-dawn explosions in Rosengaard, a district dominated by immigrants from Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia and Lebanon. One car bomb exploded at the foot of a building, the other in a parking lot nearby.

It was unclear who was behind the two explosions and if they were connected. No arrests were immediately made.

The blasts were the latest in a series that has rocked the southern Sweden city in recent months. Earlier this year, a downtown building that houses a court house, police and prosecution offices and a detention center was twice targeted. No one was injured.

 

How about

 

http://www.thelocal.se/20150810/malm-shaken-by-another-hand-grenade-attack2015

 

nother hand grenade attack shook central parts of Malmö overnight – the latest in a series of explosions rocking Sweden's third largest city this summer.

• Three stabbings within hours in Malmö (05 Aug 15)
• Malmö police shortages 'putting public at risk' (29 Jul 15)
• Malmö police ask for help to stop violence (25 Jul 15)

 

The hand grenade exploded on a residential street near one of Malmö's busiest bus stations in the Möllevången area of the southern city late on Sunday night.

No one was injured in the blast, which took place at 11pm at a street crossing between Ahlmansgatan and Claesgatan, although some 30 windows were shattered.

“I heard a powerful bang and looked outside to see what had happened. It's really lucky if no passersby were hurt, there's normally a lot of people walking here even late at night,” Annika Grönkvist, who lives near the area told regional tabloid Kvällsposten.

 

Quick everone book your vaccations now!

[SeanF]

Notone

 

Do you think the Middle East was a stable region prior to the Iraq war?  The Western powers have actually spent a great deal of blood and money trying to make Iraq stable.  Even prior to 2003, groups like the Iraqi Kurds were only kept safe due to Western intervention.

 

As to the rest, Syria is not the only place that asylum seekers come from.  We've taken in plenty, over the years.  Currently we've taken 5,000 from Syria, and no doubt we'll take more.

 

Kosovo is a poor country.  But, that doesn't qualify the inhabitants to claim asylum.  Western intervention actually prevented the ethnic cleansing of its population.

[Mithras]

I am from Germany (Munich) so this refugee crisis is very real. Some countries in Europe behave like SHIT. like real shit.

 

There are more than 2 million refugees in Turkey. Most of them are poor and beggaring in the streets or are exploited to work under inhumane conditions. Some of them are rich and educated. EU and USA are trying to take those educated Syrians who know foreign language, who are Christians, who are engineers, doctors and so on, leaving the poor and the beggars to Turkey.

 

Yes, your country along with many others are really behaving like SHIT.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

 

That is open for discussion. I recommend you take a look how those people in Kosovo live. Legally speaking they are not refugees, whether that is a reasonable standard.

The UN has given Kosovo a "high" rating in Human Development Index (HDI), and I assume that they've taken a better look at how people there live than you have.

 

First part no there aren't. These groups are insignificant on the battlefield. Assad has been driven back so much that the Russians have had to directly intervene just to maintain the status quo, and I assume, to help set up a proto Alawite state. The Sunni Jihadis are winning in Syria.

 

Second part, Assad had almost nothing to do with the rise of Daesh. Assad didn't 'neglect fighting the Jihadists' as he was in absolutely no position to take them on in the first place. The Sunni Jihadis have concentrated on setting up territorial enclaves in the Sunni heartlands and absorbing or destroying any of the so called moderates. How was Assad supposed to fight them when government forces have been barely holding the line for years?

They hold much of the most densely populated areas and the largest cities. Then we have the Kurds and their YPG, who are doing great at the moment and for that matter permit non Kurds in Syria to serve in their forces as well. Assad is indeed getting worn down, because his recruitment base is too small. He only has his Alawites to really count on as soldiers, who make up about 12% of the population. Now after five years of war he has used up a good deal of the men in that ethnic group, so the situation is starting to get bad in that regard. This is not only related to Jihadis however, he is fighting against lots of other groups as well.

 

He released Jihadis from prison at the start of the civil war, and let them be so that they could build up their forces, so that he would be able to portray the conflict as "good guys vs terrorists" instead of "oppressive government vs. rebels who want freedom". Also he was not barely holding the line for the first years of the war, it is mostly during the last year or so that things have started to get really dire. And again, he was fine with Daesh (then Al Qaeda in Iraq) as long as they were fighting Americans in Iraq.

[The King in Black]

I had a really lenghty rant in mind, but you know I'm kinda tired , oh what the hell

 

Seriously ? US has enough money to stockpile weapons and bailout Wall Street motherfuckers, but talk of helping out dying refugees who have nowhere else to go and suddenly its "NoOOOooo !! They Destroy  'Murica ! (bullshit) They destroy economy ! (Immigrants didn't fuck our economy jackass, we did. Unless I misremember Them Chinese and Indians causing subprime mortage crisis-now that I think of it, one Indian tried to warn us !) Dem Immigrants (again, nonsense), We can't do it !! ( of course we can; spend a little less on weapons and tax them MegaCorps a little more duh ) " and some other bullshit which can be categorised as xenophobic bullshit,  ultranationalistic bullshit, NIMBY bullshit and just bullshit. The West built it's wealth on loot of the world people. The unimaginable comforts we think we're entitled to came (and still come) because our forefathers stole from the World.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Notone

 

Do you think the Middle East was a stable region prior to the Iraq war?  The Western powers have actually spent a great deal of blood and money trying to make Iraq stable.  Even prior to 2003, groups like the Kurds were only kept safe due to Western intervention.

 

As to the rest, Syria is not the only place that asylum seekers come from.  We've taken in plenty, over the years.

 

Kosovo is a poor country.  But, that doesn't qualify the inhabitants to claim asylum.  Western intervention actually prevented the ethnic cleansing of its population.

 

Compared to now it was stable. And the Kurds are a story of its own. And no, the Western Nations are not really the white knights. They are/were far too happy to turn a blind eye to the actions taken by the Turkish goverment against the Kurds. Because Turkey is a vital ally.

Again. What exactly was ISIS/ISEL before the Iraq war?

Hussein wasn't a nice guy. Nobody is arguing about that. But this whole clusterfuck now, is almost entirely of Western making.

[HexMachina]

Yeah?
 
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/12/20/world/europe/ap-eu-sweden-car-bombs.html

 


 


How about
 
http://www.thelocal.se/20150810/malm-shaken-by-another-hand-grenade-attack2015


Quick everone book your vaccations now!

You linked a different article before, which had nothing to do with Malmo. And only one of the articles you link here can arguably point to immigration as the cause of the issue, and even then it's a tenuous link

[The King in Black]

Notone

 

Do you think the Middle East was a stable region prior to the Iraq war?  The Western powers have actually spent a great deal of blood and money trying to make Iraq stable.  Even prior to 2003, groups like the Iraqi Kurds were only kept safe due to Western intervention.

 

As to the rest, Syria is not the only place that asylum seekers come from.  We've taken in plenty, over the years.  Currently we've taken 5,000 from Syria, and no doubt we'll take more.

 

Kosovo is a poor country.  But, that doesn't qualify the inhabitants to claim asylum.  Western intervention actually prevented the ethnic cleansing of its population.

 

This might surprise you, but West has been fucking in the Middle East even before the First World War  (OMG ! IKR!)

And no, The West rarely plays White Man Saviour unless it's interests are involved (unlike Media would want you to believe )

[The King in Black]

@Notone,

I love how everybody has suddenly developed selective amnesia about how  Saddam's Iraq was once The West's blue eyed poster boy.

[mormont]

Okay. New question then.

 

Why don't you let some homeless guys permanently move in and live in your home?

 

See... in this analogy, my home is an enormous mansion occupied by several families other than my own but that still has spare rooms for more people, and it has security staff to oversee the occupants, and the people moving in are going to be contributing to the household. So, what I'm saying is - it's a really bad analogy.

[baxus]

And the NYT

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/world/europe/swedens-riots-put-its-identity-in-question.html?_r=0
 

 

You are aware that Malmö and Stockholm are different cities, even fairly distant from one another?

 

Baxus

 

I think most of the criticism levelled at the West over Syria is that the West didn't intervene, rather than that they did.

 

In the case of Libya, it was a choice between intervening, or letting Gadaffi massacre his enemies,  Either way, a humanitarian crisis was the outcome.

 

WRT Iraq, it would obviously have been better to let Saddam Hussain remain in power, albeit, with the No Fly Zones being maintained.

 

I don't mean to start a conversation on how justified Western countries' actions in the Middle East were, that should be in a separate thread and I'm not certain I'd take part in that one.

 

The point I was trying to make was that actions have consequences and that countries that sent their armies to the Middle East should do their part in taking care of refugees, even if those armies weren't openly involved in Syria.

The whole Middle East was very unstable to begin with, and Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns, tensions regarding Iran's nuclear program surely played their part in the whole Syria situation.

[The King in Black]

The correct analogy is this -

 

I'm comfortably off in this wealthy palatial mansion my forefathers built by fueling their personal growth by taking the lands and resources of all the people now lining in shanties around my mansion. One day some come at my gates begging to be let in for protection,  and they really , desperately need protection, but I don't want them in my mansion 'cause I don't. So what's the worst, most idiotic analogy I can come up with to contrive this whole situation to suit my argument , which is inherently full of shit like me ?

[Mithras]

Do people in the west still consider the Arab Spring as some revolutionary movement of freedom instead of what it really is (i.e. a project designed by CIA/NATO/EU to divide the countries in Middle East)?

[3CityApache]

And they weren't divided before, right?

[Northernmonkey]

Do people in the west still consider the Arab Spring as some revolutionary movement of freedom instead of what it really is (i.e. a project designed by CIA/NATO/EU to divide the countries in Middle East)?

 

Come off it, the Arab Spring took everyone in the Western World by surprise. To say it was a 'project designed by NATO' sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense to me.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Can we include the wealthy Gulf countries here too? They should be ashamed of themselves for not helping the Syrians, eg lifting visa restrictions on family reunification, accepting refugees.  

ETA: FWIW Arab human rights activists are calling their governments to act.

 

Yeah definiely, but their inaction is not a surprise to us based on past history.

 

Just to put things in context, 50k people is the size of a small town in the US. Typically this would not be enough to cause any great ripples in the socioeconomic fabric of the US. In fact, if 50000 people were to arrive in NYC tomorrow, most of them would be gobbled up by the city without you and I noticing a difference.

 

Its actually been done in the past during the Irish famine where about 100k Irish settlers arrived on the shores of the US and the population was only 300k at that time. Nowadays I suspect the template is to spread out refugees throughout the nation, but with some fairly big chunks in select locations.

[Mithras]

Come off it, the Arab Spring took everyone in the Western World by surprise. To say it was a 'project designed by NATO' sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense to me.

 

In the Eastern World, many of the things ridiculed as conspiracy theory nonsense are plainly obvious to see.

 

For example, I bet people in the Western World cannot comprehend that ISIL was created by the intelligence agencies of USA and Israel, doing their bidding since then.

[The King in Black]

 

In the Eastern World, many of the things ridiculed as conspiracy theory nonsense are plainly obvious to see.

 

For example, I bet people in the Western World cannot comprehend that ISIL was created by the intelligence agencies of USA and Israel, doing their bidding since then.

 

Many in the Eastern World cannot comprehend it either. Also, it's a little more than 'Skullcapped savages think West is Bad', seeing how the West was indeed responsible for many a puppet rulers and shadow wars in the region, so maybe if the populace thinks there's a phantom under every rock, let's not ridicule them okay ?

[Sullen]

The correct analogy is this -

 

I'm comfortably off in this wealthy palatial mansion my forefathers built by fueling their personal growth by taking the lands and resources of all the people now lining in shanties around my mansion. One day some come at my gates begging to be let in for protection,  and they really , desperately need protection, but I don't want them in my mansion 'cause I don't. So what's the worst, most idiotic analogy I can come up with to contrive this whole situation to suit my argument , which is inherently full of shit like me ?

 

This analogy fails to account for some of your own family members though, some of them sleeping on the floors, or in the yard, lacking food, lacking a future as well.

 

My point of view might be irrelevant considering it's coming from a North American country, but I think we should take care of our homeless problem and of our crippled working class before taking the responsibility to shelter hundreds of thousands of refugees. Internal issues should be the priority.

 

Of course, some things could be done to help as well. Make legal immigration easier if you are from a wartorn country without getting rid of all standards and sending monetary aid mostly (which I honestly think we should focus on more instead of spending on a frivolous military).