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Europe, the Refugee Crisis, and Conservatives
I noticed yesterday on the Member Feed that Ricochet member F-18 was wondering why we hadn’t been discussing the refugee crisis on Ricochet. In fact, we have — quite a bit — but he’s right that some of the most interesting discussions have been coming up in the comment threads, and thus aren’t so easy to find.
I’m in Europe now, and was living in Turkey as the Syrian war began and the refugees began streaming across the border. So I thought I’d open this thread to anyone who wants to ask questions about what exactly happened and what’s happening now in Europe.
Before that, though, I thought I’d put up links to some of the posts I wrote here on Ricochet as the crisis began. It would take you a few hours to read them all and watch all of the video interviews, but if you have them to spare, you might find them useful: You can see from them how absolutely clear it was, even in 2011, that a disaster of this scale was inevitable.
So when I read now that thanks to a single photo of a drowned Syrian toddler the world has realized it has a very big problem on its hands, I think you’ll understand why I feel … well, I don’t know what I feel. And I guess what I feel isn’t really the point.
July 10, 2011: Mike and Bob From Hama
… I suppose the place to start is at the end. I know the look he gave me when I left. I see it a lot: “You’re a journalist. Please, make the world understand what’s happening to us. If they understood, they wouldn’t let it happen.”
July 11, 2011: “Hama Doesn’t Forget or Forgive“
… He was groping for any kind of hope, but realistically hopeless. “The whole world wants Assad to stay. Everyone is too afraid of what will happen if he falls.” He was well aware that this fear wasn’t baseless. Overwhelmingly, he thought, the most likely outcome of this was civil war. “There is a huge hatred for the Alawites.”
He stressed that anyone who thought compromise or reform possible at this point was delusional. “They don’t understand the Syrian mentality. Hama doesn’t forget or forgive.”
Bob had joined us by this point. I asked, again, why they were talking to the media. “Governments won’t listen,” Mike said. “But the message has to get out to people. People can make their governments put pressure on Assad.”
I told him that I thought the likelihood of this was close to zero, and I explained why. Bob tried to insist I was wrong.
Mike interrupted him and said, “No, she’s right. I agree with her. She’s right.
“Rationally, there’s no hope.”
June 18, 2011: When Syria Explodes
… It’s not a secret that Syria is imploding. But the key thing to grasp is that it won’t stop there: There is a real possibility that this regime will take its neighbors down with it. I’m not sure that the West — which from what I can tell is now completely preoccupied with itself and its economic problems — is sufficiently grasping this. …
February 2, 2012: The Evil Regime: A Report From Syria
… Having been told that the videos of carnage coming out of Syria were doctored or manufactured to exaggerate the scale of the catastrophe there, he decided he had an obligation to see for himself. He disguised himself as a naive Turkish restauranteur and went to Syria undercover. He was there for two weeks before being arrested and deported. He’s in Istanbul now, and I saw him last night. Physically he’s fine, but …
February 3, 2012: What Ilhan Tanır Saw in Syria, Part I
… “Conditions are far worse than I expected. … They come house by house and they arrest every single person … it’s far worse than anything you can imagine. … the civil war has not arrived yet, but it looks like maybe a few weeks … I definitely think Assad forces must be distracted, must be distracted, they’re using all their resources on the people … but they’re doing this because there’s nothing else they worry about right now … Yes, Assad might play whatever he’s got — Kurds, PKK, it’s a risk … Everyone is waiting, Assad does what he does best … “
February 3, 2012: What Ilhan Tanır Saw in Syria, Part II
“I had no idea what they were going to do to me … they wouldn’t let me call my embassy, no way. … I thought, ‘Okay, this is not going well.’ … They took me downstairs, which is a terrible, terrible place … smells, I cannot describe how disgusting it was … people are coming in chained, like ten, five, ten people … they were really angry at me, I can see … they only hit me in the chaos, and it wasn’t too bad, compared to other people … I have no idea who did it, they did it from my back … it could have been much worse, it was chaos.” …
February 4, 2012: Let Me Save You Time on Syria
Let me put this to you simply. Assad is a monster. He is evil beyond comprehension. No one is going to stop him until he and everyone around him is dead. But you’re out of your minds if you convince yourself the FSA is comprised of potentially friendly, liberal democrats. There’s not a liberal democrat between here and the Horn of Africa, just trust me on this; they don’t even know what those words mean, they just know that you have to say them if you want to have any hope of being saved by those weird but freakishly powerful Americans for whom the words “liberal democrats” are the magic elixer. There will be no friendly, moderate, secular regime in Syria, ever, and the first thing the FSA will do if anyone helps them is slaughter Alawites and Christians. Everyone knows it, and at this point, who could possibly be surprised and who could blame them. They hate the world in this descending order, with allowances for overlap: Shia, Jews, Christians, Iran, America, Israel, Russia, Turkey. They’ll probably hate each other, too, soon enough.
The only options here are unbearably awful and unspeakably awful. There’s no happy outcome. The United States remains the only country in the world with anything like the military power to change this situation in a meaningful way, and nothing but military power will affect it, and the US isn’t going to use it. Our economy is in the tank, we’re tied down around the world, we’re hamstrung by Russia and Iran. We’re done with this region; we’re not even interested.
We will be blamed for not intervening, just as we were blamed for intervening in Iran and Iraq, and everyone will forget that both intervening and not intervening are moral choices; and the US was never presented — ever — with a choice between supporting good and supporting evil in this part of the world, just between supporting evil and supporting slightly-less-evil. In a choice between supporting evil and supporting slightly less-evil, slightly-less-evil equals good. That’s the real world.
… So, yeah, they’re Islamists, not the shy flower of the Scottish Enlightenment, but they seem to have some interest in democracy, and they talk about the Turkish model, which I’m sure they don’t understand, but which, if it means to them, “Islamic and democratic,” is probably a good thing. Maybe if you could get enough UN peacekeepers in there fast enough after Assad falls, you could prevent some of the slaughter of the minorities that would otherwise ensue. Maybe you could get a functional state up-and-running fast enough that Syria doesn’t become the Somalia of the Levant, maybe not.
The risk right now to Syria’s neighbors, if it tries to help, is extreme: Assad holds the PKK card, it has huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The regime is going bankrupt, at the very least there will be floods of refuges if this continues, Turkey certainly can’t absorb them. The Russians would be perfectly happy for every man, woman and child in Syria to be tortured and killed so long as nothing gets between it and its warm water base at Tartus. The French and the British will make very stern noises, but what are they going to do. UN? Useless. Arab League? Useless. GCC? Useless.
Meanwhile, those kids are dying. I’ve met some of them, Ilhan has met many more, and they’re kids who have been pushed into radicalism because they’re going to be killed tomorrow, so you better well hope there’s a better life on the other side. It’s that simple, really. …
And so here we are, on September 23, 2015. Please feel free to ask me any question you have about the refugee crisis — how it began, how Europe is reacting to it, what conservatives should think about it, and what might happen next.
Sadly, I know a lot about it.
And I know that for reasons I’ll never understand — as long as I’m alive — people are surprised by it.
Published in Foreign Policy, General
Do you have a source or that? The last stats I heard placed Syrians at barely 50% of the total. And some sources put it way lower….
Many ‘Syrian Refugees’ Are Neither Syrian nor Refugees
EU Data Shows 80 Percent of Migrants Are Not From Syria
Under the conventions, the migrants are supposed to register in the first country they enter in the EU. They have no right to demand passage to another country like Germany or Sweden, which is exactly what they have been doing. Refusing to cooperate and ignoring the rules.
Seems to me that one possible (partial) solution is to incentivize the neighbors to intervene, by declaring that any adjoining country that wanted to take control and complete ownership of territory within Syria that has nothing resembling a viable and moral government presently could – with international sanction. Because the Kurdish areas seem to meet international standards for protecting the populace there, it could not be targeted by Turkey under this plan.
Here is an internet map that indicates what might come of such a plan. Practically then, we would grant Turkey ownership of any of the blue and green areas it could militarily control – presuming the yellow areas controlled by Kurds are relatively safe havens. Israel could have the green area abutting the Golan Heights, if it wanted it (probably more trouble than its worth, but who knows). Jordan could move into the South, though it seems largely unpopulated. Kurdish Iraq could have all the blue territory they could take out East.:
Those would be my parents. They spent 5 years in this camp, Reid im Innkreis # 701 , just miles from where they were liberated by Patton’s 3rd Army. They were required to apply for immigration, have a sponsor and guarantee they would not be a burden on the United States. They received zero government assistance in the process. They didn’t just sneak over a border and demand their benefits.
This is so much not our problem. We need to step away and let others fix their own issues. The EU which is much closer than us, let them deal with this mess instead of passing it to the U.S. like they always do.
The American people elected Obama to get us out of and keep us out of the Middle East. That means no war, that means no support, that means no refugees of whatever you want to call them.
OK, I will take the unpopular position here.
The Russians are doing the right thing in Syria, and if they succeed, it may actually be the best outcome in regard to the overall death toll.
There are no good guys here. There are really two options.
Option 1. Let the killing go on. Stay on the sidelines, with maybe mild weapons and airstrike support for whoever you fancy at the moment. The killing will go on indefinitely, with misery for all for a generation or more.
Option 2. Pick a side and help them win. Massive support, maybe even some boots on the ground. You hope that after you are done and the bloody evil folks you supported win (remember, that is the only choice, there are no good guys. There aren’t even moderately OK guys. There is evil and there is evil), you might have a little influence due to your support in bringing about their victory.
The Russian choice is rational. While we dither, they’ve picked a side (Assad) and are going to help him win. If successful, it will end the fighting, but not necessarily the suffering. No one, not even the US has the power to end that.
That was the latest UNHCR figure on Mediterranean crossings (as of September 21). The ratio of Syrians to other countries went up dramatically last month, according to their numbers. I don’t have total confidence in their data — they’re very capable of beating up the numbers when they think it necessary — but it makes sense to me that Syria would be, by far, the country generating the biggest exodus right now.
I couldn’t agree more. Every time I hear someone say that they don’t want to take these refugees because they’re Muslims, I think, “And therefore it makes sense to turn away the Christian refugees? How about the atheists? Is the point here to prove that we hate all refugees equally?”
Look at the photo. Clean clothes, new stuff, fresh haircut –they ate Going On A Trip.
Where is the photographer standing? What happened just before this? Why is the soldier holding the boy?
I would like us to set something like that up for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.
Re waiting – it doesn’t address the government assistance bit, but if they had had the option of crossing a border into the US from Ried im Innkreis and claiming asylum would your parents have been tempted if the waiting period was twenty years rather than five? Five years is their own lives on hold, twenty years edges into the lives of their children – and parents will do a lot to avoid doing that.
Here’s the numbers I’ve seen that supposedly are up to date.
From Mediterranean Update
Additionally the vast majority of those arriving by sea are coming from Turkey, not a perfect situation, but not a war zone. Not refugees at that point, migrants.
FYI Saudi has room for 3 million migrants, right now. Oh but they offered to build them Mosques ( radical Wahhabi ones of course ) in Europe.
Here is my question:
What is a middle aged guy with four kids, three of which are living at home, who play football, soccer, are in drama, and in band, and who (the middle aged guy) barely has time to get home from work and see the kids practice or play a game, or pick them up from drama practice or take them for a bike ride….and who’s budget is stretched to the breaking point by class pictures, by new tires for the minivan, by fixing the siding, by a leaky dishwasher…what is that guy supposed to do?
Never mind helping in some way…that guy doesn’t have the time to even read this post and all it’s comments in the morning. He doesn’t have time to research this, and wishes he had back in 20111/2012. He doesn’t know what is going on because his own life, a wondrously joyful thing by comparison, is chock full.
What is the average American supposed to do?
(This is a real question, by the way. In our church council meeting, we discussed the Syrian refugee situation, and we wondered “How can our little church help?”)
No problems closer to home for you guys to address? Everything local has been solved?
The point is refugees are a convenient hook to hang more discussion about ourselves and who we are and want to be. The discussion isn’t really about them at all. Or at least that’s how it works in Australia.
I remember going to a demonstration by Assyrians in Sydney about a year ago – I know, eye roll, but it was a good cause – and the usual political fringe groups were there handing out flyers arguing that Australia should take only Christian refugees from the Middle East. But honestly – I think their focus was more on keeping Muslims out than on helping Christians to enter Australia – because they did nothing positive, only negative stuff. They didn’t actually help anybody, only made a point about what kind of country Australia should be (Christian) and whom we shouldn’t help (you guessed it).
I chose the photo because it didn’t seem to be under copyright, was the right size, and was related to the subject at hand.
There are many refugees here in Paris — I’m not a great photographer, but if you want, I can take original photos of refugees in Europe. That’s the only way I can be entirely sure what happened prior to the taking of any photo.
Count his blessings? Everything else follows.
(Seriously, it sounds like an awesome life.)
I would contact the IRC and ask whether there’s any need for help near where you live.
Thats the solution I would support. As I posted Saudi has instant room for 3 million.
They would have been tossed out on their ear, with NO CHANCE to immigrate.
Hear! Hear! We cannot repeal the deaths of those who already sacrificed everything to improve that region, and the benefit of their deaths has been not only erased but shamed.
The answer is nothing, and for the reason FJG gives: America voted for this result twice. If we are no longer the policeman of the world, and we are not exceptional, then we certainly need not be the soup kitchen of the world.
You know what would really help the world? Some awful wars that America has nothing to do with. Let’s be demonstrably, credibly, not at fault. Whom do we see making the case that this horror is the result of American withdrawal? The lesson has not been learned, and it;s somebody else’s turn to die for it. Let Syria’s neighbors take them in, and to the extent that they can not or will not, let them fight to solve the problem — nothing else will.
Indeed. And you would think this point might be stressed to them by our diplomats, who might also remind them that pretty soon they’re going to need spare parts for the weapons they’re using for their little adventure in Yemen. And that if they don’t seem to be willing to cooperate with this reasonable request, it will be quite hard to convince the US Congress that we should provide them.
Do you worry at all about the Saudis then deciding to buy military stuff from the Russians?
One more thing. My parents almost didn’t get a visa to the US. They were also refused by Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. I almost grew up in Tunisia, where they were headed until the visa to the US came through at the last minute. So while they got lucky in the end they did not turn their nose up at other options. Many of the current migrants are demanding they go to Germany or other Nordic countries.
Well, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan makes that case quite often, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re getting at.
Where were your parents from? When was this?
Spending money always seems to be the solution. And then, most of the money ends up in the pockets of the powerful and well connected. Its sad really, but it’s true.
They’d have to buy a whole new military and re-train to use it. Spare parts are what they’re going to need, and that’s exactly why we like to be these countries’ arms suppliers: so that we have that leverage when we need it.
Yes and no. They can begin slowly disengaging. If Peter Zeihan is right, and the US becomes progressively disinterested in the ME as it becomes completely energy independent over the next 5-10 years (due to fracking), and hence disinclined to exert itself to maintain the Saud family in power, the Saudis might see that they need to scramble to find their protector elsewhere.
Same Erdogan who wouldn’t let us come in through Turkey? He can’t have it both ways.
You know where Afghan reconstruction/charity/aid money goes? Not Afghanistan.
Sure. But they’re in a shooting war right now. And those refugees need a place to go right now. Ten years’ time, who knows: A lot can happen in ten years.
There’s no such thing as a risk-free foreign policy decision, but I don’t see the Saudis turning to the Russians as their protector, chiefly because I don’t see the Russians having the slightest reason to want to be their protector. Not like Russia’s energy poor, and not like the Saudis have been anything but trouble for the world, is it?