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We Know What’s Happening in Syria
Russian bombing is prompting a mass exodus of terrified Syrians from Aleppo to the Turkish border. Credible estimates suggest 70,000 have fled; they’re the lucky ones: Those who remain are apt to be starved to death. The Syrian army and allied militias, including Iranian militias, will soon cut rebel-held zones of Aleppo off from Turkish supply lines. Russian airstrikes have been hitting villages north of Aleppo on the road to Turkey. Aleppo is on the verge of encirclement, which means hundreds of thousands of souls will be unable to escape. What we’re about to watch live, if we wish to, will probably be the largest siege since the Second World War.
The news that the Syrian government is exterminating detainees is on the front page of The New York Times today. You can read the details here. At some point the world will issue a teary apology to Syrians and there will be memorials to the Syrians and lots of children will hear about the terrible first half of the 21st century, and everyone will ask how this could have happened. If anyone ever says, “We didn’t know what was happening to them,” tell them: Shut up. We did.
There are now at least 2.5 million refugees from Syria in Turkey. Angela Merkel has been in Ankara to plead for Turkish help in reducing the influx of refugees to Europe. The EU has promised to give Turkey $3.3 billion if it can somehow make the refugees stop coming. In the past 48 hours, 35,000 Syrians have arrived at the Oncupinar gate at the Turkish border. Turkey has given refuge to civilians fleeing Syria throughout the war, but it’s come under very heavy pressure from the United States and Europe to seal off its border entirely. The refugee camp on the Turkish side of the Oncupinar gate has been largely shut for nearly a year. New arrivals have been sent to camps on the Syrian side, which Turkey claims are safe, for now. Turkish aid agencies are delivering humanitarian aid to these camps. Erdoğan has sworn that “If needed, we will let those brothers in.”
Another boatload of refugees drowned in the Aegean yesterday, including eleven children. This is now almost-daily news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psYg06pj1do
The Turkish deputy prime minister is warning that in a worst-case scenario, 600,000 will escape from Aleppo and wind up on the Turkish border.
And it’s like a bad joke: Just as every EU member state is doing its utmost to seal its borders so better to keep Syrian refugees out, Frederica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, has called on Ankara to let them in. Turkey, she’s insisting sonorously, “has a moral if not legal duty to provide protection to these people.”
The Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders (the Netherlands now holds the EU presidency), joined in the moralizing: “I look at these images of people standing at the Turkish border and I just wanted to underline the message people who are in humanitarian need should be allowed in.”
And the UN is joining the chorus: Turkey, it says, must open its borders to desperate Syrian refugees fleeing Aleppo, “in line with its international obligations to protect people fleeing conflict or persecution.”
I’m stunned by the moral blindness. The Turkish government has insisted — from the start, to its own very uncertain citizens — that Turkey has a moral duty to admit Syrian refugees. So I simply don’t know who Mogherini and Koenders are trying to persuade. Turkey closed its borders because Europe and the US pressured it to do so — chiefly because Europe doesn’t seem to be able to keep its own citizens from joining ISIS or turning into Nazis. And now Europeans are lecturing Turks about their moral and legal obligation to admit refugees?
Perhaps they should be trying to convince Europeans, instead? Or Americans?
Published in General
Not sure what your question is — the headlines the next morning pretty famously didn’t report that news, it took several days before the stories that had been circulating on social media were reported in the mainstream press. Are you concluding from this that many more incidents are being covered up? Because I don’t think that would be the correct conclusion. The story of how the police and the mainstream German media screwed that one up has been, at this point, investigated in a lot of depth, and I don’t think either one is a common occurrence, although something similar did happen with this story, I assume owing to a similar dynamic: a combination of police incompetence and the media’s unwillingness to believe a story that sounded so sensational and would cause so much controversy. So I think such things do happen in Germany — obviously — but I don’t think they’re a regular occurrence. Did I understand your question correctly?
Absolutely correct, yes. I don’t know if they’d be massacred to the last Alawite — that depends how quickly some kind of order could be established, and we know that won’t be easy; but even if it could be quickly established, Assad and every senior member of his entourage would at best face Milošević’s fate, unless some kind of deal were cut allowing them to retire in a dacha in Russia.
I’m not sure to which “such things” you’re referring to, the mass rapes by refugees, or the neo-nazi killings. If its the former, such things do appear to be regular occurrences, given the experience in Sweden and Norway, or their own countries in ME where s**ual assault is a pretty common occurrence, such as in Egypt.
Blaming German police for not providing enough protection, rather than the perps, is strange. You shouldn’t have to have mass police to prevent mass rapes, in civilized countries.
No, there’s now a city’s worth of Russians there. Two thousand, at least, have been credibly reported to be there; I would guess a lot more. It’s true that before the war it was just staffed by a handful of Russian military and civilian contractors, but before they “suddenly” moved into Syria they’d been guarding and supplying the facility and completely rebuilding the dock. (This was widely reported and, obviously, could easily confirmed by satellite, so when it was reported that we were “totally surprised” by their intervention, I didn’t find it credible, and neither, I’m sure, did anyone in the region.) Before intervening, they’d already expanded Tartus into a full-scale base capable of accommodating every ship in the Russian Mediterranean flotilla — including aircraft carriers, I believe, although I’m not sure of that.
Tartus is Russia’s only base in the Mediterranean. It’s not just the main entry point for their logistical support to Assad, but essential for Russian power projection in the eastern Mediterranean. The Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, as some have pointed out, can be bottled up. They’ve established Tartus as a permanent base to ensure this can’t happen. It’s a huge logistical advantage for the Russian fleet — they no longer have to go back and forth to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus. They can no longer be readily bottled up.
It’s been an entry point for Russia to the region since 1971, but they were forced to reduce the scale of their operations there dramatically when the USSR collapsed. It did fall into disrepair, but it’s now been completely upgraded. So this isn’t just about propping up Assad, it’s about ensuring they can permanently project power into the Mediterranean.
They’re also making plans for other ports in the Med — they’ve been looking at North Cyprus, maritime access to Egypt, perhaps even Libya if the places ever stabilizes under a government that might be sympathetic to them, Greece, perhaps Italy. The objective — obviously — is to construct an extensive maritime hub system throughout the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Oman.
They’re not doing this because they’ve got no plan and they’re just acting impulsively. They’re doing it because they never want to be “bottled up” again.
Why do you believe this? I don’t see any reason for you to be as confident of this as you are. I’m willing to be convinced, but persuade me.
Who’s the they? The Syrian opposition has said nothing of the sort. They’ve been begging for help (from anyone) since the beginning of the war. They’ve even resorted to stunts like this:
The numbers on registered refugees in Turkey are solid and have been independently confirmed by countless organizations; there’s no doubt in my mind that at least 2.5 million Syrians are there — and yes, that large a percentage of the Syrian people have been displaced, that’s exactly why you keep hearing that this is the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since the Second World War. It is not a hoax. I was in Turkey when the refugees began to arrive: I promise you, it’s not a hoax. It’s not an exaggeration. This is really happening. The evidence for this is so overwhelming that disbelieving it amounts to an irrationality on the order of disbelieving in the existence of Calgary on the grounds that you haven’t seen it and haven’t seen proof it exists.
The number of refugees in Turkey almost certainly exceeds the official estimates, because many haven’t registered as refugees and are there completely in the black.
As you will note, those signs are from the town of Kafranbel. Kafranbel is hardly “the rebels”. It’s historically a strong-hold of a Leftist opposition in Syria. You can consider these the “Westernized” opposition, but hardly rebels.
Majority of the rebels in Syria, alas, are the same people we fought in Iraq since 2003. That’s how they told us they didn’t want us there. They can’t expect us to give a damn about them.
Not to say that there aren’t some rebels that are worth supporting. We are, after all, supporting the Kurds and their Arab allies (under the SDF). The rest can figure things out on their own, or seek the aid of Saudi and Qatar if they want.
I think you’re confusing Tartus with Latakia. The Russian airbase is in Latakia. Tartus hasn’t had any expansions at all. As you said, this can be verified from satellite photos. Nothing there.
Yes now there are Russian military personnel, obviusly. The question was whether there was before, and whether “Tartus” was a reason for Putin to get involved. Tartus was used by Russia about 2 times in the last 20 years to refuel one or two ships. There was nothing there.
Regards,
Jim
There’s no Russian base in Tartus. It’s an office.
Sorry to say but none of this is true. They never had any presence there, other than an agreement to use the Syrian Navy’s existing facilities there. And they barely ever used it.
Power projection in the Med with what Navy? The Black Sea fleet hardly has 3 ships in it
With what Navy? The objective is to do what Putin does: ride around shirtless to impress the peasants.
I didn’t say impulsively. I said predictably. This is a show of force. But also an empty gesture. Russia has no navy to place there, and placing it in the middle of NATO’s sea is hardly avoiding a “bottleneck”.
You find that in France, too, some of the most die-hard National Front supporters are Muslims who say, “We don’t want them to screw up our country the way they screwed up Algeria/Morocco, etc.” I don’t have a lot of sympathy: If they were able to assimilate, it suggests that it’s possible. Some of it seems to me the insecure snobbery of recent immigrants — looking down on other immigrants as primitive and backward is a way of proving that you’re even more European than Europeans.
But look, I have no special desire to share my life with a ton of Syrian immigrants either. I’m certainly not saying, “Oh, life would be so much better and richer if there were more Syrians in my neighborhood, let’s bring them here so I can enjoy Syrian culture!” I’m fully aware that it will be a huge task to integrate them into the West. (Although I don’t believe it impossible: Syrian culture was a lot more secular to begin with than, say, Moroccan or Algerian culture, and most Moroccans and Algerians here are well-integrated.)
My argument isn’t based on having some weird hankering to share my life with Syrian refugees. It’s based on the fact that this is an emergency beyond all imagination. An entire country is being exterminated.
The 1951 the Geneva Convention on refugees was drafted in the immediate wake of the most catastrophic war the world had ever endured. The signatories knew full well how people react to the thought of boatloads of refugees from another culture. It was signed in the knowledge that situations like the one we’re seeing really happen. It was signed to ensure that never again would boats full of desperate refugees sink while the rest of the world said, “We don’t want them, and they’re probably terrorists, anyway.” And note: That was exactly what they said then. Exactly the same arguments were made, and they were based in fact. Some Jews were, indeed, terrorists.
Now don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say it was a hoax, or that there aren’t millions of refugees. I said the numbers are easily double and triple counted, especially in Europe. The same refugee who first registers in Turkey, then goes to Greece, and registers in Greece again, then goes to Serbia, and registers there again, then goes to Hungary, and so on and so on…
There’s 300,000 refugees registered in Serbia, for example. But I assure you there aren’t 300,000 refugees in Serbia. They are all in Germany and Sweden. And it’s the same 300,000 that also registered in Hungary, and before that in Greece, and before that in Turkey.
My point was actually that there aren’t really anywhere near as many refugees in Europe as is claimed. Probably ~500,000.
I have no doubt there are millions in Turkey and Lebanon and Jordan and Egypt and Saudi. My point is that this is old news: the West has given over $10 billion for the refugees to stay there so far…
…which is reason enough to deny them entry into Europe.
This is simply false. If you look at photographs of Syria before the war, you’ll see very clearly that cities like Aleppo contain intact architecture dating from the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Hittites, Greeks, Sasanians, Persians, Romans, Arabs, Europeans, and the Ottomans, not to mention modern architecture that obviously dates from the postcolonial period. Clearly, demonstrably, visibly, it is obvious that never before have Syrian cities endured anything like this — all of that was still there when the war broke out. Only Hama was destroyed. In 1981. This is a whole country, not just a city. It’s on a scale completely unlike what’s happened there before.
Could be. It certainly seems to me that all these people who claim Europe has been “invaded by hordes of refugees” are simply off-their-trolley delusional or actively malicious — because they’re sure not in Paris.
And what’s wrong with Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi, UAE etc?
Is Sweden and Germany the ONLY place on the planet they can get away from Assad?
Aren’t we paying billions to help them there? Wouldn’t integration be easier for them in an Arab country instead?
This is not an argument for why…Sweden…has to take them in.
PS: On Russian bases, I think you’re confusing “base” with “agreement to allow your ships to stop there”. These are different things.
The Black Sea Fleet
Regards,
Jim
Refugees of the Syrian Civil War
Refugees of the Syrian Civil War
Total population:
6,000,000+ refugees and expatriates estimated (January 2016)
4,602,203 registered by UNHCR
(31 December 2015)[1]
Regards,
Jim
Look, this isn’t a “he said, she said.” Use Google earth and check it out for yourself.
They’re not in Paris because France hasn’t taken in many at all. 90% of them have ended up Germany and Sweden. For a country like Sweden, 150,000 Syrians is a bit much.
The arrogance of many of the refugees, “Germany or bust” attitude, and the obvious fact that the VAST majority are not escaping any war zone since they are mostly young single men, rather than families, is sufficient in my book to be off-putting regardless of the supposed need. Sorry, ain’t buying it.
I do. Obviously I like neither Trump or NF. But I’m an immigrant too, and I certainly think that I came here to…escape…the people from over there. I came here, because the people here are better than over there.
So I would be the first to say “no thanks” to bringing the third world in.
There are already millions of refugees there. So many that they cannot cope.
No. They are the only countries in the West that have allowed them in in significant numbers. The other European countries and the US are too busy actively heaping scorn on Germany for being the only country that remembers why that 1951 convention was signed.
Will you change your mind if I can establish to your satisfaction that many of the refugees are not arrogant, and are women and children?
I am well aware Claire. I can tell you exactly what you’re looking at. I posted the Wikipedia link to a description of the facility at Tartus.
That is a Syrian naval base, next to the civilian port. You can see 2 of the Syrian Navy’s Petya class frigates there (they have not been used in years), 6 Osa II missile boats (also not sailed in years), 3 Polnocny class amphibious ships, and a smaller number of patrol vessels.
And you can also see the single Russian Alligator class amphibious transport docked on the levy, pointing north-east. It’s docked on a make-shift pontoon bridge. This is obviously a recent picture since its one of the ships bringing supplies to Assad.
But, this doesn’t invalidate what I said. All Russia had there was an agreement to use the port when needed. And it was hardly ever used in the past 20 years (until now of course to bring supplies to Assad). So the argument that Putin is doing this to have access to some precious naval base, aren’t realistic.
And its also obvious that there has been no expansion of the base whatsoever.
I know there are millions there already. I’m pretty sure they can cope, however.
Oh I’m not blaming the refugees. I’m blaming precisely Germany and Sweden for thinking that the refugees need to get all the way to Sweden to escape Assad.
Many are, of course. Most aren’t. Vast majority aren’t. You can’t prove otherwise, since that’s what the numbers show.
One would expect refugees escaping war zones to be mostly families. Not single young men. What, they left their mothers and wives and children in Turkey, but decided to go to Sweden to escape “Assad”?
Look…I’m Albanian. I remember 1999. There were about 2 million Albanians made refugees during that war. We had about 1 million in Albania proper at that time. They weren’t protesting to go to Germany to escape! Most were women and children (the men stayed behind to…you know…fight!)
What we see in Europe today is the exact opposite of the refugees from 1999.
This is certainly not what Americans believed at the time. Public opinion was overwhelmingly against accepting Jewish refugees on the grounds that they were criminal and inassimilable. In 1939, pollsters found that 53 percent of those interviewed agreed with the statement “Jews are different and should be restricted.” Between 1933 and 1945 the US took in only 132,000 Jewish refugees — only 10 percent of the quota allowed by law. When in January 1939 polls asked if Americans would even support bringing even 10,000 refugee children into the country, public opinion ran two to one against. And just as now, the non-Axis world closed as many possibilities for immigration to other countries as they could, using really pretty much the same argument: Jews were inassimilable, refugees would destabilize other countries … identical arguments. Britain allowed Christian refugees into mandatory Palestine, but not Jews. Other refugees from Nazism were perceived as “genuine,” — but Jewish ones? Not so much.
Remember this? He ran for president. He was as big in his time as Trump:
Remember this?
I’m going to drop out of this conversation because it makes me too angry, and I know I won’t soften anyone’s heart or change anyone’s mind when I’m angry. I’m just imploring people to think about this.
Ok, as an immigrant myself and someone who is certainly not opposed to immigration, I’ll give it a shot.
Your argument is fine. IF…the argument you’re addressing is one of isolationism, of anti-immigration or anti-foreigners in general.
But it’s not. Sure, for the Trump types and the NF types, it may be to some degree. But most people who are opposed to the influx if Syrian refugees aren’t from those groups.
Simply put, just because people in the past were wrong about Jewish immigration, or Irish, or Italian, or German or Polish, doesn’t mean they are wrong today.
As distant as the Jews or Irish or Italians may have been, we’re dealing here with people who are literally separated by 1,400 years from the West. From people who have demonstrated no willingness to integrate. From people who are the main importers of terrorism into Europe. From people for whom an objective isn’t assimilation or co-existence, but transforming the countries they move to.
Sorry, this is about Islam. Yes it is! There I said it.
Call me racist, anti-semitic, whatever you want. I don’t care. If they’re going to riot in the streets of Paris every year and burn 10,000 cars every year, I think I can confidently say this…isn’t…like Jewish immigrants, or Polish immigrants.
Second, Europe has not exactly demonstrated unwillingness to import foreigners. Germany imported hundreds of thousands of Turks in the 1960s-70s. UK imported millions of Indians etc. These happened to be, however, the best of the bunch. Not allowing the worst to immigrate, but rather the best.
Many millions of East Europeans have immigrated into Europe over the last 20 years Millions of Romanians, millions of Poles, millions of Albanians, millions of Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians etc.
So this is not anti-immigration.
This is about not wanting immigrants from countries with 40% illiteracy rates, with 90% female genital mutilation rates, with massive AQ/ISIS/Islamist presence, where women are cattle, and precisely the worst of the worst of these countries.
With people who have no interest, or abilities, to work, assimilate or contribute to their societies.
WHY should Europe want to assimilate them? What’s the benefit? You’ve explained the benefit from the refugees POV, but not Europe’s POV.
PS: This isn’t like Mexicans in the US. The cultural difference isn’t so wide, they have demonstrated willingness and ability to integrate, and they work and contribute greatly.
PPS: And Muslim immigrants in the US are different too, because we get to pick the best of them, not let in the worst.
PPPS: And of course, as I said, the arrogance and clear deceit of these immigrants. Most aren’t escaping anything, other than towards a nice welfare check in Sweden.
You’ve phrased this as an “if” …. “then.” Do you sincerely mean that if I can persuade you that this isn’t true, you’ll change your mind? Because I can. But otherwise, I’m going to drop it, because there are people whose minds aren’t made up. I think, given what I genuinely believe about this, that the right thing for me to do is to focus my attention on them, and do what I can to help refugees who are already here.
The problem a lot of us (Ok, me) have with you, Ms. B, is that you are promoting a 2nd or maybe even 3rd best solution. You are allowing external forces to impose a substandard solution on the West and US in particular.
The first, best solution is to help Turkey take care of these ‘refugees’, and – this is very important – reward them for doing so, and punishing Assad for letting this catastrophe unfold – by granting them territory in Syria. This is so much superior a solution that it becomes extremely hard to take you seriously any more when you pay no attention to it.
Look, I get that you have a terrible fear of the Russians. That fear goes beyond reasoned to ‘unreasoned’ in too many folks these days. It seems, from this vantage point, to be almost the same as that which animated the Chamberlains of the world when Hitler started doing his Putin imitation (or is it the reverse?).
How can I get you to understand that the US and Turkey combined, let alone with any help from NATO or Israel, completely dwarf in military capability Russia’s own in that region? We put some of our air defense assets near the border and no Russian plane could fly without our leave. Then how effective would Assad/Russian forces be against the rebels…etc.?
What we lack is will, and sadly, you contribute to that problem.
AIG,
Great to see you enter the lists again. Ricochet is 20% better with you here. Now if we could only get Judith Levy, Doc Jay, Pseudo and a few of our other old rock stars back, why this place would be really … rocking again like in olden times of yore.