Tuesday, September 08, 2015

What will they do when the fighting shifts to Europe?

Tens of thousands of refugees are pouring into Europe from Syria and Libya but not from Egypt. Why? There have always been economic migrants looking for better opportunities. After all, there are over 3 million Indians in the US and more are trying to migrate every year. But the scale of migration from Syria and Libya is far greater than seen so far. There are many poor countries in Asia and Africa and many have internal conflicts but we do not see significant population migration. Congo has had civil war almost forever,  you will need 35 quadrillion Zimbabwe dollars to buy one US dollar, such is the level of inflation, and Egypt has reverted back to army rule after a brief interlude. But we do not see such levels of desperation as we see in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Why? These are all countries where the west, including NATO, has interfered, although Rwanda has been known to support Congolese rebels. In 2009 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the elections and the regime used its armed militia, the Basij to beat up protesters. Pictures of Neda Agha-Soltan shot by one of these thugs were on front pages for days but peace quickly returned because no one dared to interfere in Iran's affairs. Whereas, in Syria the west supported the rebels with arms while Gulf states provided money so the protests quickly turned into an armed revolution, drawing in all kinds of psychos from all over the world for a killing jamboree. The comic book leaders of the US, UK and Europe want to stop ISIS but not completely because that will hand victory to Bashar al-Assad, who is a baddie. Archie and Jughead would have done better. Syrians are crossing the border into Turkey, which is struggling with around 2 million refugees already and maybe helping people smugglers to take them across the Aegean Sea into Greece. From there through Serbia, Hungary, Austria into Germany. Greece cannot cope because its economy has collapsed and has to borrow money to repay its creditors. Germany has been especially harsh with Greece so it has announced that it will take 500,000 refugees every year. Some are converting to Christianity in the hope of gaining asylum in Germany but how long before culture clashes break out as Muslims demand halal meat in schools, as happened in Britain. Although low in Germany unemployment levels in parts of Europe are very high and if migrants are seen to be taking jobs or bringing down wages clashes will break out. Britain has been using drones to kill its own citizens fighting for the ISIS in Syria. Some are realising the stupidity of their own governments but still refuse to blame them. At some point some of the strife will shift into Europe. What will they do then?

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