Trying to get a visa for any of the countries in the Schengen list is fraught with difficulties and you maybe refused without being told why. Why then are European countries opening their arms to refugees from the middle east, especially Syria and Libya? Apparently, it is because of the picture of a little boy who drowned, along with his mother and brother. The hysterical reporting by western news channels of the plight of refugees seems a little hypocritical considering their thundering silence on scores of children being killed every day by US bombing. Of course, the US denies any civilian casualties and labels them as terrorists, which is faithfully followed by the western media, but the dead children have names, even though they are dismissed as 'collateral damage'. Already 350,000 have reached Europe and more are expected. Countries which are easy to reach by boat, such as Greece and Italy, are finding it difficult to cope. Trouble is that, in these days of the internet, giving refuge to migrants will encourage more to make the perilous journey. Hundreds have already perished, as the little boy did. Hungary has built a razor wire fence to keep the migrants out but it is not working prompting a furious Prime Minister, Viktor Orban to say that Europe was mad to take so many migrants and that it will have " explosive consequences for the whole of Europe ". " Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims," he said." Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? There is no alternative and we have no option but to defend our borders." But how? Turkey has arrested 4 people smugglers who were responsible for the death of the little boy but a hugely lucrative business like this is bound to attract hundreds more. It is completely different to stopping Somali pirates by attacking them with the combined naval forces of many countries. You cannot shoot at a boat full of women and children with cameras lurking everywhere. The smugglers just escape if they see naval vessels, which then have to rescue the refugees. They could bomb the boats while in harbor, which would destroy the means without causing civilian casualties. If some do get killed then they can always justify it by claiming to have killed baddies just as 30,000 Libyans died to kill Gaddafi and 200,000 Iraqis died to kill Saddam Hussein. All this was deemed necessary to save Iraqis and Libyans from baddies. So why aren't they doing it? Almost all the migrants are young, prepared to walk 110 miles to get from Budapest to Austria. They will provide cheap labor for countries with falling birth rates which are finding it difficult to look after ageing populations. Perhaps we will see different reactions when they have sufficient numbers.
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